Just buy a Pixel 4a

Motorola produces so many phones that it can be difficult to keep track of them all. The company’s “ One ” line started with a few Android One-certified phones, but now includes everything better than a Moto G. The latest entry is the Motorola One 5G Ace, the cheapest 5G-capable phone. from the company at just $ 400.

The Motorola One 5G Ace is not a wrong phone, but it is falling behind the competition in many areas, all in pursuit of a goal that doesn’t even have many practical benefits in 2021: 5G connectivity. There are better ways to spend your hard-earned $ 400.

Design, material, what’s in the box

Massive smartphones are all the rage these days, and the Moto One 5G Ace is following the trend with its 6.7-inch display. The phone is physically larger than the Galaxy S21 Ultra and is roughly the same size as the Galaxy Note20 Ultra (Note20 Ultra is 1mm wider). It’s almost 10mm deep, making the Ace one of the thickest Android phones in recent history. The massive frame allows Motorola to stay in a large 5,000mAh battery – we’ll talk about that later.

The 6.7-inch display has a resolution of 2400 x 1080, but annoyingly Motorola has gone for a cheaper LCD screen instead of an OLED panel. Most other devices in this price range offer OLED displays, like the Samsung Galaxy A50 and the Google Pixel 4a. This seems to be one of the main corners Motorola cut to bring the Ace down to $ 400, and it makes the phone harder to recommend. If I have to choose between a better screen (which I look at every day) or 5G connectivity (which I won’t get every day), I will always choose a better screen. There is also a 16MP selfie camera in the centered cutout.

The sides and back of the 5G Ace are made of plastic, but the back case has a slightly reflective texture that easily attracts fingerprints and smudges. It’s better than the shiny plastic seen on many other budget phones, but a matte finish probably would have been better. There’s also a fingerprint sensor on the back, which was a refreshing change from the on-screen sensors on recent flagship phones I’ve used – I didn’t have to look where to go. found the sensor before placing my finger, and unlocking was a snap – fast.

Galaxy S20 (left) next to Moto One 5G Ace (right)

The power and volume buttons are located on the right side, and while they feel a bit soft, the power button at least has a distinctive texture, so you can find it without looking. The right side only has the microSD / SIM card slot, and at the bottom there is a USB Type-C port and a headphone jack. Motorola also placed the single speaker at the bottom, which gets decently loud, but gets heavily distorted at higher volumes.

In the box you get the phone, a 10W USB wall adapter, and a USB Type-AC cable for charging. I’ve tried third-party wall adapters and batteries that support Qualcomm QuickCharge and USB-PD, and couldn’t charge more than 10-12W with either technology. Motorola says the phone supports up to 15W using the company’s own TurboPower power bricks, but TurboPower just renamed Qualcomm QuickCharge. It will take a long it’s time to fill up that 5000mAh battery.

Software, performance, battery life

The One 5G Ace uses Motorola’s usual software stack: Android stock, Google apps, and a few useful extra features (most of which can be skipped, if you don’t want them). Beyond the usual features offered in regular Android 10, you get the signature Moto gestures, like twisting your wrist to open the camera and turning off the phone to activate the flashlight. My favorite is the ‘slide to split’ gesture for multiple windows, as it allows me to enable split screen mode without interrupting video playback.

There is one major problem with the 5G Ace software: updates. Motorola isn’t great with software support, even on its more expensive phones (the Moto Edge + currently has a 5/10 on our security update tracker), and the company’s plans for the 5G Ace are embarrassing. The phone ships with Android 10, which has been deprecated for four months now, and Motorola is only promising one update to Android 11 and two years of security fixes. When Google’s Pixel 4a is $ 50 cheaper and will get three years of operating system and security updates, and with Samsung offering the same on many of its budget phones, only two years of support and a single operating system update reduce costs to an unacceptable degree.

On the positive side, the performance of the 5G Ace is excellent. The Snapdragon 750G chipset ensures apps open quickly and animations are smooth, and the 4GB RAM (or 6GB on some models) is enough to keep a few apps in memory. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell the performance difference between this phone and a typical flagship phone, except when it comes to games, where the 750G lags a bit behind. If you’re interested in benchmarks, the LG K22 scored 28.8 in Speedometer 2.0 (in Chrome 87) and 3,994 in 3DMark’s Sling Shot test. With Geekbench 5, the phone scored 659 in single-core performance and 1969 in multi-core (full results here). In all tests, a higher number is preferable.

From left to right: Geekbench 5, Speedometer 2.0, 3DMark

Battery life is fantastic too, but that shouldn’t be a big surprise – Motorola has pushed a massive 5,000mAh cell into the 5G Ace. I finished most days with 50-60% battery remaining, so most people should be able to spend two days (or maybe a little more) between charges, and even more if you turn off the Peek Display feature. from Motorola.

Camera

The main camera of the Moto One 5G Ace is a 48MP sensor, but because Motorola combines the pixels of the raw input, photos are actually captured at 12MP (default) or 8MP. You also get an 8MP ultra-wide lens and 2MP macro, plus a 16MP lens up front (which captures at 4MP by default).

The quality of the photos on the main camera is decent, given that you have plenty of lighting, except that Motorola’s image processing sometimes increases the contrast considerably. Finally, the macro camera is fun to play with, but with an even lower resolution of 2MP it often fails to capture fine details … which is the whole point of a macro lens.

Main camera vs ultra-wide camera

Should you buy it?

Buy it if:

• You can get it for at least $ 100 off.
• You really care about 5G.
• You want a battery life of several days.

Don’t buy it if:

• You want to keep the phone for more than two years.
• You want a compact phone.