Motorola Moto G45 5G review: Decent budget phone

For its price, Motorola's budget Moto G45 is a decent budget phone. It fares well with regular day-to-day usage and delivers long battery life.

Motorola is striving really hard to get back lost glory in the highly competitive Indian market. In the last couple of years, it is bringing more phones than before to cover all price brands. It is offering Edge and Razr series phones in the premium class and the Moto G series is targeted towards budget segment.

Now, Lenovo-owned company has introduced a new affordable phone Moto G45 with a visually appealing design.

The Moto G45 is available in two configurations--4GB RAM + 128GB and 8GB RAM + 128GB storage-- with prices starting at Rs 10,999. Here are my thoughts on the latest Android phone from Motorola.

Design, build quality and display

As noted earlier, the device comes with pretty design language. It features a vegan leather cover panel on the back. It has a textured finish and the blue colour looks pretty in the sunlight.

Also, it comes IP52 water-splash resistant rating. And, the display is protected by Corning's Glass 3 shield.

Motorola has done a fine job with colour scheme and build quality, to ensure the device can serve the customer for a long time.

Besides brilliant blue, the company also offers the device in two vibrant colours--viva magenta and brilliant green.

The Moto G45 features a 6.5-inch full HD display with a 20:9 aspect ratio and 120Hz refresh rate. It has a screen-to-body ratio of 90 per cent. The screen is of decent quality. We can read messages and watch multimedia content with less hassle outdoors under the shade and at night.

Motorola Moto G45 series.

However, in direct sunlight, one might face reflection issues.

A notable aspect of the device is the side-mounted fingerprint. The biometric sensor works brilliantly. It registers the finger impression and unlocks the display instantly.

Performance

The new Motorola budget phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6s Gen 3 octa-core processor, Adreno 619 GPU, 4GB/8GB RAM, and 128GB storage.

During regular day-to-day usage such as messaging, browsing the internet, and consuming multimedia content on social media platforms and Over-The-Top entertainment apps, the device works smoothly without any pressing issues to complain about.

Motorola Moto G45 series.

However, the device is not made for extreme gaming. It is better suited to play online board games.

Also, it runs on Android 14. It is clean and easy to navigate through the settings in minimal steps. It is guaranteed to get the latest Android 15, but won't be getting Android 16 in 2025. However, on the bright side, the device will get three years of security software updates (up to 2027) for protection against emerging cyber threats.

With a 5,000mAh cell capacity, it can deliver more than one day of battery life. It comes with a 20W TurboPower charger in the retail box. But, it supports 18W charging speed.

It takes close to two hours to fully charge from zero to 100 per cent capacity.

The device supports 13 5G bands-- n1/ n3/ n5/ n7/ n8/ n20/ n26/ n28/ n38/ n40/n41/n77/n78. It also supports global Sub-6 5G bands as well.

Motorola Moto G45's camera sample.

Photography

It boasts of a Quad Pixel dual-camera-- main 50MP sensor with a 2MP macro camera with LED flash on the back.

Motorola Moto G45's camera sample.

For its asking price, the Moto G45 performs really good in natural light conditions during the day.

Motorola Moto G45's camera sample.

It takes really pretty pictures with good details. It also offers a colour boost to subjects such as flowers to make them appear pretty.

Motorola Moto G45's camera sample.

Though it does not support ultra-wide angle mode, it can still manage to get the wide area of the landscape in front of the camera.

Motorola Moto G45's camera sample.

In macro close-up shots, the Moto G45 fares pretty well. Even with portrait mode, the device manages to offer a bokeh blur effect in the background of the subject.

Motorola Moto G45's camera sample.

Motorola Moto G45's camera sample.

It comes with Image Auto Enhance mode to improve the photo quality in low light conditions.

But, the effect is not that noticeable. The photo quality is decent at best.

However, the Moto G45's night mode photos are better compared to rival brands in its class.

Motorola Moto G45's camera sample.

Final thoughts

For its price, Motorola's budget Moto G45 is a decent budget phone. It looks beautiful in the vegan leather cover panel and fares well with regular day-to-day usage and delivers long battery life. The camera does well in natural sunlight, but in other lighting conditions, its performance is quite average.

Motorola Moto G45 series.

The company is offering Moto G45 in two configurations--4GB RAM + 128GB and 8GB RAM + 128GB storage-- for Rs 10,999 and Rs 12,999, respectively

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