The inexpensive and versatile Motorola Moto G24 has brought mixed, but mostly positive, impressions, which we are ready to share with our readers. In this review, we will tell you in detail about the new product, test the device in typical work scenarios and games, evaluate the camera capabilities, measure the battery life, look for the main drawbacks, and compare it with competitors.
Pluses:
clean Android 14 operating system with continuous updates; camera with little interference from algorithms realistically reproduces colors and also takes good macro shots; good battery life in games and under any high load; a separate micro SD card slot and a 3.5 mm headphone jack; low cost and large amount of ROM;
Minuses:
fading of screen colors at an angle, which is especially noticeable in the sun; the processor throttles more than competitors; the speed of the built-in storage drops sharply when full; the camera takes poor pictures at night;
Content
- 1 Technical characteristics Motorola Moto G24
- 2 Package contents of Motorola Moto G24
- 3 Design, ergonomics, sound
- 4 Motorola Moto G24 display
- 5 Camera
- 6 Working performance of Motorola Moto G24
- 7 Game performance
- 8 Motorola Moto G24 software
- 9 Battery life and charging speed
- 10 Experience of using Motorola Moto G24
- 11 Price and competitors
Technical characteristics Motorola Moto G24
| Motorola Moto G24 specifications | |
| Display | 6.56″ IPS |
| 1612×720 269 ppi | |
| 90 Hz | |
| Processor | Helio G85 |
| Graphics | Mali-G52 MC2 |
| RAM | 4 GB |
| ROM | 128 GB |
| Communication | 4G LTE |
| Wi-Fi 5 | |
| Bluetooth 5.0 | |
| NFC | |
| Interfaces | 3.5 mm jack |
| USB Type C | |
| Main camera | 50 MP + 2 MP |
| Front camera | 8 MP |
| Battery | 5000 mAh |
| Charging | 20 W |
| System | Android 14 |
| Dimensions | 163×75×8 mm |
| Weight | 180 grams |
Package contents of Motorola Moto G24
The device comes standard with a 20W charger, a USB Type C cable, and a protective case. In addition, there is paper documentation and a paper clip to open the SIM card slot.
The charger delivers up to 12 V, so it can be used to power a conditional router or something like that. The case is of low quality, as simple as possible, but it’s good to have it. It will protect the phone from careless handling by a sloppy owner.
Design, ergonomics, sound
Motorola Moto G24 has a classic shape with a small front camera hole right in the center at the top. The body is plastic, there is almost no protection against moisture (IP 52), the bezels around the display are large, the edges are slightly rounded. The phone feels good in the hand, although it seems surprisingly thick with the case.
Mechanical controls are located on the right side. The lock key has a fingerprint scanner, and if this does not suit you, you can use face recognition technology. Above is the volume button. On the top panel there is a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a USB Type C connector version 2.0 on the bottom. You cannot transmit video signals through it.
The camera modules are located in the corner and protrude slightly. In general, the look is more than standard for a 2024 phone, and the build quality does not raise any complaints. The model is available in three colors: green, pink, and graphite.
The vibration motor is weak, the speaker is one, loud, not very realistic. The sound lacks low frequencies, but you can’t complain about the quality. Competitors do not offer anything fundamentally better. The left side contains only a slot for memory cards and SIM cards. You can install two SIM + micro SD up to 512 GB at the same time.
Motorola Moto G24 display
The screen has a diagonal of 6.56″, a resolution of 1612×720p, 90 Hz and is made using IPS technology. The pixel density is the least of the complaints, as small fonts are smooth at a healthy distance (not the way mobile esports players play) and with 100% vision.
Out of the box, the manufacturer sets the wrong color palette, but this can be changed in the settings. Immediately remove the disgusting «saturated» checkbox and set «natural» colors and the image becomes much more beautiful. The minimum brightness is very low, which allows you to use the phone at night.
In general, the eyes do not get tired of the display with automatic backlight adjustment. The matrix is soft and pleasant, especially against the background of flagship OLEDs, but there are a few nuances that are important to know.
Not surprisingly, the brightness margin for a budget phone is low, but the viewing angles exacerbate this problem. At a right angle, the picture is saturated even during the day in the sun, but if you turn the phone a little, everything becomes gray and dull.
I especially liked the green tones because the camera showed approximately what the human eye sees, and not what was invented by «artificial intelligence» some conditional top Android camera phone. The sharpness level is adequate, the colors are natural, without artificial oversaturation, and the dynamic range is within normal limits (the sky is not overlit).
Portrait mode in both cameras works more than adequately. Even in difficult conditions, the algorithms did not fail the mission and blurred the background correctly — the cat’s red hair was not affected against a similarly colored wall. I immediately recall how Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra literally cut off the cat’s whiskers in its portrait photos.
We live in a strange time because it happens that a cheap smartphone can take more realistic (realism and beauty are not identical) pictures than top models. Of course, this is all in daylight on a sunny day because at night the Motorola Moto G24 can’t cope. Night photos are weak, blurry, with a lot of noise.
A low-power flash will help you take pictures at a short distance in complete darkness. It is better not to take pictures at night without a flash or sufficiently strong artificial light.
The macro module produces detailed photos. You can capture text or small details without any difficulty. The quality in macro mode is good if you have adequate lighting.
Video The Motorola Moto G24 records video at 30 FPS and Full HD resolution. The quality is poor, especially while driving. The stabilization is too weak, so the image shakes and spills.
The camera can record 720p120 video slowed down 4 times. The quality drops even more.
Working performance of Motorola Moto G24
The device is powered by a Mediatek Helio G85 processor. It’s not the first model, but thanks to its low price, it’s still in great demand. Due to a bug, some benchmarks could not be passed completely, namely Geekbench Open CL. In general, the performance of Motorola Moto G24 is the minimum for comfortable use of a modern smartphone.
Trolling was an unpleasant disappointment. Despite its class, the processor dropped the frequency more than its competitors. The graph looks like a palisade and is not stable. There shouldn’t be such performance drops. For example, let’s compare the trotting of Motorola Moto G24 and Nokia G22. The difference in stability is huge.
On the other hand, we can’t blame the hero of the review too much for this. The Xiaomi 14 with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor has such strong performance drops that it drops to the performance of the Motorola Moto G24 under load.
So, the minimum power of Xiaomi 14 was 122 GIPS, Motorola Moto G24 is slightly less — 119 GIPS, and Nokia G22 has the same 122 GIPS.
If the battery has dropped to 15%, the smartphone automatically lowers the frequencies, which affects the maximum power. Passing Geekbench 6 with a critically low battery level shows up to two times worse results.
Browser benchmarks have shown the Helio G85’s weakness. Tests such as Speedometer 3.0, WebXPRT 4, and Google Octane 2.0 are hard to pass, as are any heavyweight sites. It’s good enough to view optimized mobile versions, no more.
There is 4 GB of RAM, and it can be «expanded» with a paging file. Programs are rarely unloaded during cyclic switching, and there were no problems with RAM management. This is not surprising, because the phone runs on pure Android, where this is rare.
There is 128 GB of internal storage, and the speed of an almost empty phone is at the SATA 2.0 level, i.e. within 250 MB/s. It seems to be a good result, but the performance drops sharply if you fill the memory to 60+%. The speed dropped to 60 MB/s for writing and 120 MB/s for reading.
The drawdown is serious and this is not a full storage yet. When the owner fills up 120/128 GB, we should expect a serious decrease in phone performance. Programs will take much longer to launch, and freezes will occur many times more often.
The Motorola Moto G24 catches the connection well, because 30 Mbps in Ivano-Frankivsk region is a good result. It is interesting that 8 years ago with 3G the speed here was identical to what it is now with «Super Extra Ultra 4G LTE Plus».
There were no problems with Wi-Fi, especially since we got the maximum that the provider offers within a private house. Another pleasure is the presence of NFC, without which some shopping enthusiasts cannot imagine life.
Game performance
Motorola Moto G24 is as good for gaming as any budget phone with 4-6 GB of RAM. 99% of Android games will run without any problems. Only some of the most demanding projects refused to run (Call of Duty Warzone, Fortnite, Apex Legends).
There were no performance issues in the most popular games from the Play Market. Any demanding game can be played at 30 FPS, and all casual games at 60 FPS. Some large games run smoothly, like Call of Duty Mobile. On small maps, we get 60 frames per second, and in the battle royale mode, half that.
Screen recording usually takes up a lot of performance, but even so, the video shows that the game runs smoothly. The fact that there are almost no real players in typical «PvP» matches, only bots, is another issue.
To fully understand the picture, we entered the «Championship» mode, where the best of the best play (only players, no bots). Despite the fact that all the opponents had incredibly high levels, hundreds of hours played, and colorful skins, K/D did not drop below 1.2, and by the third match it passed the 1.6 mark.
Even against experienced «athletes» you can win effortlessly with 30 FPS. Other games such as Real Racing 3, Shadowgun Legends, Need for Speed No Limits, Crossout Mobile, Rocket League Sideswipe, etc. run even more smoothly.
Some of them are better played on low, some on medium settings, but the FPS was high enough that we could only complain about the developers’ stupid approach to pumping out money, not about the smoothness of the gameplay.
Motorola Moto G24 software
The phone runs on Android 14 with an almost clean shell. The manufacturer did add a few of its own proprietary apps, but these are trifles compared to what second-rate brands can do (everyone knows which companies we’re talking about).
The system works smoothly, although sometimes the interface freezes, as on any Android. By default, Motorola engineers decided to install hideous square icons, which are also very sparse. A few minutes in the settings and we managed to make it look like Google Pixel.
The manufacturer promises long-term security updates, which is a kind of standard for all Android One phones. In general, the OS design is simple, convenient, concise and looks like a real paradise after the heavy shells of Chinese manufacturers.
Battery life and charging speed
The device does not charge quickly — the maximum power is 20 watts. The process takes especially long after 90+%. It takes more than two hours to fully charge from zero to 100% or 90 minutes from 5% to 90%.
The battery lasts about two days in moderate use. The PC Mark test shows almost 10 hours of active work. It’s also important that the phone’s battery dies slowly under high load. For example, an hour of gaming takes no more than 10-12% of the battery.
With healthy use (2-3 hours a day), the phone needs to be charged only 2 times a week. This is a fairly standard level of autonomy among budget models, so Motorola Moto G24 doesn’t offer anything amazing.
Experience of using Motorola Moto G24
The smartphone left more positive impressions than disappointments. It’s a good device for every day that works for every hryvnia. You can comfortably read the news, watch videos, surf TikTok and Instagram, play games, etc.
It is unlikely to be suitable for mobile photo enthusiasts because of the poor quality of photos at dusk. On the other hand, the colors in the photos are realistic due to the minimal impact of «AI». The video was disappointing, especially the poor stabilization and the weak flash. The screen would also be nice with better viewing angles because a slight tilt spoils the picture.
It is possible that this dissatisfaction with the display is due to the prolonged use of the OLED flagship of the same manufacturer. Probably, this will not seem like a drawback to an average buyer who has only used budget smartphones before.
The latest version of the pure Android OS is a pleasure to use, especially after the «stuffed» firmware of competitors that we tested. Of course, there are software nuances because this is a regular working Android smartphone that has all the same software shortcomings as the flagships.
Would I change my Moto Z3 for a Moto G24? No, but because of the display, large dimensions of the device, body materials, and much greater thickness. That is, my personal complaints are only about the ergonomic component.
The camera does not play a big role for me, and the rest of the characteristics are quite adequate and will suit the majority of the population. If you do not play benchmarks and do not try to justify your purchase (which is what die-hard technophiles like to do).
Price and competitors
Cost Motorola Moto G24 is 4800 UAH at official outlets, although «gray» can be found for 400 UAH cheaper. The phone is worth the price, but that doesn’t make it an ideal choice. The hero of the review has many competitors, so let’s look at just a few of them.
Motorola Moto G23 has a wider lens, an identical processor, and supports faster charging. Last year’s model is still relevant.
Samsung Galaxy A05 — is one of the leaders in its price category. The hardware is similar to that of the Moto G24 with minor differences — the A05 can record 1080p60 video.
Nokia G22 — is the main competitor of the review’s hero, which offers similar performance with less heat and has the best maintainability of all modern smartphones.