Motorola Moto G51 5G Review - Budget-friendly 5G device with a few compromises

Back in February, Motorola Philippines launched the new Moto G51 5G. It is a budget-friendly smartphone with upgraded displays and cameras. Read on!

Motorola Moto G51 5G review

As a recap, the Moto G51 5G features a 6.8-inch IPS Max Vision screen with an FHD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. Inside, it features the Snapdragon 480 SoC, Adreno 619 GPU, 4GB RAM, 128GB expandable storage, and a 5,000mAh battery with 15W fast charging.

For cameras, it has a 50MP triple camera setup and a 13MP selfie shooter.

For PHP 11,495, how did it fare?

Let's dive in! Shall we?

Unboxing/Accessories

What's in the box?

The Moto G51 5G arrived in the usual dark blue Motorola box with a white company logo plastered upfront with a green branding for the name of the device. Inside, it comes with the charging brick, USB-C charging cord, the device itself, documentation, a TPU clear protective case, SIM eject tool, and a pair of wired earphones.

With brands opting for fewer accessories included in the box it is a plus to have the charging brick and the earphones included in the package.

Build Quality/Design

Back design

The Moto G51 5G build is what you would expect from its price. It is made out of polycarbonate material at the back, a plastic frame, and curved glass. The camera bump is actually less of a bump. It is nearly as flushed at the back as the back panel itself. There is an elliptical island with 3 cutouts for the sensors. There is an embossed Motorola logo at the back as well.

SIM Card tray with rubber gasket

There is no mention of any dedicated screen protection but it seems to come with a pre-installed screen protector out of the box. A big plus in its build is the inclusion of IP52 water resistance. There is a rubber gasket in the SIM tray as well.

Overall, this build exceeds our expectations at this price point.

For the design, our review unit features the Blue colorway. The back design has a matte finish with minimal branding. The logo itself is just a darker shade of blue that comes out looking like a silhouette. The camera bump's more flushed look also gives the Moto G51 5G a more sleek and streamlined look.

The tall 6.8-inch FHD+ IPS screen

In front, the screen is on the taller side of things. It has a 6.8-inch 2.5D curved IPS Max Vision screen with a punch-hole cutout to house the 13MP selfie camera. It has thinner bezels all around, especially in the chin. It could be a bit of a chore to handle single-handedly for smaller hands because we did struggle a bit.

Top and bottom side

On top, you will find the first microphone. The bottom houses the 3.5mm headphone port, a second microphone, the USB-C charging port, and the speaker grille.

Left and right side

On the left, you will find the SIM card slot and its pin eject mechanism. On the right, you will find a dedicated Google Assistant button, volume rockers, and the power button/fingerprint sensor.

The Moto G51 5G measures 170.47 x 76.54 x 9.13 mm and weighs 208 g.

Again, for smaller hands, the keys are located near the top of the right side so it can be a bit of a struggle to reach.

Overall, the build and design are more than what you would expect for its price.

Multimedia Experience

How's the multimedia experience?

Let's take a deeper look at its screen. Again, it is a 6.8-inch IPS Max Vision screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, 2400 x 1080 FHD+ resolution, and a 387 ppi pixel density.

The Moto G51 5G has good colors and brightness

In terms of display quality, it is detailed and sharp due to its FHD+ resolution. It also has a great viewing angle being an IPS panel. It has punchy colors, good contrast, and good brightness even under direct sunlight. No HDR10 support here though which is to be expected at this price point. It also has Widevine L1 support so it can play HD content from Netflix.

Digging through the Display settings, you can change the colors from Saturated to Natural. We preferred the Natural color settings for normal usage and Saturated for multimedia usage. Of course, you can change the refresh rate from 60Hz and 120Hz. Auto allows the AI to choose the optimal refresh rate according to what you are doing. We preferred to sacrifice battery life to always have 120Hz as the shift from 60Hz to 120Hz is a bit jarring in Auto mode.

The positioning of the punch-hole cutout could have been better if put in either corner of the device instead of centered. But, since it is fairly small it is not majorly distracting.

At 120Hz, the device felt very snappy and smooth. This also helped our eyes to be strained less. Animations and navigation are smoother too. In games that support a higher refresh rate, it also felt more responsive as well. Some games though do show the option of up to 90Hz but even in lower graphical settings does not allow us to choose it. It says that our device does not support it. This may be a performance bottleneck more than anything though.

For audio, the device's single down-firing speaker gets pretty loud even at 60 percent. The quality is good enough to be enjoyable but leaves room for improvement. The bass can be punchier. A plus here is that there is little to no distortion at maximum loudness.

In terms of wired audio, the experience is better due to it supporting Dolby Atmos. We used our JBL Live 660NC both wired and wireless to test the audio experience with headphones. It was able to drive the headphones decently to be enjoyable in 60 percent volume. It has a balanced sound profile out of the box. Wireless audio uses Bluetooth 5.1 which provides reliable connectivity and consistent sound.

The device's dual-microphone performed well for calls and recordings. It does block some of the ambient noise. The ear speaker also delivered clear and audible audio during calls.

Cameras

50MP triple camera system

At the rear, it has a triple camera setup with 50MP f/1.8 + 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle + 2MP f/2.4 macro + LED flash. This is a pretty complete camera system with a variety of sensors. There are no telephoto sensors here though. In its place is a macro sensor. It also has a LED flash for use at night and in lowlight situations. In addition, there is no mention of any image stabilization as well.

Moto G51 5G camera UI

For the camera UI, we have the usual Photo and Video mode. Hidden behind a pop-up menu are additional modes, including the Portrait, Cutout, Spot Color, Night Vision, Cinemagraph, Panorama, Group Selfie, 50MP Ultra-Res, Live Filter, Pro, and Dual-Capture. For videos, it has Slow Motion, Timelapse, AI Stickers, Spot Color, and Dual Capture. Macro Mode is easily accessible via the Normal Photo mode.

The camera UI, though simple and easy to use, is a bit choppy when switching modes and between sensors. Portrait mode even needs a bit more time to process the image. We experienced waiting for around 3 seconds after taking a Portrait shot. We hope that future updates will make the experience more snappy.

Back Camera Samples

Normal mode, daylight

Ultra-wide shot, daylight

8X Zoom, daylight

In the first batch of photos, we get a normal wide shot, an ultra-wide-angle, and a max zoom shot. Both the normal and ultra-wide-angle have good colors, contrast, brightness, and dynamic range. The 8X zoom though looks like it has an oil painting filter on top. To its credit though, it retained a lot of detail to the point that even the text is still very legible.

Normal shot 2, daylight

Ultra-wide shot 2, daylight

4X Zoom, daylight

8X Zoom 2, daylight

On a slightly gloomier day, the same holds true in this batch. Details, colors, and dynamic range are good in the normal and ultra-wide-angle shots but start to deteriorate once you start to zoom in. The same oil painting-like texture comes out starting in 4X to 8X zoom.

Portrait mode with less bokeh

Portrait Mode with more bokeh

The Moto G51 5G's Portrait Mode works well. Edge detection is good enough but can have a few misses at times. But those misses are far in between. It also works well in less ideal lighting as seen in the first photo.

Macro shot 1

Macro Shot 2

The Macro shots are ok. There's is nothing special with the macro shots. It has good natural colors too. Details are retained even with the 1 peso coin's face of Dr. Jose Rizal. We do suggest that you do this in areas with better lighting to maximize the Macro sensor's capabilities.

Normal shot at night

Night Vision shot at night

The normal wide shot at night can take decent photos. Of course, there is image noise but that is expected. The Night Vision mode which is the Night mode of Moto G51 5G is a bit of an interesting case though. Compared to its competitors, it does the job of retaining the detail and colors of the scene while brightening up the whole picture. It is in the smaller background details that it lacked. In some stances, some details become blurred.

Ultra-Wide-Angle shot at night

Normal wide shot at night

Night Vision Mode shot 2

Furthermore, at night using the ultra-wide-angle sensor is doable but it comes with a lot of noise. The Night Vision shot here also comes out looking artificial compared to the normal shot of the same scene.

For selfies, it has a single 13MP f/2.2 sensor. There's is nothing special here as it uses a screen flash to brighten up shots at lowlight situations. There is a wider FOV provided by the Group Selfie mode but there is no dedicated ultra-wide sensor here.

Selfie Camera Samples

Daylight selfie 1

Daylight selfie 2

For selfies, in daylight selfies, the Moto G51 5G is decent but leaves a lot to improve. It has inconsistent exposure levels. At times, it will overexpose the subject like in the first photo. In other times, it does not.

Indoor selfie

Portrait mode selfie

As you can see, it does not have a great dynamic range but it is acceptable in indoor selfies. Portrait mode has great edge detection and colors as well. However, as we mentioned earlier, the camera app does take time to process photos. Even the Portrait Mode needs a bit of time to process. At times, the image came out blurry because we were used to Portrait mode selfies being almost instantaneous so we move immediately.

Lowlight selfie, no flash

Lowlight selfie with flash

Lowlight selfie with Night Vision mode

Selfies in low light and night conditions are grainy and the colors are washed out. Even with the screen flash, the image has a lot of image noise. Again, Night Vision will take around 3 to 5 seconds to process the image so make sure your hands are steady.

Overall, the selfie camera performance is decent but can be improved a lot.

Performance

AnTuTu and Geekbench scores

The Moto G51 5G features a modest specs sheet for its performance. It features the 2.0GHz 8nm Snapdragon 480 octa-core processor, Adreno 619 GPU, 4GB RAM, 128GB expandable storage, and a 5,000mAh battery with 15W fast charging.

PCMark and 3DMark

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AI Benchmark and CPDT scores

Motorola Moto G51 5G benchmark scores:

1. AnTuTu - 312,448

2. Geekbench - 537 (Single-core), 1,712 (Multi-core)

3. PCMark Work 3.0 performance - 9,405

4. 3DMark Wild Life - 979 and average 5.90 fps.

5. AI Benchmark - 51.9K

6. CPDT - 327.93 MB/s (Sequential write speed), 297.78 MB/s (Sequential read speed)

The RAM size could have been bigger at 6GB given the price. The 128GB expandable storage is a great choice. The chipset is also decent with good scores in synthetic benchmarks we were able to do. It shows the limitations of the GPU with 3DMark Wild Life with an average of 5.80 fps.

Game settings

That is why, as mentioned earlier, most games that base their available graphical settings via specs checks will not allow you to take advantage of its maximum 120Hz refresh rate. The max we were able to do is 90Hz.

In real life and daily tasks, it was good for multitasking. Switching between apps is snappy. Cold launching apps also is fast. Social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok ran well with no hiccups.

For gaming, we tested Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, League of Legends: Wild Rift, and COD: Mobile. We were able to max out graphical settings (on what is readily available according to the game) at least 60Hz or 90Hz. All games were very playable with no stutters. Framedrops can be present but not that prevalent.

The device was able to maintain manageable temps when gaming. It only heated up when we tried gaming while charging which is not a recommended thing to do on most devices anyway. Overall, we are impressed with its temperature management even though it is not something Motorola highlighted.

Connectivity includes dual-band WiFi, 5G SA/NSA, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS, A-GPS, LTEPP, dual SIM. The WiFi connectivity is good in our tests. You can get fast mobile data speed in 5G areas. It is, of course, backward compatible with 4G. We've never experienced any serious difficulty with making calls.

PCMark Work 3.0 Battery Life benchmark result

In terms of battery life, the Moto G51 5G features a big 5,000mAh battery. In our PCMark Work 3.0 Battery Life benchmark, it managed an 11-hour 36-minute result. In real-life usage, it was able to last a day and a half before needing to charge. Our usage includes YouTube, social media. web browsing, and some gaming.

The problem comes with the measly 15W charging technology Motorola included. Even some lower-priced devices manage to include 33W fast charging. It was able to fill the 5,000mAh battery from 0 percent to 100 percent in around 2 hours. A faster charging solution could have been included for this price range.

The Moto G51 5G runs a pretty barebones version of Android 11. It features circle icons for the home screen, toggles, and app drawer. The transitions and animations are snappy and smooth.

You get the usual suspects in the toggles with WiFi, Mobile Data, Bluetooth, Hotspot, Airplane Mode, Do Not Disturb, Flashlight, Auto Rotate, Battery Saver, Night Light, Nearby Share, Screen Cast, Screen Record, and NFC. There are some additions such as Dolby Atmos, System Update, Share Feedback, and Gif Maker.

Pros - Huge 120Hz FHD+ 120Hz screen, 50MP main camera, 5,000mAh battery, close to Vanilla Android experience, Pretty design, IP52 water splash resistance, Dolby Atmos

Cons - 4GB RAM, slow camera app software, outdated SoC, subpar lowlight camera performance, selfie camera can be improved

Motorola Moto G51 5G Specs

Display: 6.8-inch 2.5D curved LCD (IPS) Max Vision screen w/ 120Hz refresh rate, FHD+ 2400 x 1080 resolution at 387 ppi

CPU: 2.0GHz 8nm Snapdragon 480 octa-core processor

GPU: Adreno 619

RAM: 4GB

ROM: 128GB expandable via microSD card slot up to 512GB

Back Camera: 50MP f/1.8 + 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle + 2MP f/2.4 macro + LED flash

Selfie Camera: 13MP f/2.2

Battery: 5,000mAh w/ 15W fast charging

OS: Android 11

Connectivity: WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz/5GHz), 5G SA/NSA, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.1, FM Radio, GPS, A-GPS, LTEPP, dual SIM (hybrid)

Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic, pressure

Others: Side-mounted fingerprint sensor, face unlock, IP52 water splash resistance, Dolby Atmos, dual-mic, USB-C, Colors: Meteorite Grey, Green

Dimensions: 170.47 x 76.54 x 9.13 mm

Weight: 208 g

Price: PHP 11,495

Verdict

For the price of PHP 11,495, the Motorola Moto G51 5G is kind of a mixed bag. For the design, it stays true to the Motorola signature design which is good and it also has IP52 certification.

In terms of multimedia performance, the screen is huge, bright, and has great colors. The inclusion of Dolby Atmos is great as well. Gaming performance can be considered as good but can be improved as stutters are still present. It has great thermal management though which is impressive as it is not the main highlight.

We were a bit disappointed with the lack of a real fast charging solution since it has a huge battery but only a 15W charging solution. It lasts long on a single charge but also takes longer to charge. Lower-priced competitors were able to include 33W.

The cameras do highlight a 50MP main sensor but performance could be improved especially on the software side. The way it does the post process is jarring as there is a delay before you can see your shot, especially in Night Mode.

If you are a Motorola fan, the Moto G51 5G could be a future-proof choice at PHP 11,495. For a casual Android fan though, it leaves a lot on the table for the price.

Build/Design - 4.25

Multimedia Experience - 4.5

Cameras - 4

Performance - 4

Average - 4.19/5