- You used to have to spend $600 dollars
to get a good, even usable smartphone
but that's far from true anymore.
Now, there are a ton of great phones below that price
and you can even find some great phones below $300.
I've been testing a bunch of them
and one stands out clearly above the rest
and it's only 250 bucks.
That's the Moto G6.
First thing, the Moto G6 does not look like a $200 phone.
I actually find that it strikes one of the best balances
between shape and size out there.
The phone has a 5.7 inch full HD display
with an 18:9 aspect ratio
that nearly fills the front of the phone.
It's a really great size if you're like me
and read a ton of articles on your phone.
I'm browsing Twitter and the Web all the time.
On top of that, it's just a really good screen.
Now, it is an OLED so you don't have those perfect blacks
that you get from a top of the line phone
and it's not always on.
But, I really like the color tuning on this phone.
I even like it better than my own Pixel 2,
which cost nearly twice as much.
The colors look both richer and more accurate to my eyes.
The phone also has this nice curve
on both back edges and it isn't too wide,
Even though you have this big screen,
it's actually really easy to hold
and doesn't look or feel like a big phone.
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Motorola doesn't change Android too much either
and that's a good thing.
This is very close to stock.
And where Motorola does make changes,
they are anywhere from inconsequential
like adjuster to shrink the screen down for one handed use
to slightly helpful like an option
to keep the screen on while you're looking at it.
And if you don't like those changes,
you can actually turn all of them off, which is great.
Software performance is about
as good as you're gonna get in this price range.
In general, I didn't run into any issues
when using phone day-to-day.
Scrolling is smooth and apps and webpages loaded quickly.
I suspect that over time, it probably won't
stay as fast as a more expensive phone.
But right now, it's smooth and snappy
and that is not something every other
sub $300 phone can say.
The one major downside on this phone is its cameras.
The rear camera is slow to fire
so I sometimes miss shots
and while you can get nice images out of it
when you're in bright daylight,
darker settings deliver mushy or noisy photos.
The front-facing camera isn't much
to get excited about either.
Now, you really can't get a better camera than this
without spending a lot more.
But it's still disappointing
that you have to forgo quality on what,
for myself and a lot of other people,
is a key part of a phone.
There are a bunch of other little things
that I love on this phone.
For one, it has a headphone jack.
Everybody loves that.
It also charges over USB-C, which is easier to use
than micro USB and a lot more modern.
Pretty much every other phone at this price
is still on micro USB.
The G6 also has a fingerprint sensor.
It's on the front instead of the back,
which is not my favorite position, but I got used to it.
You can even take advantage of the sensor
by using it to control the entire phone with gestures.
That lets you remove Android's on-screen buttons
and free up screen space.
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Aside from a few flaws like the camera,
there's very little lacking on this phone
that separates it from something twice its price,
which is pretty incredible.
Like I said, performance will probably
be a longer term issue,
but there are no problems as it stands today.
Now, if you're in China or India,
you do have a lot of other options at this price point
from companies like Xiaomi and Oppo,
but many of those phones aren't available in the U.S.
The other budget phones that do make it
to the U.S. just don't hold up.
They're often missing key features
like a fingerprint sensor or support for 5 GHz WiFi,
both of which the G6 has.
Motorola also sells two other variants of the G6.
The G6 Play, which costs $50 less
and the G6 Plus, which costs $50 more.
The G6 Plus has a slightly better camera
and is a bit faster, but it's a little bit bigger
in a way that I don't like quite as much.
The $200 G6 Play is a bit slower
and thicker with the worst screen
but I got its battery to last me
through three days which is pretty amazing.
So if you're looking even cheaper,
that's worth considering.
But by far, I think the best choice
below $300 is the regular Moto G6.
It doesn't just check all the right boxes,
it actually impresses on a lot of them.
Every time I pick up the G6,
I'm surprised at just how good a budget phone can be.
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