The Motorola g82 is its top-of-the-g-series 5G phone, yet it costs a measly $499 (on special at JB Hi-Fi for $399). It offers unrivalled value with a Qualcomm SD695 5G SoC, a 10-bit, 1.07 billion colours, and a 120Hz AMOLED screen. It even has a rear 50(OIS)+8+2MP tri-camera and 16MP selfie.

Add a microSD expansion slot, 3.5mm jack, Wi-Fi 5 AC, BT 5.1, NFC, stereo speakers, 5000mAh battery, 33W fast charger, and it is a complete package.

I have been thoroughly impressed with this latest round of new 2022 Moto models. From the excellent not quite flagship Edge 30 and 30 Pro, the rock-solid g-series and value e-series.

The Motorola 2022 phones currently include

* These are 2021 runout models, and new models are coming soon. In any case, there are some real bargains there.

A five-minute overview precedes a 300+ line database-driven spec, including over 70 tests to support our findings. It also helps us compare different phones and features.

We use Fail (below expectations), Pass (meets expectations) and Exceed (surpasses expectations or is the class leader) against many of the items below. We occasionally give a Pass ‘+’ rating to show it is good but does not quite make it to Exceed.

This is exclusive to JB Hi-Fi, so to buy elsewhere means it is grey market.

Look for the RCM C-Tick on the box end, and under Settings, About phone, Regulatory Labels. The only memory/storage option for Australia is 6/128GB.

We strongly warn you to buy a genuine model with Australian firmware if you want to use 5G. Read Don’t buy a grey market phone to ensure you get the Australian model.

Yes, it is another glass slab, but it is a rather nice one with a nicely patterned PMMA (acrylic glass) back. It looks premium, and it fits nicely in hand.

A 6.6” 2400 x 1800, 1.07 billion colour, 120Hz AMOLED at $399. The gods must be crazy. But it is a luscious bright, colourful screen that you tend to find only on phones twice the price.

You can read it outside in daylight; you have colour and temperature adjustments and a choice of Auto, 60 or 120Hz screen refresh. On Auto mode, it steps from 48/60/90/120Hz depending on content. It has L1 Widevine for SDR video streaming, although it supports HDR10 levels. Like most AMOLED, it has a peek display (always on display) and an attentive mode that keeps the display on when you view it.

We don’t measure lower-cost screens for nits, contrast, or colour gamut, and Motorola does not publish figures either. It is bright (around 400 nits), has infinite contrast, and looks like it supports the DCI-P3 wide colour gamut for 1.07 billion colours.

In short, it is a great screen and wipes the floor over the Samsung S22/+ AMOLED screens.

Qualcomm makes (using an analogy) 4-cylinder (4-series), 6-cylinder (6-series), 6-cylinder turbo (7-series) and V8s (8-series) systems on a chip.

This has heaps of power for Joe and Jane Average with no log and smooth screen scrolling even under load. It is fine for casual gameplay too. To put it in perspective, it has impressive Geekbench single/multi-core scores of 670/1929, whereas the Flagship SD8 Gen1 has 1190/3542. Similarly, the GPU (graphics) OpenCL and VULKAN scores are 1398/1299 versus 6173/7546 – serious gamers will appreciate the latter but will be paying twice as much.

What I like is that it has a microSD (Hybrid dual sim slot) to 1TB, and its sequential read/write speed is 85/25MBps which is quite fast. It can also mount an external portable SSD, but the USB-C 2.0 interface limits speed to about 32/24MBps.

It has 190,419 GIPS (billion instructions per second) versus the SD8 Gen1 at 312,596. But where this shines is no throttling under 100% load over 15 minutes. The SD8 drops to 223,818 or 23% throttling.

Wi-Fi 5 AC reaches 433Mbps speeds with excellent, usable 5Gz signal strengths out to 10m.

Bluetooth 5.2 has the full suite of Qualcomm aptX codecs, making it easy to get the best from whatever ear/hear/phones or speakers you use.

It has all the Australian 4G and 5G bands. But signal strength is an issue. It found the first tower at reasonable signal strength; the second tower was verging un unusable, and the third tower was very sporadic. No fourth tower.

This is usual for a Motorola g-series using a Qualcomm SoC and reflects economies in antenna design. If you need better reception (particularly indoors), the Motorola Edge 30 and 30 Pro are best.

It has a 5000mAh battery and a 33W charger inbox for a full charge in just over 1 hour – superb at this price. Video loop was 21.5 hours, PC Mark 3.0 Modern Office Battery life was 16.5 hours (typical office use), and Accubattery confirmed all figures. As we ran all tests in Auto screen refresh mode, the fixed 120Hz impact should be well below 20% in time reduction.

We have had issues with all the g-series (and Edge 30 series) with odd sound signatures. We had some more time to investigate. We put this down to the CrystalTalk A1 setting that focuses on voice from 1-4kHz at the expense of all else. The problem is that it does not significantly improve the sound signature even when you turn it off.

The best way to describe the sound is overly harsh, crisp, and generally unpleasant for music but excellent for clear voice.

Let’s just say that if you want to listen to music, use BT earphones and take advantage of the vast selection of Qualcomm aptX codecs.

You can read more, including our test tracks – How to tell if you have good music (sound signature is the key – guide.

It is well-built but lacks significant IP protection (IP52), and there is no front glass protection.

A plastic frame does not bother me, and PMMA (acrylic glass) is acceptable for the back. It is nice and slim, feels excellent in hand and is a keeper. It comes with the 33W charger, buds, and a bumper cover.

But the warranty is only one year, and you can find two years for similar OPPO phones.

It ships with Android 12 and Motorola’s overlay My UX 3.0. You can reasonably expect two years of quarterly updates.

Android is almost pure, and the MY UX adds things like a camera app and Moto gestures. See the table at the end for all features.

The 50MP Samsung S5KJN1 sensor is the flavour of the month, but Motorola has added OIS (optical image stabilisation) for more stable still and video shots.

The 8MP Ultra-wide and macro Samsung SK54H7 sensor is also quite common in lower-priced phones and does a creditable job. A 2MP depth sensor is for Bokeh only.

The front selfie is also quite common – our only issue here is its limited low-light capability.

The Motorola g82 is the top-of-the-g-series, meaning that the Motorola Edge 30 is the next step (although there is probably an Edge 30 Lite we have not seen here). So, the comparison is not between a $499 ($399 at JB) or $699 ($599 at JB) phone but whether the extra $200 is worth it.

Both have excellent 1.07 billion colour screens (take that, Samsung!), Decent 6 and 7 series Qualcomm processors, 6/128/microSD ad 8/128GB/no microSD; the g82 has a bigger battery and 50+8+2MP versus 50+50+2MP cameras. So, if you have an extra $200 spare, the Edge 30 looks attractive and has about twice the performance.

But the Motorola g82 has a 3.5mm jack, microSD expansion and everything you need, so perhaps save that $200.

Frankly, the 1.07 billion colour AMOLED is so far class-leading that there is no real competition. But you must ask if you really care about 16M or 1.07 billion colours. After all, we have been using that for years.

We mentioned that there are some 2021 Motorola runouts, so the Edge 20 Fusion at $359 is worth a look. Vivo has a 2022 Y52 at $379. Then you jump to $499 for the 2022 Samsung Galaxy A33 ($499 no competition), 2021 A52s ($529) and 2022 Samsung A53 ($549)

No, the Motorola g82 is the clear class leader and gets our unreserved buy recommendation.

Motorola g82, Motorola g82, Motorola g82

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