Moto One Power Review | Android One Device To Rival Mi A2

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Moto One Power is the first device from Moto sporting a notch. It is an Android One device which means stock Android experience. One Power mainly focuses on endurance and has a solid battery with Turbocharge functionality. Let's take a look at the Moto One Power review.

Design and Build

Moto One Power is the first smartphone from Moto sporting a notch. Although, there is nothing fantastic about the design. It’s even on the average build side with just a metal plate on the back and plastic on the sides. Holding the design doesn’t feel premium but that's okay for the price.

Using the Moto One Power continuously may feel uncomfortable due to the weight of the device. It has a weigh of 205 grams and a thickness of 8.4 mm. However, the extra weight is due to the fact that it sports a bigger than usual battery. Moto One Power is available in only one color option which is Midnight Black which is a bit downside.

Moto One Power houses a huge display upfront with a notch. The notch is not a small one and houses the selfie camera, flash, an earpiece, proximity sensor, and ambient light sensor. There are no capacitive keys on the front, however, there is a small chin but unlike the G6, the One Power sports a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner. The volume rocker and the power key are on the right and the SIM tray can be found on the opposite side. At the bottom, there is a Type-C charging port along with a speaker and on the top, there is a 3.5mm audio jack with a noise cancellation mic.

Turing the phone around you can find a Dual camera unit on the back along with the fingerprint scanner which has a Moto logo inside it (Quite unusual but look unique). Overall, the design isn’t premium but the build quality is solid. Although, it is not water and dust resistant so better stay at home during rain or snowfall.

Display

The Moto One Power sports a huge 6.2 inches IPS LCD display which has a resolution of 1080x2246 pixels (FullHD+) and a pixels density of 403 pixels per inch. It has a notch upfront which makes it the first Moto device with a notch consisting of all the sensors in India. Yeah, it’s a big display but the bezels aren’t small and there is a significant chin at the bottom. The chin consists of no fingerprint scanner or key but a “Motorola” branding.                                     

Talking about the quality, it’s a good panel with point color reproduction and sharpness. The viewing angle is great and the sunlight visibility is decent. Also, Moto is using Corning Gorilla Glass for protecting the display from scratches. While the display is impressive and looks very immersive but the notch is quite big and takes up a considerable amount of viewing space.

Unlike the Poco F1, there is no Widevine L1 issue, hence it can stream HD videos on services like Netflix, Amazon Prime etc Overall, it is a quite impressive display with solid viewing angles and watching movies on this gigantic display looks totally amazing.

Performance and Software

Moto One Power, just like the name suggests is a powerful device which can handle heavy tasks pretty efficiently. Under the hood, it is powered by Octa-Core Snapdragon 636 1.8GHz processor with Adreno 509 GPU. With this SoC, the performance of the One Power is on par with the Nokia 6.1 Plus. It can handle some heavy games like PUBG mobile, Asphalt 9 pretty well and normal tasks like web browsing, social media app runs perfectly smooth without any issue Everything runs smooth and well but not on par with the flagships.

Talking about storage and multitasking, Moto One Power comes only one single variant which has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. Also, there is a Micro SD card which supports memory expansion up to 256GB which is plenty to store more than what a power user needs. The 4GB RAM is pretty common in this segment and multitasking is on part with other great performing devices in the price segment. Quite a number of App remain in the memory except for multiple heavy games.

Since Moto One Power is part of the Android One program, it runs on the stock Android Oreo out of the box. Navigating through the UI feels smooth, animations look sleek and great and opening/closing apps are quick. Although, it is not the level of stock performance of the Pixel devices. With that being said, it is an Android One device which means faster updates. Also, it is planned to receive Android Pie sooner or later this year.  

Camera

The Moto One Power comes with a Dual camera setup on the back comprising of a 16 Megapixel Primary Sensor and a 5 Megapixel sensor for depth information. There is a 12 Megapixel selfie shooter on the front along with a flash. The camera app on the device isn't the stock one but from Moto providing features like Portrait shot, HDR, Panorama etc. It also has an Expert mode which allows you to tweak various parameters like ISO, Shutter speed, Focus etc. Also, the app comes with Google Lens functionality baked in.

During the day, the images captured contain nice details and sharpness. The colors are a little on the warmer side which looks great. There are plenty of details in the shot and the dynamic range is good too. Portrait shots are decent and suffer from the same edge detection problem. Night shots aren't any good with plenty of noise in the image, however, there is a dedicated night mode which enhances the image but only makes it usable at max. It can also record 4K videos at 30fps but lacks OIS which means shaky videos.

Moving to the front, the selfie camera also takes good photos during daytime but suffer from noise during the night. Also, there is a flash on the front which helps but the images aren't any good. It also has a beauty mode which smoothens the skin. There is a portrait mode too which suffers from the same edge detection issue as the primary camera. The front camera can also record Full HD videos. Overall, it's a solid camera for the price.

Battery Life

One of the key features of the Moto One Power is the battery life. All the weight and thickness of the device is the result of a humongous 5000 mAh non-removable battery inside the chassis. You might have already gotten the idea of the battery backup from the battery capacity. The battery on a full charge can last 2 days with moderate to heavy usage. This converts to a screen-on-time of solid 9-10 hours. We played 2-3 sessions of PUBG, ran the benchmarks and carried out all the basic activities like calling, web browsing, social media and at the end of the day I still had around 50% left. However, this number is subjective and the usage will only depend upon the usage of the actual user.

While the battery life isn't an issue because of the big battery. You might wonder how long does it take to charge. Well, with Moto Turbo Charger it can reach a solid 30% in 30 minutes around 75 in 1 hour and totally charges up in around 2 to 2.5 hours. Hence, if you plug it even for half an hour, it will be enough to be used for 7 to 8 hours easily

Other Features

Features on Moto One Power include Dual-SIM with dual standby support. Both the SIM slots are LTE enables.  Instead of Hybrid SIM slot, Moto has given a dedicated Micro SD card slot with support up to 256GB expansion. Other connectivity options on the device include WiFi, Bluetooth v5, and A-GPS.

Moto One Power comes with a bunch of sensors like Fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor, and compass. What that being said, there is no NFC on this device which might be a bummer for Android Pay users. It has a fingerprint scanner on the back which is placed in a comfortable position. However, it is a bit slow in opening the lock but works almost everytime making it a trustworthy sensor. Although it lacks the most trendy feature which is the Face unlock, you can still use trusted faces.

Moto One Power is one of the few devices still shining a headphone jack like a crown. Also, the speakers on this device are one of the best in the segment with near perfect highs and lows.

Should You Buy?

Well, Moto One Power is a solid device which performs really well even under heavy loads. The build quality and the design isn’t any better than average but the performance and battery life are some of the solid key points. Even the camera is pretty decent and captures some good shots in daylight. It also has a dedicated Micro SD card slot which isn't common these days.

Although, Moto One Power doesn't have the flashy features like Waterproofing, Wireless charger or Face unlock but it has great performance, solid battery life, decent camera, fast charging, decent display and more. Hence, if features are your priority and looks aren't, Moto One Power is a great budget option out there.

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