The Motorola Moto G8 Play is one of the more affordable phones on the market right now, coming in at around CAD 180.00 but is it worth picking up?
Of course, to answer this accurately, it would depend on your needs. So let’s get into what this phone has to offer and what it’s lacking, to get a better understanding and see if it will meet your needs.
To start with, the phone’s build quality is pretty good, even though the frame and back are plastic, it doesn’t feel cheap. It has a nice feel to it, and it fits nicely in my large hands. It has a nice weight to it coming in at 183 grams. Overall it’s slim build, 6.20 x 2.97 x 0.35 dimensions, and weight provide a good user experience. The fingerprint reader is also perfectly located for my hand. It feels very natural to unlock the phone.
The IPS LCD capacitive screen is the first specification you may see as a compromise as its a 720p display (720×1520). In my testing, the screen was nice and bright, as well as clear and vivid. I played some games and watched some Netflix on this phone, and I never found myself wishing the resolution was higher. That being said. I can see how some people would want a screen with a higher resolution.
The moto G8 Play comes with 32GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. Those specifications are acceptable for casual users like me, but if you want a phone that doubles as a high-end handheld gaming device, you may want to look for something with more RAM. The CPU/GPU (Mediatek MT6771 Helio P70M) is quite capable, but the lack of memory is going to be a bottleneck here.
Specifications
Launch
Announced: 2019, October
Status
Availability: Released 2019, October
Body
Dimensions: 157.6 x 75.4 x 9 mm (6.20 x 2.97 x 0.35 in)
For the price, the Moto G8 Play packs a pretty nice camera, obviously not as nice as some of the higher-end devices, but you will be able to take some nice pics and selfies with the 13MP HDR triple camera and 8MP HDR selfie camera.
**Note: These photos were squooshed using Google Squoosh to make them more web friendly.
Gaming on the Moto G8 Play
I tested a few games on the Moto G8 Play to see just how well it would perform with its Helio P70M and 2GB of Ram. The results were that it did pretty well, delivering an enjoyable experience in games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Need For Speed No Limits, and PUBG Mobile.
Benchmarks
I also ran a few standard benchmarks to see how well it performed during synthetic workloads. As you can see in the results below, the Helio P70M is a nice chip that performs well.
Passmark: Motorola, Moto G8 Play
3D Mark Sling Shot Extreme: Motorola, Moto G8 Play
Geek Bench: Motorola, Moto G8 Play
Conclusion: If you are a power user, you likely already know that 2GB of memory in 2020 is going to be a limiting factor for you. If, however, you are a casual user upgrading from a budget phone from 3-4+ years ago, you will find this phone to be a nice upgrade. It packs a lot of features into its sub CAD 200.00 asking price.
Charles Levere is the editor-in-chief (dork-in-chief) of Urban Dork. When he is not writing or tinkering with hardware, he is most likely playing one of his favorite video games. He also loves being near the water, kayaking, water skiing, or anything that gets him on the water and in the sun.
