Motorola Moto E5 Plus Review

Motorola Moto E5 Plus Review

PROS

• Excellent battery life.
• Bright display.
• Solid overall performance.
• Minimal Android skin.

CONS

• Overpriced.
• Hefty.
• Average camera.

Big, affordable Android phablets aren't for everybody, but they often prove popular when paired with a coffee price. The 6-inch Motorola Moto E5 Plus offers solid overall performance, fantastic battery life, and a minimal Android skin. Unfortunately, its $288 price on Sprint makes it less desirable than the $199.99 unlocked Moto G6 Play, which still features a sizable battery and works on all the main US carriers.

Design, Features, and Display

The Moto E5 Plus may be a hefty slab of glass and metal that follows an equivalent design language because the Moto G6 and G6 Play, though obviously it's bigger to accommodate its massive 5,000mAh battery. With dimensions of 6.4 by 3.0 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and a weight of seven .0 ounces, it's noticeably larger and heavier than the sleek G6 (6.1 by 2.8 by 0.3 inches, 5.9 ounces). It are often difficult to use with one hand despite the 18:9 ratio, though the massive display makes it ideal for multimedia content.

Port and button placement is that the same because the G6 Play. A click volume rocker and power button are on the proper side, a micro USB charging port is on rock bottom, and a 3.5mm headphone jack is on top. The left side features a SIM/microSD card slot that recognized a 256GB card. The rear of the phone features a fingerprint sensor.

The big point is that the large 6-inch, 1,440-by-720-pixel IPS display. It’s an 18:9 ratio to attenuate bezel on the edges, but it still features a sizable bottom lip with Motorola branding. The resolution works bent 268 pixels per inch, which is analogous to what we have seen on other phablets during this price range. Viewing angles are fairly good and colors are accurate. The screen gets bright enough that you simply can use it outdoors.

Network Performance and Connectivity

The E5 Plus is out there on Sprint. Unlike the remainder of the phones in Motorola's E and G series, you cannot catch on unlocked. it's network bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/13/14/17/25/26/29/30/38/41/66, which should theoretically allow it to figure on carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile, but we couldn't catch on to activate once we tried different SIM cards. The Sprint model didn't even work on Boost, albeit they use an equivalent towers. We saw average network performance where we tested on Sprint in midtown Manhattan.

Additional connectivity protocols include Wi-Fi on the two .4GHz and 5Ghz bands, also as Bluetooth 4.2 for audio. There is no NFC, which isn't unusual for phones during this price range.

Call quality is ok. The earpiece doubles because the speaker, making permanently call volume. Transmissions are clear apart from the occasional pop, and noise cancellation does an honest job of blotting out most ground noise.

Processor, Battery, and Camera

Under the hood, the E5 Plus features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor clocked at 1.4GHz. With 3GB of RAM, it's capable of a good amount of multitasking and may run apps like Facebook, Google Maps, and Uber without issue. within the PCMark benchmark, which measures overall system performance, it scored 3,701, slightly above the Moto E5 Play (3,368), but quite bit less than the Snapdragon 450-powered G6 (4,583). Don't calculate having the ability to play any high-end games.

The main reason to shop for this phone is battery life. The 5,000mAh cell had no trouble outlasting our 12-hour battery test video played over LTE at maximum brightness, with 30 percent charge left to spare. That's better than 4,000mAh G6 Play (which played the whole video, but had little power left), and much superior to the E5 Play (which only lasted 4 hours and eight minutes). The E5 Plus can easily keep going for over two days of average use, and in standby mode it can last overflow every week. The sole downside to the huge battery is that it can take hours to charge to full, though included 15W adapter supports Motorola's proprietary TurboPower fast charging.

Camera quality is slightly below average. The 12MP rear sensor isn't nearly as good because the 13MP shooter on the G6 Play, including the dual-sensor setup on the quality G6, but it takes clearer shots than the 8MP E5 Play. On bright days, it takes reasonably color-accurate photos with minimal noise, but it lacks the finer details you get on higher-end phones. Taking photos indoors and in lower light doesn't go quite also. It locks onto subject’s fine because of both phase detection and laser-assisted autofocus, but shots manage to seem both noisy and muddy at an equivalent time.

There are manual controls to allow you to raise certain settings like ISO, but doing so adds tons of artifacts, so it's better to go away things set to default. The 8MP front sensor is ok for taking selfies, though it's unsurprisingly blurry in low light.

Software

Like other Motorola phones we've tested, the E5 Plus features a very minimal skin running on top of Android 8.0 Oreo. there's little within the way of visual changes, however, because this is often a Sprint phone you get a touch of carrier bloat ware. Preloaded you will find an Amazon shopping app, Amazon Prime Video, Facebook, Lookout, and a Sprint account, Caller ID, and Voicemail app. There's also a Motorola app that allows you to enable gestures like chopping the phone twice to show on the flashlight, or twisting it to launch the camera.

None of the preinstalled apps are removable, and out of 32GB storage, you've got 23.73GB available to be used. That's an honest amount of space for more apps and photos, and like all the opposite recent Motorola phones we've tested, you'll use a microSD card if you would like more storage.

Conclusions

The Moto E5 Plus features a lot going for it. It’s an enormous bright screen, a huge battery, and usually solid performance. It's simply priced too high for what you get. For $200, we'd probably give this phone our Editors' Choice on Sprint. For nearly $300, however, you're happier buying our unlocked Editors' Choice, the Moto G6 Play, which has similar specs at a way more reasonable price.