Aimed at those on a super-tight budget, the Motorola Moto G05 puts the Android essentials in your pocket.
It’s easy to get caught up in the race to own the latest and greatest flagship smartphone, but not everyone needs, or can afford, all those fancy bells and whistles.
Thankfully, the flexibility of Android ensures there are plenty of budget-friendly options for people who just require the essentials – whether you’re shopping for yourself or on behalf of family and friends with simple needs.
Following on from last year’s Motorola Moto G04, the new Motorola Moto G05 sticks with the $179 price tag while slightly improving what you can expect from a smartphone when you need change from 200 bucks.
Table of contents
Motorola Moto G05 first impressions
With a large IPS LCD 6.7-inch display in a relatively slender body, the Motorola Moto G05’s looks exceed what you’d perhaps expect considering its price.
It relies on a plastic frame with a shiny faux-metallic finish and a textured coloured plastic back dubbed ‘vegan leather’. This gives it a reasonably elegant look and feel, even if it’s not as striking as more expensive handsets.
The handset is tall but not overly wide thanks to the narrow 20:9 aspect ratio. Tipping the scales at 188.8 grams, it shouldn’t be too heavy for your hand, pocket or bag.
It’s a slight step up from the 6.6-inch display in the old Moto G04, while retaining the same 1612 x 720 pixel resolution. It’s a lowly 720p resolution which will underwhelm those used to the finer things, especially when it comes to viewing images, but it should be enough to satisfy those with simple tastes.
The Moto G05 sticks with Motorola’s tried and true design, placing the power button on the right – close to the centre of the handset – with the volume buttons above.
Unlike many Motorola handsets, the fingerprint reader is built into the power button rather than the screen. This way, it sits nicely under your thumb (or a southpaw’s pointer finger) to quickly and easily unlock the screen as you pick up the phone.
On a tall handset like this, it’s much easier to reach the power button than it is to reach down to an onscreen fingerprint reader. You’ve also got Face Unlock and the benefit of NFC for contactless payments.
As for connectors, you’ve USB-C for 18W charging, but no AC charger in the box. You will find a USB-C to USB-C cable, which might be frustrating if you want to repurpose an old USB-A AC charger. Understandably the G05 forgoes luxuries like fast charging or wireless charging.
There’s an old-school 3.5 mm headphone jack at the top left, which means you can buy cheap wired earbuds rather than coughing up for Bluetooth wireless earbuds.
As with most of its handsets, Motorola throws in a transparent protective case, which offers some impact and scratch protection, but isn’t as robust as something like a Tech 21 case.
Motorola Moto G05 specifications and price
| Display size | 6.7-inch, 20:9 aspect ratio |
| Display resolution | 1604 × 720 pixels (263 ppi) |
| Display technology | LCD, 90 Hz refresh rate, 1000 nits brightness |
| Bands | 4G LTE, 3G WCDMA, 2G GSM |
| Chipset | MediaTek Helio G81 Extreme processor with 2xA75 2.0 GHz + 6xA55 1.7 GHz octa-core CPU |
| GPU | 820 MHz Arm Mali-G52 MC2 GPU |
| Rear cameras | 50 MP f/1.8 aperture 0.64µm pixel size Quad Pixel Technology for 1.28µm PDAF |
| Front camera | 8 MP f/2.05 aperture 1.12 µm pixel size Fixed Focus |
| RAM | 4 GB LPDDR4X RAM, expandable up to 12 GB with RAM Boost |
| Onboard storage | 64 GB |
| microSD slot | up 1 TB |
| SIM | Dual SIM (2 Nano SIMs + 1 microSD) |
| Charging | USB-C 18 W |
| Battery | 5200 mAh |
| Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 2.4 GHz | 5 GHz Wi-Fi hotspot |
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Operating system | Android 15 |
| Security | Fingerprint reader, Face Unlock |
| Ruggedness | IP52 |
| Dimensions | 165.67 x 75.98 x 8.17 mm |
| Weight | 188.8 gm |
| Colours | Forest Green, Plum Red, Misty Blue, Fresh Lavender |
| Price | $179 RRP |
| Warranty | 2 years |
| Official website | Motorola Australia |
Features
At its core, the Motorola Moto G05 is basically a more affordable version of the new Moto G15, which is worth a look if you can spare another $50. They both run Google’s Android 15 smartphone operating system, with minimal bloatware that ensures a clean interface that is likely to appeal to everyday users.
What’s particularly frustrating is Motorola’s approach to software updates on its budget handsets.
With the old Moto G04 and G14, Motorola offered one Android OS update and three years of security updates, which already seemed a bit stingy compared to rivals. The new Moto G05 and G15 won’t get any Android OS updates and, even worse, they only get two years of security updates.
A budget price tag is no excuse to short-change users on security, especially when people shopping on such a tight budget will almost certainly be hoping to use it for more than two years.
As some consolation, Motorola has bumped up the warranty from 12 months to 24. It has an IP52 splash-resistant rating, which means it can probably survive a sprinkle but not a swim.
Under the bonnet, you’ll find an entry-level MediaTek power plant, accompanied by the minimal 4 GB of RAM – which is expandable up to 12 GB using ‘RAM Boost’ which borrows some space from the 64 GB of onboard storage.
As you’d expect, it’s only a 4G handset, so it can’t make the most of Australia’s new superfast 5G networks.
The trade-off is that 4G takes less of a toll on the battery, as do the entry-level processor and low screen resolution. As a result, the 5200 mAh battery is good for up to 40 hours – meaning it should easily go a day between charges.
The cameras are where the Motorola Moto G05 sees the biggest upgrade compared to its predecessor.
It features a single 50 MP main shooter on the back, without the added benefit of extra wide, telephoto or macro (it looks like two lenses on the back, but one is just a light sensor). Meanwhile, there’s an 8 MP selfie camera around the front.
Quality
As you’d expect, the GeekBench 6 results don’t tell a great story, scoring 406 on the CPU single-core test and 1,352 on the multi-core, plus 508 GPU OpenGL. That puts it roughly on par with the Samsung Galaxy A05s.
| Device | CPU single-core | CPU multi-score | GPU (OpenCL) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moto G55 5G | 1,016 | 2,304 | N/A |
| Oppo A79 5G | 718 | 1,836 | 1,163 |
| Moto G14 | 450 | 1,587 | N/A |
| Oppo A18 | 435 | 1,454 | 565 |
| Moto G24 | 411 | 1,405 | 549 |
| Moto G05 | 406 | 1,352 | 508 |
| Moto G04 | 381 | 1,335 | 446 |
Those results are almost identical when compared to the old G04. This leaves you with barely enough grunt to remain responsive when performing basic everyday tasks, especially when combined with only 4 GB of RAM, and there are moments when the phone hesitates.
When it comes to photography, that 50 MP camera figure sounds like an impressive leap, but we all know that megapixels aren’t everything. Especially when it relies on pixel binning, combining 4 pixels into 1 for an effective photo resolution of 12.5 MP.
As you’d expect, the phone’s picture quality reflects its price tag. It produces reasonable shots in good light, although you miss out on the advantages of optical zoom and image stabilisation. That said, its low-light capabilities aren’t bad, at least for this price range.
Images fall a little short when it comes to detail and colours – leaving blue skies looking a bit oversaturated and lacking in fine detail. Portrait mode is also underwhelming. It’s tempting to partly blame the handset’s mediocre screen, but viewing them on a MacBook Pro does little to improve the situation.
Who is the Motorola Moto G05 for?
While the price tag is nice, it’s hard to recommend the Motorola Moto G05 for anyone but pre-teens and seniors with minimal expectations when it comes to quality and performance. Even tech-savvy teenagers and not-so-senior seniors may end up frustrated with its limitations.
That said, the Moto G05 mostly makes sacrifices in all the right places for those who are shopping on a very tight budget and don’t demand much of their phone.
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