Motorola has no less than eight models within its Moto G range, spanning from the Moto G82 at the top down to the Moto G13. Four of these eight models were announced more recently, withthe Moto G73leading the latest releases, closely followed by the Moto G53.
Both the Moto G53 and Moto G73 are 5G devices, while the more budget Moto G23 and G13 are 4G handsets. We’ve seen the Moto G73 in the flesh too and we were impressed by how far thehumble Moto Gthat first launched in 2013 has come. Here though, we are all about the Moto G53. These are our first impressions.
Motorola Moto G53
The Motorola Moto G53 has plenty of promise for its price. There’s a lovely lightweight design with a big display, a decent sized battery and a good camera spec. We have high hopes the Moto G53 will be a solid performer and a great option to choose if your budget is under £/$200. We still need to test this device in full for our final verdict but for now, things are looking good.
The first thing we noticed about the Motorola Moto G53 was just how incredibly light it was. This is a smartphone that despite its reasonably large size is very manageable to hold.
It looks good too. There’s perhaps nothing ground-breaking about its design - you won’t find any fancy lights on the back likethe RealMe GT 3or a transparent back like theNothing phone (1)but for its price, you get a modern design that doesn’t look too dissimilar fromsome flagshipsthree times the price.
It’s a plastic frame and a plastic back, just like the Moto G73, which of course explains why it’s so lovely and light. The top left corner of the rear sees a camera housing with two lenses, and there’s the signature ‘M’ logo in the centre, distinguishing it as a Moto device.
On the front, you’ll find acentralised punch hole cameraat the top of the display, and lovely slim bezels around the edges of the screen, except the bottom of the G53 where the chin is a little wider. This is also pretty standard for Motorola smartphones so it’s not a surprising feature. It’s a little like Sony offering larger bezels at the top and bottom of their displays as its signature.
There’s noofficial IP ratinghere so it’s probably best not to shower with the Moto G53, though it does offer water resistance so it should survive a puddle or a little rain.
At the bottom, you’ll find a USB-C charging port, while the power button with a built-in fingerprint sensor and the volume rocker are on the right edge. The left edge meanwhile has the SIM tray.
The Motorola Moto G53 has a 6.5-inch display so you get a nice big screen here. It’s a little smaller than the Moto G73 which has a 6.7-inch screen but it’s still a decent size.
The resolution isn’t the highest out there, set at 1600 x 720 pixels, which delivers a pixel density of 270ppi. Compare it side-by-side with a flagship device and you might notice some detail is softer on the G53, though for day-to-day use, it should more than suffice.
It’s also an IPS LCD display so while typically not as vibrant and punchy as OLED, we didn’t foresee any issues with it during our first impressions. It offered a good level of brightness, decent colours and good viewing angles from what we were able to tell.
There’s a120Hz refresh ratetoo - which is impressive for a budget device. It’s not always something we have found immediately noticeable when reviewing devices, but it should allow for a smoother experience for certain tasks, like scrolling or gaming.
Hardware and performance
Under the hood, the Motorola Moto G53 is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 480+ platform, which runs on an 8nm process. There are5G capabilitiesas we mentioned previously and there are a few different variants available.
You can choose between 4GB, 6GB and 8GB of RAM (region dependent) with the 4GB model offering 64GB of storage and the other variants featuring 128GB. All models have microSD support for storage expansion though - something most flagship smartphones don’t offer anymore so that’s a great option to have.
Elsewhere on the hardware front, there’s a 5000mAh battery on board, which is a decent size and should see the average users through a day and evening at least. Wired charging tops out at 18W for some regions and 10W for others. It’s therefore not the fastest on the block with some devices now offering 240W charging. That said, if you charge your device at night while you sleep, fast charging is also something you won’t notice so this is definitely not a deal breaker.
You’ll also find support for Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac. In terms of biometrics, there’s a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, as we mentioned above.
On the software front, the Moto G53 runsAndroid 13and it’s very close to stock Android with minimal bloatware. You’ll find a Moto app that allows you to change up a number of preferences, but on the whole, you’re getting an almost vanilla Android experience.
We of course couldn’t test the battery and performance of the Moto G53 during our brief amount of time with it but we will be sure to do this during our full review.
The Motorola Moto G53 comes with a dual rear camera comprised of a 50-megapixel main sensor with f/1.8 aperture and 0.64µm pixels, and a 2-megapixel macro sensor with f/2.4 aperture.
That’s not a bad resolution for a main camera, though a high resolution doesn’t automatically translate to great pictures so that’s something to keep in mind. Often a lot comes down to processing and not just the sensor so we will be testing the Moto G53’s camera setup in full when we come to review it.
There are some promising specifications here though and we suspect that in good lighting conditions, the Moto G53 will offer the kind of performance we would expect at this end of the market, but we will update this piece once we have experienced it in a range of conditions.
On the front, there’s an 8-megapixel sensor with f/2.0 aperture, or a 16-megapixel sensor with f/2.2 aperture depending on the model variant. Both the front and rear cameras offer up to 1080p video recording at 30fps.
First impressions
The Motorola Moto G53 has plenty of promise for its price. There’s a lovely lightweight design with a big display, a decent sized battery and a good camera spec.
We have high hopes the Moto G53 will be a solid performer and a great option to choose if your budget is under £/$200. We still need to test this device in full for our final verdict but for now, things are looking good.
