Lenovo unveiled the latest smartphones under their “Moto” brand today at Mobile World Congress, the Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus. They both appear to be pretty decent smartphones, especially at their prices – $199 for the Moto G5 and €229 for the Moto G5 Plus. But the real news here is that the Moto G5 Plus is only going to be available in the US. While the Moto G5 will only be available outside of the US.
The two devices actually differ quite a bit, of course the big visual differences you’ll see in the Moto G5 Plus versus the Moto G5, is the larger display. It’s a 5.2-inch display versus a 5-incher on the Moto G5. It also has a slightly better camera, despite the megapixel count being a bit lower. It’s a 12-megapixel shooter with a f/1.7 aperture and it has dual-focus pixels. It’s being powered by the Snapdragon 625, which is an upgraded version of the Snapdragon 617 that powered the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus last year. That is paired with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage or 64GB of storage. There is a micro SD card slot available – and remember that Moto devices do support Adoptable Storage. There’s also Android 7.0 Nougat and the Google Assistant available on both models.
It’s a bit weird that one device is going to be available everywhere except the US, while the other is available only in the US. Especially since they really could have made just one device and sold it everywhere, but they are hitting different price points – although that may not matter much with the availability here. Lenovo seems to be keeping the Moto G on the right path, using the same formula that worked so well for Motorola before being bought by Lenovo, and that was to offer a pretty basic phone with great specs at an incredible price. The Moto G was the most popular Motorola smartphone ever, and now under Lenovo’s wing it appears to be continuing that. The Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus are slated for release in March, of course each region will announce further availability next month.