Not every phone needs to be a flagship. Sometimes you just need something that gets the job done — no bells, no whistles, just the essentials done well. That’s where budget phones come in, and over the past few years, things have changed a bit. They’ve come a long way, and Motorola’s been one of the more consistent players in that space.
Earlier in April this year, Motorola launched the moto g35 down under here in Australia — Justin and I have had a few weeks now to have a play with it, and we’ve gathered our thoughts around it after putting it through its paces. We also looked at its budget siblings back in March, the g05 and g15, and those were solid options at their price point. The g35, oddly enough, sits neatly in the middle, priced at $199, but does it do enough to stand out in a (very) crowded budget market?
Packaging
It’s a largely no-frills experience here; the g35 comes in a cardboard box with little in the way of fancy packaging. Alongside the phone, you’ll find a plastic soft-case, your usual paperwork, SIM ejector tool and a USB-C to C cable. We’ve got the Midnight Black colourway, rather pedestrian, but clean and understated.
The case should prevent scratches and scuffs from everyday-use, but also note that most clear cases tend to yellow over time.
Design & Build Quality
Admittedly, Justin and I weren’t the biggest fans of the eco-leather backs of the g05 and g15; they looked alright but felt a bit tacky (in a cheap way) in hand. The g35, however, in its all matte-black glory, opts for a slippery plastic back, a change we thought we would welcome -– this is unfortunately not the case (pun intended).
The plastic has a rather unremarkable, cheap quality about it that flexes if you push on it. The edges where the back panel meets the frame aren’t perfectly flush either, and will pick up dust and debris if you don’t have the case on. You can’t expect premium materials at this price, but honestly, Motorola’s eco-leather backing might’ve been a better choice across the board.
The g35 sports a bit of a chin on the front of the phone, but bezels are pretty thin otherwise around the edges of the screen. It weighs in at roughly 190 grams and features a ‘water repellent design’, with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 though no official IP certification. A USB C 2.0 port makes an appearance on the bottom of the device alongside a headphone jack (keep it up Motorola!) and the top and bottom Dolby Atmos speakers. The dedicated Dolby Atmos app allows for a variety of different listening modes and limited equaliser functionality, but the speakers themselves are lacking in bass and don’t get especially loud. You’ll find the SIM and expandable storage tray (up to 1TB from the base 128GB) on the left side of the phone, and the fingerprint reader mounted on the right side. We find the positioning to be just right, and unlocking the phone is plenty snappy and reliable.
Overall, we’re not too thrilled with the phone’s build quality, though luckily you’re not staring at the back of the phone all day; the screen, however, you will be, which is where the g35 shines (pun not intended). The g35 sports a 6.7” FHD+ 120hz IPS panel, which is a real pleasure to use. For context, this is the same resolution and size as my daily driver Galaxy S21+, meaning swapping to the g35 throughout our testing period has been near seamless in this regard. The display does get decently bright as well with 1,000 nits peak brightness, just enough for outdoor use, and is HDR10 certified.
We’ve particularly enjoyed the high 120Hz refresh rate, which adds a layer of smoothness even the base iPhone 16s (and Plus models, of which are well in excess of $1,000!) don’t have. As expected, not all apps will take advantage of this but scrolling through your typical social media apps and web-browsing will be a breeze.
Performance & Software
Upon reviewing the spec-list for this phone, I wasn’t expecting to see it rocking a 6nm octa-core T760 chipset from Unisoc. Unisoc isn’t exactly a household name in the mobile market — they make up 14% of all smartphone chipset platforms, but it’s a departure from the more familiar Mediatek chips we saw in the g05, g15 and other budget phones. So, how does it fare?
Well, for $199, we can’t expect top-tier gaming performance and 4K slow-motion capability, but for day-to-day use, the Unisoc is well-equipped for the basics. Justin and I aren’t exactly power users, but throughout our fortnight of testing including all the usual stuff like messaging, doom-scrolling social media and some web-browsing, the g35 was a pleasure to use during most of it. The 120Hz panel and Hello UI’s fluid animations definitely helped smooth things out.
That said, the software experience can be a bit inconsistent. Certain apps like Reddit feel oddly sluggish, and even simple things like unlocking the phone sometimes takes longer than expected. It’s not always slow, just unpredictably so, which can be a little frustrating. This perhaps can be addressed via software updates in the future.
It’s also worth noting the g35’s lacklustre 4GB of RAM. You’ll feel it most when multitasking or jumping between a few apps; I commonly multitask between YouTube, Reddit and multiple Chrome tabs, and we found the ‘RAM Boost’ feature (virtual memory) didn’t help much. Interestingly, customers in other regions can opt for an 8GB RAM variant (and other colourways for that matter), however you’ll be stuck with 4GB if you buy locally.
One thing I did greatly appreciate was Motorola’s ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to software. Android 14 on the g35 feels just the way I like it; unblemished, apart from the slew of initial bloatware which can all be uninstalled, and Motorola keep their in-house apps separate from the UI. It’s familiar, it’s easy, and it doesn’t try too hard.
Camera
The g35 features a 50MP Quad Pixel main sensor and an 8MP ultra wide sensor, with a 16MP selfie camera on the front. Justin and I are constantly taking pictures and videos of the family dog, so camera quality is something we don’t like to skimp on; the g35 is just okay in this regard.
Stills from the main are decent; when exposed properly, photos come out looking sharp with a fair amount of fine detail that don’t look too overprocessed. The g35, however, seems to struggle with contrast consistently, resulting in a lot of blown out pictures in outdoor scenarios and crushed blacks in indoor shots. You’ll want to take your time setting up your shots properly to ensure they come out usable and detailed enough.
The ultra wide isn’t so great, lacking a lot of detail and producing ‘smeary’ pictures that would only be handy in a pinch. Portrait mode works best on faces, offering acceptable edge detection. Overall, stills from both sensors offer a loud, fun colour palette that’ll do well for social media posts but not so much for landscape or nature photography. The selfie camera is pretty good too, offering a good amount of detail and more realistic colour reproduction.
4K 30FPS video recording is enabled by default, but it suffers from the same problems as outlined earlier. Video quality will be serviceable if simply viewing on the phone itself, but once you throw it on a larger screen, the flaws are much harder to ignore. Colours come out a tad unnatural, and fine details are often lost due to poor contrast between brighter and dimmer parts of a shot. Autofocus on the g35 was a tad finicky too, working well in brighter environments but struggling if the subject wasn’t centered or stepped into a shadow.
Unfortunately, this is only exacerbated by the poor stabilisation. Upon reviewing my test footage, I genuinely had trouble differentiating between shots with stabilisation on and off — both showed very noticeable shake and jitter. Even in casual handheld shots, unless you’re stationary and tracking a slow-moving subject, the lack of effective stabilisation makes movement look more distracting than smooth.
The bottom line is that you’ll want to take your time setting up your shots with the g35; when done properly, the g35 produces decent images and video, though you may want to get familiar with the Pro mode to get the most out of the camera.
Features
I’m glad Motorola has implemented eSIM in this model; as someone who regularly jumps around providers to find the best deal, it’s refreshing not having to pop out the SIM tray every time. And don’t worry — it still has a nano SIM slot too, so you’ve got that flexibility should you so desire. The g35 also features 5G connectivity, which is great for a bit of future-proofing, though it misses out on WiFi 6 found on more expensive devices. You still get the essentials however, with Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, FM radio, gyro, GPS and compass.
Battery
The g35 comes with a 5,000mAh battery, which is actually a slight downgrade from the 5,200mAh cells we saw in the g05 and g15. Now, combine that with its faster and higher resolution panel, you wouldn’t be wrong to assume worse battery life. And, whilst this is true, you’re still looking at a very strong performer. In a full day of use, with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and NFC constantly on, after 5h 38min of screen time, I still had 42% remaining. This time was spent between TikTok, Reddit, some light gaming, recording pictures and videos and navigating with Google Maps. Basically, what this means is that, for most users, it’s an easy day and a half to two days without charging.
Stand-by time wasn’t so impressive, draining close to 10% a day when not in use. Charging speed tops out at just 18W, which, when you’ve got a battery this size, means you’ll need to wait at least an hour and a half to charge from empty to full. The g35 also lacks wireless and reverse charging capabilities.
Still though, this endurance from the g35 is a very impressive showing from Motorola, and it’s great to see them continuing to pack big batteries into their budget phones.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, the Motorola g35 is a rather oddly positioned product. Smack-bang between the g05 and g15 in terms of price (seemingly counterintuitive given the model number), the g35 manages to impress with its stellar battery life and quality display, which results in a very enjoyable user experience. If you can overcome the mediocre camera performance, average build quality and initial bloatware, the g35 is our go-to option for less than $200. However, if you can afford an extra $100 (or even $50 if you wait for a sale), we’d definitely recommend exploring higher up the moto g lineup with the g75 or g85.
The moto g35 5G in Midnight Black is available for RRP $199 at Vodafone postpaid and prepaid and at Optus prepaid.
We would like to thank Motorola for loaning these units for review.
