Battle of the budget champions: Moto G5 or Nokia 3?

Despite being nowhere near the top-tier class of phones, a few handsets still stirred emotion and drama this year, as they were flying towards the store shelves and the anxious hands of reviewers. Those are Motorola's budget G and E series phones, and Nokia's new offerings.

Why drama? Well, Moto is in the hands of a new owner — Lenovo — and the Nokia brand is now controlled by a new entity, known as HMD Global. Everyone was curious to see what the new owners of both brands would do with their budget phones. And, we would say, they didn't do half bad! In fact, it doesn't seem like a lot has changed at Moto, while the Nokia handsets are quite cool for entry levels and midrangers.

In any case, a competition has naturally sparked between the two. We've got affordable phones that offer nearly stock Android, which suggests snappiness and software robustness, both built by companies with deep roots and a cherishing fandom. In this case, we are talking about the Nokia 3 and Moto G5.

The Nokia has a 5-inch, 720 x 1280 display, 8 MP cameras front and back, a MediaTek MT6737 quad-core processor ticking at 1.3 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of expandable storage. The Motorola has a 5-inch 1080 x 1920 display, 13 MP main and 5 MP selfie camera, a quad-core Snapdragon 430 clocked at 1.4 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of expandable storage. The Nokia 3 has a 2,650 mAh battery, the Moto G5's is a 2,800 mAh cell.

The Nokia 3 costs about $160, the Moto G5 is $190 unlocked. Which one would you go for?