Name: Motorola Moto G10
Brand: Motorola

By Preslav Kateliev

Published: Mar 12, 2021, 10:16 AM

Motorola Android

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Motorola’s Moto G series have always been about giving the users bang for the buck. Yes, they have midrange specs, but software optimizations and the right features in the right places make them great bargain phones.

Here, we have the Moto g10. It’s launching alongside the Moto g30, but is a tad cheaper — it’s not available in the States right now, but you can get the Moto g10 from international sellers for about $180.

Is it worth it at that price? Mostly not, but I am only saying that because the g30 exists — the Moto g30 strikes a lot of right notes for a price of $220, whereas the g10 had to cut one corner too many to hit that $180, and you can feel it.

If you are on a super-tight budget, yes, it’s a pretty OK phone for a cheap price. But just $40 extra gives you a noticeable upgrade.

The Moto g10 is currently not available in the US, so either wait for it to hit official stores or — if you are adventurous and ordering from international stores — be sure to double-check the bands of your carrier and the model you are buying.

7.5

Motorola Moto G10

The Good

Very affordable
OK performance
Display has nice colors
Long-lasting battery life

The Bad

Camera is not great
The pattern and finish on the back are not pleasant
Display brightness not good outdoors

Moto g10 display and design

The Moto g10 has a 6.5-inch screen on the front, so plenty of real estate to consume media on. It has three color profiles to pick from and, I have to say, I am quite surprised by how accurate Natural mode looks — it’s pretty rare to see a cheap phone with tame, natural colors.

Still, it’s an LCD panel, so the contrast is not as great as on an OLED, and there’s some good old-fashioned LCD ghosting when scrolling around. What’s that? I am nitpicking a $180 phone? Yeah, I agree. But see, for just $40 extra, the Moto g30 has a 90 Hz screen of the same quality, and that kind of raised the bar for me.

Also, I may like the colors, but the phone definitely can’t push a lot of brightness. Even on a cloudy day, using the Moto g10 outside was not a breeze. The combination of reflective glass and low max brightness made it a bit too tough to see.

Display measurements and quality

	Bright max(100%APL)Higher is better	Bright minLower is better	ContrastHigher is better	Color temp	Gamma	Delta E rgbcmyLower is better	Delta E grayscaleLower is better
Motorola Moto G10	522 (Poor)	3.4 (Poor)	1:2095 (Excellent)	7420	2.38	2.58 (Good)	5.18 (Average)
Motorola Moto G30	499 (Poor)	3.6 (Poor)	1:2023 (Excellent)	7272	2.4	2.07 (Good)	3.71 (Good)
Google Pixel 4a	451 (Poor)	2 (Good)	unmeasurable (Excellent)	6846	2.27	1.38 (Excellent)	4.44 (Average)
OnePlus Nord	784 (Average)	4.5 (Poor)	unmeasurable (Excellent)	7341	2.24	1.95 (Excellent)	5.37 (Average)

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The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set(area)of colors that a display can reproduce,with the sRGB colorspace(the highlighted triangle)serving as reference.The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x:CIE31' and 'y:CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.

These measurements are made using Portrait Displays' CalMAN calibration software.

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The Moto g10 has quite the bezel, and has an especially pronounced chin, but at that price, I’d say it’s fine. It doesn’t look hideous, just not extremely elegant.

The plastic back has a weird wavey pattern, which I didn’t care for much, and its finish collects a good ton of fingerprint smudges. The Iridescent Pearl color we have here is a murky purplish brown that doesn’t look amazing — I would suggest choosing the Aurora Grey option over this one.

The buttons on the side are solid and clicky, which is another pleasant surprise on a budget phone. And yes, the button at the very top there is a Google Assistant button, which is both hard to reach and redundant. But I digress.

Moto g10 camera

The Moto g10 has a quad-camera module — but don’t get too excited. There’s a 48 MP main camera, an 8 MP ultra-wide camera, and then the… ever-useful 2 MP macro camera. The fourth sensor is just a 2 MP depth camera that’s meant to assist the main sensor.

How are the pictures? Not amazing. Even with auto HDR on, the Moto g10’s dynamic range is not really amazing and details come out jagged. In good lighting, it can take a photo worthy of your social media feed, but nothing beyond that — I wouldn’t trust it for memorabilia shots.

There is Portrait Mode on board, but it’s pretty bad at detecting edges and the faux bokeh looks a bit too fake.

The ultra-wide camera is pretty OK at what it does as long as you use it out in the daylight. And the 2 MP macro camera is… well, noisy and redundant.

Moto g10 sample images

There’s absolutely no stabilization when shooting video. Colors do look good on clips taken with the Moto g10, but you absolutely can’t shoot handheld.

The 8 MP selfie camera is soft, noisy, and not very flattering. It has a beautify effect turned on by default, but it somehow made things worse, so I’d suggest turning it off.

There’s also a very noticeable lag between taking a photo and being able to view it — it’s stuck in a “processing” cycle for quite a while, as the phone is doing the post-shutter adjustments to it.

But look, all of these things are par for the course on a $180 phone. The cameras of the Moto g10 are there just for you to have some sort of camera on your smartphone and that’s about it. Don’t expect miracles.

Moto g10 specs, software, performance

The Moto g10 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 460. An octa-core, 1.8 GHz chip from Qualcomm’s bottom shelves. And yeah, you can kind of feel it. There’s some touch input lag, there are hiccups, delays, and choppiness to be observed.

This is another field where I feel like the $40 extra for a Moto g30 is worth it — the latter phone comes with a Snapdragon 662 and it makes a noticeable difference. Especially when using the two phones day in and day out.

Back to the Moto g10 — it also has 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, which you can expand via a microSD card slot. So, not a multi-tasking monster, but that’s OK, because the chip wouldn’t handle it anyway.

The software on board is a pretty vanilla Android 11 experience, which is probably why the Snapdragon 460 is capable of holding it together. There are just a few Moto extensions sprinkled throughout — my favorite are the Moto gestures, where you twist the phone to launch the camera, or turn on the flashlight with just a chopping motion.

The fingerprint scanner on the back is pretty quick to react, too, which deserves credit.

All in all, it can hold it together for your simple daily smartphone tasks. Or simple games — I had no issues playing Archero. But it definitely shows that it’s a sub-$200 phone once you start cycling through apps, or reading heavy websites.

If the T-Rex HD component of GFXBench is demanding,then the Manhattan test is downright gruelling.It's a GPU-centric test that simulates an extremely graphically intensive gaming environment that is meant to push the GPU to the max. that simulates a graphically-intensive gaming environment on the screen. The results achieved are measured in frames per second, with more frames being better.

Device

Higher is better

Motorola Moto G10	19
Motorola Moto G30	26
Google Pixel 4a	25
OnePlus Nord	30

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Moto g10 battery life

So, the g10 has a 5,000 mAh battery, a lower tier chip, and a 60 Hz screen to power. The writing’s on the wall — it’s an endurance phone. It can easily, very easily last you a day and push that two-day battery life.

	Browsing test 60HzHigher is better	Video Streaming(hours)Higher is better	3D Gaming 60Hz(hours)Higher is better	Full Charge(hours)Lower is better
Motorola Moto G10	12h 24 min	11h 47 min	8h 37 min	3h 1 min
Motorola Moto G30	11h 30 min	10h 47 min	8h	2h 17 min
Google Pixel 4a	9h 27 min	6h 48 min	4h 51 min	1h 35 min
OnePlus Nord	11h 36 min	8h 49 min	No data	1h 9 min

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Pros

Very affordable
OK performance
Display has nice colors
Long-lasting battery life

Cons

Camera is not great
The pattern and finish on the back are not pleasant
Display brightness not good outdoors

PhoneArena Rating:

7.5

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Preslav, a member of the PhoneArena team since 2014, is a mobile technology enthusiast with a penchant for integrating tech into his hobbies and work. Whether it's writing articles on an iPad Pro, recording band rehearsals with multiple phones, or exploring the potential of mobile gaming through services like GeForce Now and Steam Link, Preslav's approach is hands-on and innovative. His balanced perspective allows him to appreciate both Android and iOS ecosystems, focusing on performance, camera quality, and user experience over brand loyalty.

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