Motorola manufactures so many phones that it can be difficult to keep track of them all. The company’s ‘One’ series started with some Android One certified phones, but now contains only something better than a Moto G. The latest entry is the Motorola One 5G Ace, the company’s cheapest 5G phone at only $ 400.
The Motorola One 5G Ace is not a bad phone, but it falls behind the competition in many areas, all towards a goal that does not even have many practical advantages in 2021: 5G connectivity. There are better ways to spend your hard earned $ 400.
Design, hardware, what’s in the box?
Massive smartphones are furious these days and the Moto One 5G Ace is following the trend with its 6.7-inch screen. The phone is physically larger than the Galaxy S21 Ultra and is about the same size as the Galaxy Note20 Ultra (the Note20 Ultra is 1mm wider). It’s almost 10mm deep (0.38 inches), making the Ace one of the thickest Android phones in recent history. The massive framework enables Motorola to deploy a large 5,000 mAh battery – more on that later.
The 6.7-inch screen has a resolution of 2400 x 1080, but annoyingly, Motorola opted for a cheaper LCD screen instead of an OLED panel. Most other devices in this price range offer OLED screens, such as the Samsung Galaxy A50 and Google Pixel 4a. It looks like one of the key angles Motorola has cut to lower the Ace to $ 400, and it’s making the phone harder to recommend. If I have to choose between a better screen (which I watch every day) or 5G connection (which I will not get every day), I will always choose a better screen. There is also a 16MP selfie camera in the centered cutout.
The sides and back of the 5G Ace are plastic, but the back of the case has a slightly reflective texture that easily attracts fingerprints and stains. It’s better than the glossy plastic seen on many other budget phones, but a matte finish would probably have been better. There’s also a fingerprint sensor on the back, which was a refreshing change from the on-screen sensors on recent flagship phones I’ve used – I don’t have to look at where the sensor was before placing my finger, and the unlocking is lightning fast.
Galaxy S20 (left) next to Moto One 5G Ace (right)
On / off and volume buttons are located on the right side, and although it feels a bit muddy, the on / off button has at least one distinctive texture so you can find it without looking. The right side has only the microSD / SIM card slot, and at the bottom there is a USB Type-C port and a headphone jack. Motorola has also placed the single speaker at the bottom, which gets decently loud but is strongly distorted at higher volumes.
In the box you get the phone, a 10W USB wall adapter and a USB Type-AC cable to charge. I tried wall adapters and third-party batteries that support Qualcomm QuickCharge and USB-PD, and I could not charge either of the two techniques below 10-12W. Motorola says the phone supports up to 15W using the company’s TurboPower power bricks, but TurboPower is just a new brand of Qualcomm QuickCharge. It’s going to be a tall time to recharge that 5,000 mAh battery.
Software, performance, battery life
The One 5G Ace uses Motorola’s usual software stack: stock Android, Google apps, and a few extra useful features (most of which can be ignored if you don’t want them). In addition to the usual features offered in regular Android 10, you get the distinctive Moto gestures, such as turning your wrist to open the camera and tapping the phone to turn on the flashlight. My personal favorite is the “swipe to split” gesture for multi-window because it allows me to activate the split-screen mode without interrupting the video playback.
The software of the 5G Ace is one big catch: the updates. Motorola is not good with software support, not even on its most expensive phones (the Moto Edge + currently has a 5/10 on our security update), and the company’s plans for the 5G Ace are embarrassing. The phone comes with Android 10, which has been outdated for four months now, and Motorola promises just a single update of Android 11 and two years of security solutions. If Google’s Pixel 4a is $ 50 cheaper and will get three years of OS and security updates, and Samsung offers the same on many of its budget phones, it’s just two years of support and a single OS update that is unacceptably economical. is.
On the bright side, the performance on the 5G Ace is excellent. The Snapdragon 750G chipset ensures that apps open quickly and animations are smooth, and the 4GB of RAM (or 6GB on some models) is enough to keep some apps in memory. Most people will not be able to see the difference in performance between this and a typical flagship phone, except when it comes to gaming, where the 750G lags a bit behind. If you’re interested in benchmarks, the LG K22 earns 28.8 in Speedometer 2.0 (in Chrome 87) and 3,994 in 3DMark’s Sling Shot test. With Geekbench 5, the phone achieves 659 in single-core performance and 1969 in multi-core (full results here). In all tests, a higher number is better.
From left to right: Geekbench 5, Speedometer 2.0, 3DMark
The battery life is also fantastic, but it does not have to be a surprise – Motorola has pushed a massive 5,000 mAh cell into the 5G Ace. I ended up most days with 50-60% battery left, so most people would have to go two days (or possibly a little longer) between charging and between drawers, and even longer than your Motorola’s Peek Display feature exclude.
Camera
The Moto One 5G Ace’s main camera is a 48MP sensor, but because Motorola combines pixels from the raw input, photos are actually taken at 12MP (the standard) or 8MP. You also get an 8MP ultra-wide lens and a 2MP macro, plus a 16MP front-facing lens (which is fixed at 4MP by default).
Photo quality on the main camera is decent, as you have enough lighting, except that Motorola’s image processing sometimes significantly increases the contrast. In the end, the macro camera is nice to play with, but with an even lower resolution of 2MP, it often does not capture fine detail … which is the whole point of a macro lens.
Main camera versus ultra-wide camera
Should you buy it?
Only if you get it at a substantial discount. The Motorola One 5G Ace is the latest in a long line of phones, including the Nokia 8 V 5G UW and OnePlus Nord N10 5G, which prioritize 5G support over key features. As much as carriers want you to think differently, just 5G is it not so important at the moment, and this should not be the most important factor in your purchase of your smartphone.
Apart from 5G, there is very little that the Ace outperforms other phones in the price point below $ 400. Google Pixel 4a is still the best option here, with more RAM, twice the storage, faster charging, a better camera , an AMOLED screen and a lower $ 350 MSRP. If you want a screen closer to the One 5G Ace, the Pixel 4a 5G and Galaxy A71 5G are solid options, though a bit more expensive. If you are waiting for a sale, or if you want to trade something through Samsung.com, you can even get the Galaxy S20 Fan Edition for the same price as the Ace.
Motorola’s consistently poor software update policies also make the 5G Ace a tougher recommendation. Three years of OS and security updates are now the norm, but the Ace is shipped with a now outdated version of Android, and Android 11 is the only guaranteed OS upgrade. The Pixel 4a and Galaxy A71 5G have both started with three years of promised support, and Motorola should start guaranteeing the same support cycle.
Buy it as:
- You can get it for at least $ 100 off.
- You really care about 5G.
- You want the battery life of more than days.
Do not buy it if:
- You want to keep the phone for more than two years.
- You want a compact phone.