Hands-On

Moto G6 hands-on: Skin-deep goodness

Premium build, entry-level performance

Published

July 7, 2018

Marvin Velasco

Of all the smartphone segments, the most cut-throat has to be the budget to midrange market. Each brand has its own specialties but with little room for error (unless they want to hear a mouthful from consumers).

While Xiaomi continues to cram as much power as it can into its smartphones and ASUS confidently creates budget-friendly battery kings, Moto is pushing something a little different: premium design with an affordable price.

That’s what the Moto G6 is all about. Although the specifications sheet doesn’t scream high-end (or barely even midrange), gripping it feels like you have something more.

As soon as the G6 lands in your hands, you know it’s a rock-solid device. The all-glass construction curves smoothly from back to front, delivering a fluid feel like it’s meant for human hands and not tables. The 5.7-inch 1080p display is also fun to view thanks to the slimmer 18:9 ratio.

And yet, it’s admittedly on the almost-too-thick side. I first thought that there’d be a massive battery inside, but the capacity is only 3000mAh. For comparison, phones this thick have batteries as large as 4000mAh, offering 33 percent more without the added bulk.

Strangely enough, there’s even a significant camera bulge on the back, meaning the phone can’t lie flat on a surface. It’s a head-scratching design, although I appreciate the fingerprint scanner’s front-facing placement — where it should belong.

Unfortunately, the fingerprint reading isn’t that fast; there’s a slight pause between the vibration feedback and screen turning on. On the flip side, the scanner serves an additional purpose of being an all-in-one navigation key.

By entering the Moto Actions menu and turning on “One button nav,” you can tap the capacitive button to go home, swipe right to bring up recent apps, swipe left to go back, or hold to turn the screen off. Enabling this frees up some screen space since the on-display navigation bar isn’t needed anymore.

Another useful feature is Moto Display, which works a lot like the Always On tricks of Samsung and Huawei’s own implementation on the P20 Pro. It gives you a glimpse at the time, date, and battery percentage while the phone is on standby; it’ll also light up when a notification arrives or you wave a hand over the phone.

Aside from those, this is simply a solidly built, pure Android smartphone. It comes with Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box with no bloatware whatsoever. Sadly, it isn’t part of the Android One platform, meaning the G6 isn’t guaranteed to get timely updates from Google, and Moto isn’t known to push newer versions of the OS on time.

Running the show is a Snapdragon 450 processor, which slots into the lower-midrange speed realm, but is certainly efficient. Despite the smallish battery, the G6 can last through a day of moderate usage on a single charge with mobile data or Wi-Fi constantly on.

I tried playing a few games, but wasn’t too impressed by the performance. A couple of rounds of Dragon Ball Legends and Asphalt Xtreme didn’t show off the smoothest gameplay or fastest loading times. While the chipset isn’t too bad, the 3GB of memory is lacking, and there’s not much room for all my games and videos on the 32GB of internal storage — though you can expand that using the hybrid SIM and microSD tray.

Our creative director Chay also experienced some hiccups while using the G6’s cameras. Although they look good on paper — a 12- and 5-megapixel rear setup (one with a better f/1.8 lens) — the quality isn’t great and moving from one mode to another can get slow at times.

Here are some of the best photos she took:

The 8-megapixel front camera isn’t too impressive, either. You’d think it’s good when taking selfies in broad daylight, but it gets grainy even with indoor lighting. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend buying the G6 for its cameras or speed. Neither stand out as much as the build quality.

And that sort of sums up my experience with the Moto G6. As pretty as it looks, there’s not much going on inside. For this phone’s price of US$ 250 (INR 13,999 in India), you can find more powerful devices in the market.

We have two great lists for that, but one advantage the G6 has is its design. I can confidently say it’s the most well-built in its price range.

Hands-On

OPPO Reno15 F 5G hands-on

More question marks than exclamation points?

Published

March 6, 2026

Manila Connoisseur

The OPPO Reno15 Series 5G made its way to the Philippines last month, and reception has been pretty great so far.

With a powerful camera package, AI, and a slew of upgrades, there’s a lot to love and not much negative to say. But that’s with both the standard and Pro models.

On the other hand, with the Reno15 F 5G — the series’ supposed budget-friendly “lite” variant —there were more question marks than exclamation points.

I attack this piece once more from a consumer standpoint: shelling out PhP 23,000 to PhP 26,000 for a midrange smartphone that feels and performs like it’s a few notches below its segment doesn’t sound too pleasant.

Performance

With a Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 processor, the OPPO Reno15 F performs pretty much like any sub PhP 20,000 mid-ranger. It’s acceptable, but does not punch above its weight as expected.

No major hiccups for light and casual usage. But performance struggles a lot for demanding video games.

It also heats up significantly just 10 minutes into a title like Honkai: Star Rail. This is a stark contrast to the marketed 25℃ and up to 10 hours straight of smooth gameplay.

Although, the experience was still enjoyable with several wins and MVP runs in Call of Duty Mobile. It only means the F variant remains a more camera-centric phone rather than an a hard-hitting all-arounder.

As with other devices, the 7000mAh battery with 80W SUPERVOOC is a strong suit. You’re fueled from dawn ’til dusk, with much to spare. Recharging takes a breeze, too.

Display

The OPPO Reno15 F has a 6.57-inch 120Hz display, with a 92.8% screen-to-body ratio. At least, that allows you to focus on content on the screen.

Content leans more towards the cooler tone, so you’ll have to adjust it manually if you want a warmer or more vivid look.

The 397ppi pixel density is fine to ensure sharper visuals, while the 1400 nits peak brightness is helpful outdoors.

Camera

The device’s 50MP main camera captures decent quality. The color science leans on being natural anew, without being too dull nor washed out. You can pull off smooth portraits too.

I hardly used the phone for stills as I focused on videos, but here are some samples, on the occasions I was able to take the handset with me:

The 50MP front camera is an intriguing add-on, as it is capable of up to 4K video and a wide 100° field of view.

What this does is it essentially removes the need to flip your phone for the popular “0.5” shots. And the quality doesn’t get compromised given the pixel count.

Here are some selfies from different focal lengths:

To its credit, filming with the back camera at 60fps does look and feel smooth, although it can be improved.

Same with the front camera; and the zoom range can be switched from 0.6 to 2x without cutting the recording.

Although, it’s still best to use a selfie stick or small tripod if you’re just after talking head videos.

Speaking of which, here are a few I’ve made with just this device:

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But for travel and on-the-go captures, as OPPO markets for the series in general, even the Reno15 F can cover a lot of background along with your or your groups’ faces.

Make no mistake, there are some useful AI editing features here. In particular, AI Portrait Glow gives your raw capture an effect to make it look it was taken with flash.

I do not recall the device heating up as well when taking many photos or videos, so you can say it’s more optimized for that task rather than gaming.

Connectivity issues

Meanwhile, AI LinkBoost 3.0, as in the case of the OPPO A6 Pro, doesn’t seem to punch above its weight either.

Once, I also played Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and the session opened to a jittery start despite being on Wi-Fi and having a stable connection. I don’t know what triggered this.

Design, feel

We got the Aurora Blue variant which does kind of resemble the northern lights when you tilt the phone a certain way and when light hits its back panel.

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The cursive “Reno” on the large, protruding camera island gives it more style.

However, it’s all just aesthetics. On the downside, the phone is all sorts of slippery.

I couldn’t hold it properly without think of it slipping away from my hands; nor could I put it on my lap with confidence.

So I guess it’s good that it has structural integrity and waterproofing, because you’ll need that.

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The 6.57-inch body does have a good balance between being too compact and too large, like ultras and pro maxes.

It has a squarish body and has already adapted to the premium, aluminum frame look from the sides.

Is this your GadgetMatch?

Sadly, the OPPO Reno15 F 5G is a Swipe Left unlike its bigger, more capable siblings. There are plenty of plus points for the camera package but take that away, and I don’t see much difference between the Reno15 F and something like the A6 Pro.

Granted, the asking price of this phone will drop significantly in a few months. But throw in a little more, and you’ve got a legitimate mid-ranger that’s more on the premium side rather than the cheap end of the spectrum.