Motorola Moto G13 review

Motorola has been turning out some impressive low-cost phones over the last few years.

The current affordable Moto G range sports several models, with the G13 being the most affordable. So, can you really get a decent smartphone for less than £150/$180? Here’s the full Tech Advisor review.

Design & Build

• Lightweight
• Side- fingerprint sensor
• Plastic body

Obviously, at this price you don’t expect premium materials throughout, and that’s certainly the case with the Moto G13. It’s a plastic body, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

One advantage is that it’s a light phone, weighing in at 183.5g (6.49oz). Not quite the lightest, but in a world of Android phones that regularly tip 200g, it’s a pleasant surprise to have a device that won’t have your hands fatiguing after using it for a short time. 

The dimensions are reasonably compact at 162.7 x 74.66 x 8.19mm (6.41 x 2.94 x 0.32 inches), making it a genuinely nice phone to hold in your hands and slide into your pocket without feeling like you’re weighed down.

Motorola supplies a free TPU silicon case, and applying adds lots of extra grip, even if it does look a bit cheap. Though even without the case, it doesn’t feel too slippery.

You also get a charger and cable in the box, unlike some more expensive offerings out there. 

Looking around the device, you’ll find a USB-C charging port, 3.5mm headphone jack, single speaker grille and microphone, plus volume controls, a power button that doubles as a fingerprint sensor (and works very well), plus the dual (Nano) SIM card slot. It’s all tidy and well put-together, making it easy to think of this as a more expensive unit than the price suggests. 

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Motorola does claim that the G13 has a ‘water-repellent’ design, but it doesn’t come with an IP rating, so I’d suggest keeping it away from any significant amount of water if you can.

Screen & Speakers

• 6.5-inch IPS LCD panel
• 720p resolution, 90Hz refresh rate
• Stereo speakers and 3.5mm headphone port

While the Moto G13 feels quite compact, it still manages to fit in a 6.5-inch IPS display. True, it’s only running at 720p which is a bit low these days, but Apple has been serving up its iPhone SE for years now with the same spec and that doesn’t seem to have held it back. 

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The panel on the G13 looks good, with acceptable brightness levels (maxes out around 400 nits), decent colours (albeit a little muted) and very good off-angle viewing.

The 90Hz refresh rate is a bonus on such a cheap phone, though the processor doesn’t seem to make the most of this, as scrolling does feel sluggish and juddery. Overall, the display on the Moto G13 is great for the price. 

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The sound on the Moto comes from a dedicated speaker on the bottom edge, which combines with the earpiece above the display for a stereo setup.

The audio produced is fine, provided you don’t boost things too loud. The G13 can definitely kick out some volume, but there’s distortion at the higher end which detracts from the quality. It’s fine for YouTube videos and social media, but if you want to stream any movies or music, you’ll probably want to connect headphones via Bluetooth or the 3.5mm jack.

Specs & Performance

• MediaTek Helio G85 chipset
• 4GB RAM
• Performance is a bit patchy

Moto couldn’t quite stretch to a Snapdragon chipset for a phone this inexpensive, but the MediaTek Helio G85 is an acceptable alternative.

Obviously, you’re not going to get blistering pace, but for running most normal apps the phone chugs along quite happily. The lack of power is more notable when it comes to navigating through menus and graphic-heavy pages, with the juddering being more apparent when trying to load images or move them around a page.

This also applies to gaming, where the G13 does struggle with busier 3D games, but that’s to be expected. That’s not to say that gaming is no-go. In fact, I played Asphalt 9: Legends for a good while and have to say that the G13 ran it as well as most other phones I’ve used recently – including some dedicated gaming phones. 

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So, unless you’re a Genshin Impact devotee or play a lot of PUBG, you might find that the Moto G13 has all the gaming performance you need.

Motorola Moto G13 benchmarks.

Here’s how it fared against some of its closest rivals in our standard batch of benchmarks: 

The phone comes equipped with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, the latter of which can be expanded by up to an additional 512GB via a Micro-SD card. 

In terms of connectivity, it should be noted that there’s no 5G support on the G13, but that’s common for phones in this price bracket. You do get Bluetooth 5.1, NFC, GPS, and Wi-Fi 5, though.

Cameras & Video

• 50MP f/1.8 main
• 2MP f/2.4 macro
• 2MP f/2.4 depth
• 8MP f/2.0 selfie

Often an achilles heel with cheaper phones is the camera, and that proves to be the case with the Moto G13. It’s equipped with a 50MP f/1.8 main shooter, aided by 2MP macro and depth sensor modules, which is a decent amount of lenses for a budget device.

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See also  Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review

Using the main camera, you can get some acceptable shots, but there’s an obvious amount of software sharpening, particularly in busy images. The colours also wash out way too easily, making pictures flat and lacking any kind of vibrancy. I wasn’t looking for the classic Samsung super-saturated images of old, but I did find it hard to capture any photos that felt truly good.

They can be adjusted using filters and other photo editing tools, but the image you get out of the camera itself is often lacking vibrancy.

Portraits are also missing any kind of deep bokeh (background blur), while the Night mode does struggle with noise in low-light shots., But again, this is all quite common when you consider the price of the device. The macro camera is also a bit of a waste of time, as it is generally on most phones. 

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The front camera is an 8MP f/2.0 module. It takes reasonably good selfies if the light is plentiful, but in a murky pub or club you might not get the snap that you wanted. 

Video tops out at 1080p and 30fps, so again it’s fine rather than impressive.  

Here’s some sample images from the Moto G13:

Battery Life & Charging

• 5,000mAh cell
• 10W wired charging 
• No wireless charging

One area where the Moto G13 shines is battery life. I regularly ended the day with a good 20% or so left, even after playing some games and streaming an episode of a TV show.

Obviously, this varied depending on brightness, mobile data usage and if location data was enabled, but it still felt pretty consistent during my time with the device. 

In the PCMark battery test we run on all phones (with brightness set to 200 nits), the Moto scored an impressive 9 hours and 19 minutes. You’re unlikely to get that in real-world usage, but you also won’t have to worry about running out of juice before you get home.

Martyn Casserly

It’s a good job too, as the charging speeds are not great. You get a 10W charger in the box, and from a completely flat battery, it took the best part of 3 hours to get back up to 100%. So you’ll want to charge this one overnight or when you get to the office, as it won’t be ready for action in a hurry. 

When looking for a quick boost, popping the G13 on its charger for 15 minutes delivers 11% of power, while 30 minutes doubles this to 22%, all of which is far behind many other phones – including many cheap ones. 

Software

• Android 13
• Only a little bloatware
• Security updates until Jan 2026

Motorola is usually good at keeping Android pretty clean, and that’s the case on the Moto G13.

You don’t get any significant changes to the version of Android found on Pixel phones, which is nice to see. Everything is simple and easy to use, with gesture support making the phone feel very much like my Google Pixel 6a. 

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It’s Android 13 out of the box, with the company confirming that the device should get the Android 14 upgrade. It also says that the G13 will receive security updates until January 2026, which is more than some cheap Android phone makers offer.

Admittedly, there is a little bloatware, with a few games pre-installed as well as Booking.com. But, it’s not egregious and you can quickly get rid of them if you want. 

Price & Availability

In the UK, can buy the Moto G13 direct from Motorola for £129.99 or even cheaper on Amazon.

There isn’t the exact same model available in the US, with the closest probably being the Moto G 5G. As the name suggests, this model is 5G compatible. It also comes with a Snapdragon 480+ 5G processor, 120Hz refresh rate on its 6.5-inch display, and a different camera module, all for around $249.99. 

If you want a slight bump in specs, then there’s the Moto G23, which retails for around the same price as the G13, or there’s the more premium but still affordable Moto G84, which you can pick up in the UK for £249.99, although it isn’t listed on the Motorola US site.

In the UK, the Moto G13 is also available on contract, with the best offerings at the moment as follows.

Sadly, there’s no contracts in the US we could find, so you’ll need to buy it outright and then pair it with a SIM only contract instead.

If you fancy something other than a Moto, the Samsung Galaxy A14 is a great bargain at £179/$150. There’s also the Realme C35 which offers a good basic spec for a budget phone and costs £149/$200. 

Plenty of great alternatives are available in our round-up of the best budget phones.

Verdict

If you’re on a strict budget of around £150/$180, the Moto G13 is a solid buy.

You get excellent battery life and decent performance, plus expandable storage that means you can keep loads of movies and music on the device. However, there is a bit of lag in the day-to-day performance, while the cameras are not that great.

But for the price, it’s still a phone that can let you do most of the things you’d want from a smartphone without breaking the bank. There are no shortage of other options though, including some significant upgrades if you’re willing to pay a little more.

Specs

• Android 13
• 6.5-inch IPS LCD panel, 1600 x 720 resolution, 90Hz refresh rate
• MediaTek Helio G85 chipset
• 4GB RAM
• 128GB Storage (expandable by 512GB with microSD card)
• 50MP f/1.8 Main/Wide
• 2MP f/2.4 Macro
• 2MP f/2.4 Depth
• 8MP f/2.0 Selfie
• Fingerprint sensor in Power button
• Stereo speakers 
• 3.5mm headphone port
• Bluetooth 5.1
• NFC
• GPS
• Wi-Fi 5
• 4G
• 5,000mAh cell
• 10W wired charging 
• 162.7 x 74.66 x 8.19mm / 6.41 x 2.94 x 0.32 inch
• 183.5g / 6.49oz