The G86 is, surprise, surprise, Motorola's update to the G85! My interest was piqued because on the spec-sheet at least, the updates do seem to be significant enough to give this squarely mid-range handset knocking on the door of, well, at least upper mid-range territory. It's quite an impressive-looking value prospect too, for those looking to not pay flagship money out, but getting a high percentage of features and performance. So we'll see.
I reviewed the Motorola G85 in November 2024 which, in turn, I compared with the G84 from the year before that. My conclusion back then was that very capable as the G85 was, for those willing to pay an extra £70, the Motorola Edge 50 Neo offered significantly more. So will I conclude the same here, I wonder - or have Moto updated the G-line here so as to not need that bump. The G86 at time of writing is available mainstream in the UK for £279 and the Edge 50 Neo, now time has passed, £269 down from the RRP of £399 - so £10 less and as such, maybe an even bigger ask of the G86.
The UK retail box is a simple affair. White, small enough to not have a charger in, big enough to have some papers, a pokey-SIM tool, USB-C to USB-A cable and a colour-matched hard plastic cover with cut-outsat the side and bottom for essential buttons and ports. It's very slippery. First thing I did was to buy a simple, clear, soft TPU for a fiver from Amazon! The deal with Pantone seems to have gone (at least with anything like this, mid-range) as there's no pungent perfume smell wafting out from the carton.
The material on the back, which I assume must be silicone polymer (eco-leather) is actually very nice - and very nearly grippy enough to not need the above-mentioned case. But not quite. It is nice to the touch, though and almost feels padded. Spongy. I have the Spellbound finish here as supplied by Moto PR for review, which is a kind of dark blue. There's also Golden Cypress (a golden yellow/green), Cosmic Sky (purple/blue) and Chrysanthemum (red/pink). The do seem to be Pantone shades, so it's just the perfume in the box that has been skimped on!
There's a big 'M' of course in the middle of the back and up-top and left (in portrait) the by-now iconic sloping camera island. It sloped subtly up on the two sides facing the back then again on the others, facing the frame. There are four circles on the island, which I'll come to later, though one of them is clearly an LED flash. The four edges join the plastic, flat edging (iPhone style) abruptly. So much so that the edge can be felt when the finger runs over it.
The flat plastic frame runs around the perimeter of the phone and up the top, there's a Dolby Atmos logo next to a microphone. On the right side there's another microphone, a volume rocker and power button - all of which feel sturdy enough with no 'play' and on the bottom, another microphone, one of the stereo speaker pair (so bottom-firing) and a USB-C port. On the left side we have the long-reaching SIM Card Tray which takes a single nanoSIM and microSD Card. No choice for a second physical SIM Card but the phone does support eSIM in the mix.
The front of the phone is flat glass with a Selfie camera up front and centre (cut-out circle), under the second of the stereo speakers, doubling-up as the phone app's earpiece, and not quite so abruptly meeting the edges as the back. Gorilla Glass 7i is employed here which according to the blurb make it significantly less likely to get scratched than last year's Gorilla Glass 5 and has greater drop-resistance for shattering. With certification for IP6/8, IP6/9 and MIL-STD-810H you'd like to think that the phone should survive various accidents and environmental ingress.
It's a big phone at 161.2 x 74.7 x 7.8mm, very slightly less tall than last year's G85 but also slightly wider and fatter. It's 185g which again, is heavier than either of the finishes available (acrylic or vegan leather) on last year's model. And it feels it, too. Last year's G85 seems more stealthy mainly because of the slightly curved screen and slim edging around the perimeter.
In usual Moto style, the screen is a 1220 x 2712, 6.67" P-OLED (no doubt made by LG again) and as such, bright (4,500 nits - up from 1,600 last year), colourful and beautiful to look at. It has a refresh rate of 120Hz but is not LTPO which means that in auto modes it will only go down to 60Hz, not 1Hz (as I understand it). You can force it onto 120Hz all the time if you like (Hyper smooth) but there's also Smart and Balanced (auto) or Efficiency first (which presumably means 60Hz always). I think these terms are new as I don't recall having seen them on a Moto phone up to now. It has a ratio of 20:9 and returns 446ppi (up from 395 last year).
The Moto G86 arrived on Android 15 and will get 2 OS updates (same as the G85), so to Android 17, and similarly to last year's model) they are promising 4 years of security updates, so to June 2029. I guess that at this price it's approaching reasonable, though Moto are no doubt aware that Samsung, particularly, even down in this segment are offering significantly more to customers. As usual, Moto go their own way on updates.
The G86 has a Mediatek Dimensity 7300 chipset, which is the same found in the Edge 50 Neo and proves to be a great performer for all-round use for most of the people out there doing most of the things that most people do with phones - particularly at this price-point. Last year's G85's SnapDragon 6s Gen 3 was also squarely in the same ballpark, as I reported in my review and performed perfectly well. Let's face it, if people are expecting to play demanding games or process high-end video, they're going to using specialist tools. This is a phone for the people - not extremes - and is nicely priced as such. I have no complaints here about the speed around the UI or tasks executed in general use.
Talking of which, there are a range of options for storage and RAM available depending on market/region. I have the 256GB/8GB version here. It looks like 256GB is the baseline now, which is great, though those hoping to shave more off the cost will look back at last year's 128GB version with envy. I applaud the hike in storage and Moto are tackling this one, often making 512GB the baseline in some lines. So yes, you can also get 256GB/12GB or 512GB/12GB RAM versions. Of course you can 'boost' the RAM (up to 24GB in fact) by utilising some of the storage for swapping working data around but trendy as this is to include, it's clear that this function is mostly smoke'n'mirrors.
What will make an impact for many is the inclusion of a microSD Card slot in the SIM Tray, just like last year's model. I do think people still value this so as to move data around readily, even if only once during setup. Well done Moto, I say! They say that up to 1TB is supported in the slot and I happen to have a 1TB card to test - and sure enough, works like a charm.
The G86 has got the pair of stereo speakers to which I referred earlier and they sound very similar - maybe a touch louder - than last Year's G85. At full volume they can get a little tinny, but playing with the Dolby Atmos equaliser settings and installing Wavelet sorts that out nicely. What you lose in a little volume you can make up for in quality. No, it's no Sony Xperia, but the stereo effect is good and soundstage wide and impactful 18" from the face. The vast majority of users will have no complains about the sound from the speakers and, yes, as I say, maybe a slight improvement. Much better to use the Bluetooth of course, if you can, with a decent pair of ear/headphones or hook it up to an external speaker, which all then sounds as good as what the supporting equipment provides.
Connectivity in my tests here is good. All boxes ticked and appear to be working well, for 5G, Wi-Fi 6 (over last year's 5), tested on 3 networks, Bluetooth 5.4, with good range and holding on well - again depending on attached gear, GPS for mapping applications - locking on quickly and staying so - and also NFC talking to other gear and payment terminals in shops. Again, check your region for what's included/supplied/working with all this stuff. Security seems good too with an under-glass optical fingerprint scanner and face unlock working together well, or indeed in isolation, in all-but the darkest conditions for face. Fingerprint scanning software, though never going to be as good as ultrasonic in my experience, makes registering easy/quick and in use, reliable.
The 5,200mAh battery will charge at up to 30W with an appropriately-powered adapter. No chance of the 125W charging of the high-end units or even the 68W of the upper-mid-range. No, here, we have 30W wired and no wireless charging either. I guess something has to give and personally, I'm OK with the 30W wired charging but have really come to rely on wireless (overnight) charging, inefficient and bad for the planet as I'm told it is. 30W wired is no slouch however and certainly better than it used to be with these lower-mid-range phones - and this one can be charged up in around an hour and a half, much like the G85. But the 5,200mAh battery is really well-performing, getting through 2 days of moderate/light use. The 10% Reading Test I do returned excellent result at well over 2 hours. You can always add a 3rd party Qi coil for a fiver from Amazon as long as you're OK wielding a case.
Moto's HelloUI is present and every phone released by them now comes with it. Even, yes, down here at this price-point. And it's very pretty, been redesigned in terms of front-end, colours, display options, all those great Moto Gestures which I have written about so much - all present and correct. The UI is very Vanilla - like a Pixel in many ways sticking to the tried and tested, but with Moto's sprinkling of genuinely useful additions, including some AI sneaking into some settings like CrystalTalk for reducing background noise on VOIP calls and whatever Google make available, like Gemini Live! It goes deeper than ever now as Moto prioritises security in keeping with what Google are doing as they evolve Android. As I say, I have written loads about HelloUI now, so check out my linked-to reviews above, especially the recent ones where I dig into the nitty-gritty of it all.
Moto's Smart Connect works brilliantly with the G86, wirelessly of course - only the very top phones get wired support, but actually, wireless is so good, I really don't think, armed with a reliable network connection in your space, wired is becoming unnecessary. Never thought I'd hear myself say that, being a big HDMI-Out fan for so long! Now of course sometimes a situation may arise where a network can't be relied on, then a cable becomes like gold dust. But networks are generally getting very good these days and the hospitality sector gearing themselves up generally for customer's needs. Anyway, it works perfectly here. I shall point you to my
Smart Connect Review and Features piece on my Blog as all the details are there, so click on through and see what's so great about it! And it's amazing that Moto are including all the hooks to make it work in even their lower-end phones now. Kudos.
The main
camera is a 50MP one with OIS, a supporting 8MP wide-angle with autofocus, up to 4K video at 30fps. There's a 32MP Selfie too. The test shots that I have taken here all seem perfectly good enough for the 98% of users who are going to post photos to social media and share with friends, leaving the 2% pixel-peepers no doubt to zoom in and tut-tut! That autofocus in the wide-angle camera allows for nice and close so-called Macro shots and shooting in Night Vision seems to pull out shareable photos even when the human eye sees pitch blackness! The camera software looks exactly the same to me as it is in various recent Motorola phones, so perhaps I'll point you now to my coverage in those.
ThinkPhone,
Edge 50 Pro,
Edge 50 Neo,
Edge 40 and so on! There's oodles of Moto stuff on my blog here. You'll have gathered that I'm a fan!
So there's a fair bit here that has been added and made better since last year's G85, the Gorilla Glass and IP-rating/Military certification for protection, the brightness of an already great P-OLED panel, a slightly improved chipset with storage and RAM options and a bigger battery that performs every bit as well as last year's model - if not better. Physically, the design seems to have gone down the road of many others these days, copying iPhone's squared-off edges. Personally, I prefer the G85's design, but each to their own. To be fair, the G86 fits just as snuggly in the hand, particularly without a case on, and I'm sure I'm outnumbered in preferring the non-Apple leanings!
There's stiff competition in this mid-range as I'm sure you know. Lots of choice and ranges of features - but I think this is where Moto gets it right. With a great camera performance all-round the feature for me that tops all that is Smart Connect. This makes a huge difference for desktop options and I strongly recommend that you follow my links, above, to read up about it and see how Moto have swiped the crown away from Samsung and their DeX option. Moto's Smart Connect is really impressive. And it's fully available right down the range to even these sub-£300 units for all to enjoy - families keeping in touch, business users hot-desking, gamers or simply people wanting to get content out of their phones to a TV or monitor. It's the jewel in Moto's crown as far as I'm concerned and makes this handset worth every penny.
