We were running out of time. Boost Mobile, which is powered by T-Mobile around here, was officially shutting down its 3G network and Sprint’s old 4G network at the end of March. We’d tried to get ahead of the process earlier in the year by replacing our incompatible phones. We’d successfully swapped my dad’s old phone with the Celero 5G. But our replacement for the LG Tribute Empire, our house phone, mysteriously disappeared. We decided we would pick up a replacement for the replacement at a later date.
It wasn’t long before that “later date” arrived in the form of multiple emails and text messages about the 5G switch. We couldn’t put off buying the replacement any longer. We all agreed that we would not be ordering another phone from the Boost Mobile website if we could help it. I was also hesitant to visit a brick-and-mortar Boost Mobile store to redeem one of the free phones the company had offered us because I feared a bait-and-switch situation—it’s happened to us before with other stores—and the employees had been rude in the past.
Walmart was our last option. The selection was limited compared to the Boost Mobile website, but all of the newest and cheapest phones were available. The moto g pure was the best choice at $69. Since Boost had already offered it to us for free at one point, I knew it would be compatible with the new 5G network. I ordered it through the Walmart app and it was ready for pick-up the next morning.
It’s been a few months now. Thus far, I’ve enjoyed the moto g pure.
Unboxing and Activation
The moto g pure came nestled in one of the white plastic bags that Walmart wraps online orders in. Once I cut that off, the box was the standard Boost Mobile affair. I unsealed the top flap (glued, not perforated) and pulled out the inner box that holds the phone and other accessories.
I like the Motorola box. It’s dark blue, with the name of the phone and the Motorola logo and name written on each side in white. Even the pieces of tape that secure the box’s flaps bear the fancy Motorola “M” on them. I hated that I had to cut across the tape to get to the phone.
The Motorola box opens from the side. The tabs slide out, and the top lifts up. The phone and the USB-C cord and adapter are laid out right there. Underneath the phone, there’s a rectangular piece of cardboard with a hole in the center, which you use to pull the piece out to reveal the starter guide and the SIM card ejector tool.
Activating the phone followed the standard procedure. The SIM card was inside an envelope that was taped to the back of the box. I put it in the phone and typed the IMEI number into the Boost Mobile website to facilitate the swap between the Tribute Empire and the moto g pure. The only snag was that I wasn’t sure if I had the updated SIM card necessary for the 5G network. I guessed yes based on the criteria that the site listed.
I ended up going to a Boost Mobile store a few days later to confirm my hunch. We were still getting emails about the network shutdown, so I wasn’t sure. The (surprisingly friendly) service person told me that the emails were just automated reminders that would stop once the switchover deadline passed. And they did.
First Impressions
When I booted up the phone, it emitted the classic “Hel-lo, mo-to!” greeting. I remember when that was the default Motorola ringtone, but I didn’t know it was still a thing! Cute.
The comparisons between the moto g pure and my dad’s Celero 5G began right away due to their similar sizes. The most noticeable difference is their weight. Whereas the Celero feels like a brick due to its metal and glass body, the moto g pure is light and thin thanks to its plastic casing. The plastic obviously doesn’t make for as premium of an appearance, though.
The front of the moto g pure is taken up by a beautiful 6.5″ Max Vision HD+ screen and thin black bezels. Like the Celero, there’s a notch around the front-facing camera. I have zero complaints about the moto g pure’s screen…though I will say that the Celero’s screen is slightly better and collects fewer fingerprints.
The back is the same dark blue as the Motorola box, with a swirly texture added for a better grip (though it’s still kinda slippery). A lighter shade of blue wraps around the cameras and flash mechanism, which are arranged on the top left corner like traffic lights, and covers the volume and power buttons too. There’s also a small circle near the back’s center with the Motorola “M” stamped on it that functions as the fingerprint reader.
The non-removable battery was charged about halfway out of the box. It only took 30-45 minutes to fully charge.
Performance and Cameras
The moto g pure runs on Android 11, 3 GB of RAM, and an Octa-Core Mediatek Helio G25 Octa Core processor. I would classify it as mid-range. It’s more powerful than the Tribute Empire, but it’s not as powerful as the Celero. When I started playing my go-to game Sonic Dash, there was some stuttering that I had never experienced before on the Celero.
While the storage size (32 GB) is acceptable for most people, it’s become a bit tight over time for me. As I write this, I’ve used 23.21 GB (including 11 GB for the system) of the available space. I suspect that these storage problems are causing some weird glitches. The phone completely freezes every so often, which I usually can fix by turning the screen off for a second. One time, however, the screen blanked out after an error message about the System UI quitting. I couldn’t see anything, though I knew the phone was still “on” otherwise because I couldn’t disconnect it from my Bluetooth speaker. I had to do a hard reboot to set things right again.
Battery life isn’t a problem at all. I have the phone in my hand practically every minute of the day and it only gets down to about 40% by bedtime. Even if I don’t charge it overnight, I can still go to about noon before things gets critical.
I don’t have much to say about the cameras. The 5 MP front camera takes decent enough photos, as evidenced by the selfie that I took with it. That’s about all I can expect from it. The rear cameras, which include a 13 MP “Main” camera and a 2 MP “Depth” one, are described as a “dual camera system.” The results are good, comparable to what I had with the Tribute Empire and its single camera. But the Celero’s triple camera system blows it out of the water. When I need to take a picture, I grab the Celero.
Lastly, I wasn’t thrilled with the included wall adapter and USB-C cord. The adapter is too easily displaced from the wall socket. Almost every time I grab the cord to plug it into the phone, the adapter pops out and falls on the floor. The USB-C cord has the opposite problem. It refuses to come out of the phone when I try to unplug it. I’m afraid that I’m damaging the USB-C port from the amount of tugging I have to do. Thankfully, it’s been loosening up as time passes.
Sound
The speaker, which is a grill located on the bottom right corner, is good. It’s loud even at the lowest level. At its highest level, the sound bounces off the walls with ease. It even has a bit of a kick to it with the right music.
The headphone jack is located on the top right corner. As I’ve said in other phone reviews, I’m not fond of that particular position. It puts too much stress on the headphone base, which eventually leads to one or both sides of the earbuds blipping out.
An extra feature that Motorola added to boost the phone’s sound is “Audio Effects.” It’s like a special kind of equalizer for music on the phone. It has different settings depending on which device the phone is connected to. On Bluetooth, for example, the settings include 3D Stereo, Home Theater, Live, and Custom.
I appreciate Audio Effects. Sometimes it really does help. The thing is, I could never find the right balance I was looking for. The music always sounded too hollow or muffled. Even when I customized the levels, it just didn’t sound right to me. I turned the feature off.
Face Unlock
As I’ve already mentioned, the moto g pure has a fingerprint reader on its back. Its setup process and usage is basically the same as the Celero’s (though it’s located in a better place), so let’s focus on the phone’s other security feature: face unlock. That’s right—I can also unlock the phone using my face.
Face unlock is crazy easy to set up. All I had to do was hold the phone up to my face so that it was aligned with the front-facing camera. Once it got whatever info it needed, I was done.
While it’s possible to have both the fingerprint reader and face unlock enabled at the same time, I prefer the former method. Face unlock is slightly slower. There’s a beat between when I lift the phone and when the phone unlocks. The pause isn’t that long, but it’s long enough that I was often unsure if anything was happening. The fingerprint reader, on the other hand, is practically instantaneous.
Additionally, face unlock doesn’t work if the phone is laying flat. I’ve seen commercials for other phones that you can unlock with your face if you lean over them while they’re on a table. Not this phone. You have to hold it up, which may as well announce to everyone in the area what you’re doing.
Gestures
The biggest thing to get used to about this phone is the abundance of new gestures. Motorola includes an app that lists every available gesture and allows you to toggle them on and off. I love some of the gestures. It’s much easier to shake the phone twice to turn on the flashlight or put three fingers on the display to take a screenshot, which are two of the first gestures the phone introduces.
Other gestures sound good in theory but don’t work well in practice. “Lift to unlock,” for example, is a gesture where the screen will turn on when you pick up the phone so you can see notifications and other info on the lockscreen without having to unlock the device. The problem is that the gesture is easily triggered. The cameras stick out from the back of the phone by a couple of inches, so the phone wobbles when it’s laying on a flat surface. If I lay the phone on a couch cushion, the screen will turn on every time I make the slightest movement.
Some of the gestures are plain frustrating. The on-screen buttons for Back, Home, and the app switcher are gestures by default. I had to make a sharp swipe left to go back a page, or swipe upwards from the bottom to go to the home screen. I never got the hang of it. With apps and websites where you browse items by swiping side-to-side, I kept accidentally triggering the Back function. Eventually, I found the setting that restored the onscreen buttons. The additional screen space from the lack of buttons wasn’t worth the headache.
Although I wanted to go all-in with the gestures, I only kept the flashlight and screenshot ones enabled. I guess I’m not ready to get that futuristic yet.
Conclusion
I think the moto g pure is a solid phone. It’s one of the fanciest phone we’ve owned. Although it’s not as nice as the Celero 5G, which is both more expensive and more powerful, it’s the perfect upgrade from the LG Tribute Empire. I would have preferred more storage space and better cameras, but the large screen is nice and the touches of blue are pretty. I would buy it again.