Audiovisual Connectivity Performance Battery Camera Navigate this article: This has happened to me a few times that people around me have been able to guess that it’s a Moto phone without having a look at the logo or any other hint. And that’s telling of how familiar the Motorola design is. Take the example of the G31 at hand, which has an unassuming physique but its textured back with slight curves by the edges, an average build of about 181 grams heft and 8.6mm thickness makes it fairly wieldable.

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Even things like a rather raised button placement, especially the Google one makes it seem like a Moto phone I’ve used before. By the way, these buttons are on the right side and are tactile. As for the left-hand side, there’s just the hybrid dual SIM slot. At the top, there’s a 3.5mm audio jack and a mic hole. The other mic is at the bottom flanked by a USB-C socket and a speaker grille. The alignment of these slits is a bit off, which is a minor thing that only folks like me would notice. Another nitpicking is for the slight wobble whence the thing is placed on a flat surface. The camera island isn’t that bumpy but still, it does rock. On the other hand, my attention to detail does allow me to appreciate the grip and glaze offered by the interlined finish. Albeit made out of plastic, it doesn’t feel plasticky, rather firm it is. Therein at the back is where the fingerprint scanner is present. It unlocks fast and reliably as much as the face unlocker upfront. The latter resides in a black hole. Anyhoo, let’s unlock the handset and take a look at its fascia. Moto G31 comes with a 6.4-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a punch hole at the center. The bezels on all sides except the bottom one are slim. The width of the chin perhaps provides some resting space for the fingers while you hold the device in landscape orientation. There is no high-speed refresh rate or other fancy features here. It’s a 60Hz panel that feels fairly normal to interact upon. The colors and contrasts also appear alright. It’s sufficiently bright outdoors. The Adaptive Brightness thingy works fine. You also get color profiles (Natural, Saturated, and temperature tuner), system-UI theming options, Dark Theme, Night Light, Attentive Display, split-screen, screen recorder tucked inside the Display Settings. Moving to the audio side, you have got a single speaker system and a headphone jack. The sound output from the solo grille at the bottom is fairly loud but not full. For what it’s worth there is Dolby Atmos tuning in the mix. As for wireless audio and stuff, scroll down. The call quality (dual 4G VoLTE SIMs, BTW) is fine for both parties in the conversation. That’s from the earpiece and mic setup. You could always plug in an earphone or listen wirelessly over Bluetooth 5.0. The paraphernalia also consists of VoWiFi, dual-band WiFi ac, NFC, GPS, and a USB-C 2.0 port. These are the connectivity options for you. Next up, let’s check out the hardware stowed inside this polycarbonate chassis. Motorola packs a MediaTek Helio G85 processor. It’s one from last year, but we have seen some good phones wielding this chip. It’s fabbed on a 12nm process with 2 Cortex-A75 cores running at 2.0GHz clock speed and 6 Cortex-A55 cores at 1.8 GHz frequency. This is complemented by up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. You can expand the latter further up to 1TB using a microSD card. Here is a list of the standard synthetic tests: The software layer on top of this is Android 11 with My UX. This is nothing but stock OS with some Motorola tweaks and treats. Some of my favorites include the Google discover page, three-finger screenshot, karate chop motion for fast torch access, a quick twist of the phone to open the camera, peek display for a glance at notifications, and important information like date, time, battery percentage, etc. There is Moto Gametime also which lets you record game footage, have quick access to up to 2 communication apps, disable auto-brightness, block notifications, and calls. Above you can see the max graphics and frame rate supported by some popular titles. A half an hour gameplay of Asphalt 9 drinks up 7% juice. Now all these actions take up a lot of energy. Let’s see what the phone has to offer in this respect. Moto G31 is powered by a 5000mAh battery and can be topped up using a 20W charger. In the PCMark (Work 3.0) test, the device ran for 15 hours 56 minutes which is an amazing runtime. Also since the phone runs on stock Android, your battery mileage expectations can be bullish. The bundled charger fills the tank in about 2 hours 40 minutes. To eke out more juice and increase the endurance of the battery, you can use settings like the battery saver, overcharge protection, and adaptive battery option. Moving on… At the back of Moto G31, there are three cameras and a flashlight module. The leader is a 50MP sensor which is very much in vogue these days. It contrives pixel binned shots. The remaining two in the pack are an 8MP ultrawide snapper (also acts up as a depth-sensing unit) and a 2MP macro shooter. Flip to the front, and there is a 13MP selfie clicker. From both sides, you get to take only 1080P videos that are locked at 30 FPS. Besides the usual Portrait, Night Vision, Pro Mode, Slow-Mo, Timelapse, Panorama, here Moto presents some unique modes like Spot Color, Dual Capture, Cinemagraph (GIF-maker), etc. The photos from the Moto G31 carry natural colors and perceivable details when there is sufficient light. However as the light reduces, the results come out dull. The situation is worse in case of the color parity and exposure control between the main and ultrawide sensors as you can see in the above clicks. The case of metering struggle does flip in some cases which shows the underlying inconsistency. The third sensor is for namesake as the close-up shots aren’t worth sharing or posting anywhere. Although in the ultrawide night shots (without the night mode) things are visible thanks to how much ever light the phone manages to conjure, the missing details and the resulting noise is obvious. Turn on night mode, and at least from the primary camera, you can bring about better results. Better as in sharper details and nicely controlled exposure. Finally, coming to the human subjects, the portrait mode does an okay job in edge detection and background blurring. And with that, we are at the endnote — G31’s highlights are its FHD+ AMOLED screen, a 50MP camera, a 5000mAh battery with 20W charging support, and an ad-free as well as bloat-free Android experience. Now the lack of a high-refresh panel is understandable as we mostly get to see either AMOLED@60Hz or LCD@90Hz in this price range. Next up are the cameras, and the main one does a fair job in good conditions, while the rest not so much. Moving inwards, the battery life is dependable. And so is the performance from the Helio G85 processor, although it’s a bit too long in the tooth at this point. Anyways, the real pull factor is the stock-ish software. Motorola banks on this and if that’s no object to you, this one’s worth adding to the cart. Q. Does Moto G31 has a dedicated microSD slot? A. Yes, Moto G31 has a hybrid expandable micro-SD Card slot up to 1TB. Q. Does Moto G31 come with Gorilla Glass protection? A. Yes, Moto G31 features Gorilla Glass protection, although the variant is not known. Q. Does Moto G31 support dedicated memory card? A. No, Moto G31 come with a hybrid slot that facilitate storage expansion upt 1TB. Q. What is the SAR value of Moto G31? A. Moto G31 SAR values are 0.93 W/Kg (Head); 1.39 W/Kg (Body) Q. Does Moto G31 support dual-band WiFi? A, Yes, Moto G31 supports dual-band WiFi (2.4GHz + 5GHz). Q. Does Moto G31 support VoWiFi or WiFi calling? A. Yes, Moto G31 does feature Call over WiFi. Q. How many microphones are on the Moto G31? A. Moto G31 comes with two microphones. Q. Is Moto G31 water resistant? A. No Moto G31 doesn’t have any IP rating. It has got just a water repellant design. Q. Which is the Android update on Moto G31? A. Moto G31 ships with October 01 security patch and August 1 Google Play System Update. The company is promising the Android 12 upgrade and two years of security patches too. Q. Does Moto G31 support GCam or Camera2API? A. Moto G31 comes with Full Camera2API support for GCam. But, whether there is a modded GCam for the Helio G85 processor is a different thing. Q. Does Moto G31 support Netflix Full HD streaming? A. Yes, Moto G31 supports DRM L1 certification for full HD streaming on Netflix and the likes.

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