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Motorola tackles budget, mid-range with 2021 Moto G, E

Leigh :) StarkbyLeigh :) Stark
April 6, 2021
Reading Time: 4 mins read
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There’s rumblings of competition in the mid-range and budget phone categories, as Motorola looks to offer several cameras and big batteries for low prices.

While the 2021 year of smartphones has started with a bit of a whimper rather than a bang, there’s still stuff coming. Slowly but surely, even as LG bows out.

Motorola appears to be the next with phones, but isn’t focusing on the high-end to start with, looking towards the mid-range and budget, because not everyone should need to spend a fortune to get something capable.

You may already know that mid-range and budget phones are improving in leaps and bounds, with much of the focus there. With that in mind, Moto’s first batch for 2021 is a replacement to a series that wasn’t released all that long ago, delivering new G-series mid-range and E-series budget phones.

We’ll go from budget to mid-range here, starting with the E-series, which sees two in Australia, the Moto E7 Power (above) and E7, with the E7 Power going for $159 and including a 5000 mAh battery and a 6.5 inch HD+ screen with a paltry 32GB storage and 2GB RAM, and really being a big phone for not much money. Don’t expect high performance with those specs, but at $159, it’s clear Moto is going for folks who don’t want a whole lot, yet still providing two cameras at the back, including a 13 megapixel main and a 2 megapixel macro.

A little bit better, the $199 Moto E7 (below) doubles the memory and storage to offer 64GB storage and 4GB RAM, keeping the screen the same, but cutting the battery back to 4000mAh. There is a better camera here, though, with that 13 megapixel camera upgrading to a 48 megapixel module alongside the 2 megapixel macro.

That’s the budget portion of Moto’s efforts in 2021, or at least the early part of the the year, it seems.

In the mid-range, Motorola is focused on the G10 and G30, replacements to the G9 series, which didn’t see release all that long ago. Gone are some of the cool features there — such as the bundled in truly wireless earphones — replaced with more focus on the phone itself, less on the extras, something Motorola Australia told us came down to price.

“We did a lot of evaluation internally, and though it is a great proposition for consumers, we wanted to hold the price point as close as we could,” said Danny Adamopolous, General Manager of Sales for the Asia-Pacific region, basically saying that they weren’t able to add that value this time, but we’d likely see it in later versions.

So the focus on the 2021 G-series is instead on what the phones can deliver that makes them about value in the mid-range, keeping the price competitive.


For starters, there’s the G10 (above), which pairs a Snapdragon 460 with 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, a 6.5 inch HD+ screen and a 5000mAh battery, making it a little like the Moto E7 Power in size, screen, and battery, but with more grunt.

The extra grunt extends to the camera and connectivity, which sees four cameras here: a 48 megapixel wide camera, an 8 megapixel ultra-wide, a 2 megapixel depth camera, and a 2 megapixel macro camera, too, all in a $249 phone, with Near-Field Communication (NFC) for Google Pay added, too, something that’s missing in the 2021 Moto E series.

Finally, there’s the Moto G30 (below), which takes much the same body, screen, and battery but upgrades the processor to a faster Snapdragon 662, the storage to 128GB, the screen to support a faster refresh rate for smoother animations (60Hz on the G10, 90Hz on the G30), and the main camera being boosted from 48 megapixels to 64 megapixels. That’ll come in the $299 Moto G30.


“This year, Motorola is more committed than ever to push industry boundaries, as demonstrated by our newest smartphones,” said Adamopolous.

“The latest iteration of our Moto E and G series embody our mission to bring exceptional value and outstanding features to Australians, offering quality camera systems, long lasting battery and stellar performance at a great value for money price.”

However keeping that value seems something the company does with the balance of parts for price. For instance, while the G-series used to sit in the middle, the G10’s use of a 4xx Snapdragon is much lower than the 6xx used in the G30, and all four phones use a lower-than-expected HD+ screen. That may come across as jargon, but it means the big screen won’t be sharp, a feature that might be important to some, though perhaps not all.

Price appears to be where Motorola’s foursome is squarely focused, keeping the cost down amidst a smaller lifecycle for phones. With the G9 only released a few months ago back in 2020, there may only be a few more months until the next G-series pops up all the same, and that may mean Motorola’s current mid-range phones may end up being a little less expensive six months from now when a new model arrives.

For now, the Moto E7, E7 Power, G10, and G30 are heading to stores across Australia.

Leigh :) Stark

Leigh :) Stark

One of Australia's well regarded technology journalists working out of Sydney, Leigh Stark has been writing about technology for over 15 years, covering phones, computers, cameras, headphones, speakers, and more. Stylising his middle initial with an emoticon, he aims to present tech in a way that makes it easy for everyone. While he founded Pickr in 2016, Stark's work can be seen in other publications including The Australian Financial Review, Popular Science, and many more. His award-winning podcast "The Wrap" is syndicated on Southern Cross Austereo's LiSTNR network weekly, while he can be heard on radio via ABC Brisbane and ABC Canberra, and seen on TV's Nine. Check out Leigh Stark's most recent media appearances.

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