Motorola Moto G06 Review

Introduction

The Motorola G06 continues another trend of acceptably budget handsets from the old mobile king of the castle. And having tested almost all of them in the past two years, even I’m beginning to lose track of the naming scheme.

Making matters worse — when they’re usually quite positive — performance seems to be getting slower as the years go by, going against the initial idea that trickle-down tech would make cheaper phones with increasing price-to-performance value.

Sadly, the Moto G06 is a step in the wrong direction, with the corner-cutting finally catching up with a brand that has gone from the cutting edge to the best of the bargain bin.

Design

• Grippy textured vegan leather finish with Pantone colours
• Thicker bezels and droplet-style selfie camera cutout
• Comes with a plastic cover in the box

The Moto G06 brings back the vegan leather rear in a handful of vibrant Pantone colours. Fresh out of the box, it’s a wonderfully grippy surface that won’t dare slide out of your palm. It’s good to have a little texture to touch.

Outside of that, it’s largely the same phone we’ve fiddled around with before. A tall display with a thin chin brings back memories of the Google Pixel 2, with a droplet-style selfie camera causing less of a punch hole in the screen and more of a dip.

In the green colourway (sorry, PANTONE Tendril), the plastic surround carries a metallic sheen to create an almost golden frame, with a matching volume rocker and power button being the only thing other than the SIM slot to interrupt the presentation.

Underneath is a USB-C 2.0 port and a three-piece speaker grill, with surprisingly loud stereo sound supported by the earpiece. On the top is a 3.5mm headphone jack. Motorola isn’t letting that one go on its budget line.

That means there’s little in the way of waterproofing. It can withstand a splash for sure, but don’t drop it into the bath.

In the box is, well, barely anything. It’s easily recycled, but there are few freebies besides a clear rubber case and a charging cable. With only 10W charging, any brick you have around the house will satisfy this one’s limited charging needs.

Screen

• 720p 120Hz IPS panel
• Droplet-style selfie camera cuts into the display
• Off-axis reduces brightness

At 720 x 1640, this is what we consider a sub-HD panel in a rather large form factor. And even though there’s a noticeable lack of sharpness to on-screen graphics and app icons, text is perfectly legible without obvious pixelation.

The lower resolution also takes some of the strain off the processor by having fewer pixels to render, which should be a lifesaver for this handset’s performance. More on that shortly.

Perhaps surprising to some is this screen’s ability to climb to 120Hz. It’s a feature that has only just been introduced to Apple’s iPhone 17, so seeing the cheapest devices match that will always be a win. Just don’t expect to put it to much use with a processor that can barely keep up.

Being an IPS panel, colours appear accurate and only brightness takes a hit when viewed at an angle. Other than that, it’s bright enough for use in almost any situation, but glaring summer sun might be too much to ask.

In movies, especially documentaries, it struggles to have the lifelike glow you get from more high-end devices. At least the large screen makes for easy viewing. In all, it’s a screen that, while good enough for a limited use case, is evidently the bare minimum you can expect in 2025.

Camera

• 50MP rear shooter
• 16MP selfie camera
• 2x zoom

Rocking the same 50MP AI camera setup we’ve seen in other Moto handsets like the recent Moto G86, it’s one we consider serviceable for the price.

Wonky general performance means you won’t be taking shots in quick succession, especially in dimly-lit scenes, and moving objects are largely out of the question, but there’s enough resolution to capture landscapes, objects, and documents, with a little 2X zoom there to make it useful as a magnifying glass.

Under artificial lighting, the results aren’t terrible. An assortment of knick-knacks retain most of their character, but not necessarily their texture, leading to some looking unusually smooth.

In trying to snap a shot of an animal that can’t sit still for half a second, sluggish speeds lead to blurring. Not enough to render it entirely unusable, but hardly printable and more reminiscent of a disposable camera at a wedding reception.

The 16MP selfie camera punches perhaps a smidge above its weight. Stray hairs can compromise edge detection. The default settings smooth you in the same way as the rear shooters, too. However, the results are good enough for silly Snapchat posts and video calls.

Performance

• Sluggish all-round performance
• Barely suited to even simple 3D games
• Inconsistent stuttering in everyday use

Sadly, the Moto G06 just isn’t up to most tasks. Once it gets going, it just about gets there. But even basic operation is like wading through water. Startup takes a while, there’s a delay in launching and minimising apps, and scrolling anything has a penchant to stutter.

In the GFXBench tests used for well over a decade now, the Moto G06 could only manage 12fps on the pair. In Wildlife (not Extreme, that wouldn’t launch) the Moto G06 scored just 663. That translates to an average of 3.79 frames per second. A slideshow.

In Geekbench, a test that puts the processor through various everyday tasks, 409 was the single-core score, while multi-core came back at 1368. It also took upward of 10 minutes to complete, which is never a good sign for real-world performance.

That means the 120Hz panel on this is unlikely to see much use. Aside from reading ebooks, where there’s virtually nothing more for the processor to do outside of rendering text, there’s little chance of enjoying the smooth scrolling of the 120Hz panel. While partaking in the reading of digital parchment, though, you’ll notice the fluidity of turning the page or sliding through a chapter.

In a suitable full-screen app, performance is fine. Not outstanding, but not egregious. And by suitable apps, we mean those that come pre-installed. Whether you like it or not, they’re likely cherry-picked to not cause immediate problems. They’re simple enough to dabble in and won’t highlight the handset’s shortcomings too quickly.

Under a moderate gaming scenario, load times were ok, but overall performance took a while to settle in. Frequent skips were observed throughout. It’s decent enough to handle simple Roblox games to keep smaller kids entertained in a pinch, but anything else is too much for this one to handle. It’s Mahjong or nothing.

Closing the app also didn’t cut off the audio for a good 10 seconds, so there’s a chance of embarrassing yourself in public if you don’t keep this on silent and accidentally tap the wrong app.

Software

• Android 15
• Some bloatware pre-installed
• Few first-party features

Running Android 15, there isn’t much to speak of when it comes to the general software experience with the Moto G06. You’ll spot the usual plethora of pre-installed games that can’t put a dent in the surprisingly generous 256GB storage space. They’re also easily removed with a hold and tap.

Other than that, it’s a fairly inoffensive Android build with some of the niceties like Circle to Search. Open the app drawer and you’ll find a few first-party apps, but nothing that pops up to bug you with notifications and permission demands. It’s somewhat clean and as simple as Android can be. It’s just a little heavy for the chipset.

Thankfully, if set up by an experienced user beforehand, it’s more than good enough to rely on Google Gemini. We had it read out letters and explain the purpose of nearby objects with the camera, with a clear back-and-forth conversation highlighting how the Moto G06 can be a very inexpensive and invaluable tool to someone who just needs a little help around the house.

Battery

• 5200mAh battery
• 10W charging
• Impressive runtime

Despite flashing some fast-charging moniker while juicing up on a powerful plug, there’s no getting around the Moto G06’s sluggish 10W peak power draw. While nowhere near a dealbreaker, you’ll average 1% of life per minute hooked up to the average wall wart. We reached the 50% mark after 55 minutes, with a full trickle charge taking just over two hours.

In use, battery life is actually solid. A low-performance screen paired with a suitable chip means this underpowered device can’t really tax the battery.

In practice, the Moto G06 sips power and can be trusted to survive around a week left around the house. It’s a good emergency device. In use, the aforementioned light 3D gaming tossed back just 4% battery, while an hour of Netflix on suitable indoor brightness slurped 7%. That’s just a smidge less than the average handset.

Should you buy it?

FAQs