Motorola Moto G35 5G review: Sharper but slower

Price When Reviewed

Unavailable in the US

Motorola has been resurgent in the premium phone market of late, turning out high-quality efforts like the Motorola Edge 50 Ultra and the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra. However, the company clearly hasn’t forgotten that it built its reputation on solidly built yet incredibly cheap phones.

The Moto G35 5G is Motorola’s latest phone in this mould, offering ostensibly moderate specs for a sub-£150 price tag. But has it got the balance of components right this time?

Design & Build

• Plastic or eco leather finishes
• Larger but thinner than before
• Water repellant design

Motorola has given its latest cheap phone a slightly larger footprint than the preceding Moto G34 5G at 166.07 x 75.98mm. It’s also a tad heavier at 188g (or 191g for the eco leather model), though this still makes it relatively lightweight.

On the plus side, the Moto G35 5G is even slimmer than before at just 7.79mm thick.

As I’ve already alluded to, the Leaf Green and Guava Red models come with a faux leather finish on the back. Unfortunately, I was sent the rather drab Midnight Black variant, which comes in bog standard matt plastic.

Even so, it’s good to see Motorola taking advantage of the use of plastic and forming a flowing, integrated camera bump. It adds a touch of low-key class to the design.

There’s no in-display fingerprint sensor here. Instead, Motorola has gone with a cheaper power button-based solution. It’s reliable, if not especially speedy.

Motorola’s vague “water repellant design” designation makes a return, so you wouldn’t want to drop the Moto G35 5G in a pool of water. It should stand up to a light rain shower, though.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

On the plus side, Motorola has packed a case into the box this time around. It’s only a cheap clear rubbery thing, but given the target audience – younger or older users, or simply those who don’t have a lot of money to spare – any additional form of protection is welcome.

Also notable is a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom edge. Again, it’s a welcome provision given that many buyers won’t have a lot of money to splash around on fancy Bluetooth headphones.

Screen & Speakers

• 6.72-inch LCD
• 120Hz peak refresh rate
• Stereo speakers

Motorola has good reason for making the Moto G35 5G larger than its predecessor, and that is the inclusion of a larger display. The company has gone with a 6.72-inch LCD this time around.

In truth, the size difference is neither here nor there. I’m just glad that Motorola has gone with a Full HD+ (1080 x 2400) resolution this time around, unlike the outdated 720p screen of the Moto G34 5G. It means that text and images always look reasonably sharp here, regardless of how small or detailed they are.

Motorola has once again supplied a full 120Hz refresh rate. It’s set to automatically switch between 60- and 120Hz by default, but you can force either on all the time in the Settings menu. I ran my model in full 120Hz mode for most of the review period, as usual.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

In practice, I found this provision of a 120Hz refresh rate to be rather meaningless, given the Moto G35 5G’s stuttering performance – something that those extra pixels also contribute to, no doubt. I’ll get to that shortfall soon enough.

What with this being a relatively cheap and cheerful LCD display rather than OLED, you shouldn’t expect deep blacks, rich colours, or pronounced contrast. Motorola offers two colour modes: the cool and punchy Vivid mode or the warmer and more muted Natural.

Neither of these is especially colour accurate, it has to be said, but then you need to temper your expectations at this price point.

Back on the positive front, this panel certainly gets nice and bright. I recorded a maximum brightness of 732 nits with autobrightness off and the extra brightness setting toggled on – very impressive for such a cheap phone.

While the Moto G35 5G comes with stereo speakers and Dolby Atmos support, you shouldn’t expect outstanding audio output. What it does do is get reasonably loud whilst remaining fairly clear, which is all you can hope for at this end of the market.

As mentioned earlier, it comes with the rare benefit of a traditional headphone socket.

Specs & Performance

• Unisoc T760 chipset
• 4GB RAM
• Generally slow, stuttering performance
• 128GB storage

When it comes to the performance of a sub-£150 smartphone, I only expect two fairly modest things: that it be fast enough to handle general navigation reasonably smoothly, and that it be faster than any previous models in the range. Unfortunately, the Moto G35 5G fails on both counts.

Motorola has switched to a very humble Unisoc T760 chip, and it doesn’t seem capable of standing up to the creaky Snapdragon 695 of the Moto G34 5G.

There’s the notable mitigating circumstance of the Moto G35 5G having a much sharper, more demanding FHD+ display.

However, that just makes me wonder even more why Motorola didn’t go for a more capable processor, or even more than the same meagre 4GB allotment of RAM – apart from to keep the bill of materials down.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

In Geekbench 6 multi-core benchmark terms, the Moto G35 5G barely scored any better than the Moto G34 5G, while in graphical benchmarks the 2023 model absolutely blows the G35 away.

Again, this can largely be attributed to the uptick in display sharpness, which is very much welcome. I’d happily sacrifice abstract benchmark results for such practical display gains.

The trouble is, that shortfall in performance manifests itself very obviously in day-to-day usage. Every task, from unlocking the phone to flitting between home screens and even dropping down the notification menu is accompanied by a very apparent degree of stutter.

Basic UI animations are wallowy and halting, causing a steady build-up of frustration. My patience with the phone died a death of a thousand micro-pauses.

Gaming performance is at a pretty low level, as you’d expect. The Moto G35 5G will run Genshin Impact, but if you want anything like a playable frame rate you’ll want to keep it set to the lowest graphical settings. Even then, it’s not exactly smooth. Less intensive games like Slay the Spire will run just fine, though.

You’ll find ample storage space, at least, with 128GB (the same as some flagship phones four times the price) as standard along with a microSD slot for expansion purposes.

There’s NFC, Wi-Fi 5, and GPS as before, but even the provision of Bluetooth 5.0 is technically a step back from the Moto G34 5G’s Bluetooth 5.1.

That’s unlikely to make any sort of practical difference for the Moto G35 5G’s likely audience, but it adds to the overall sensation that the Moto G35 5G’s baseline spec (screen and camera aside) represents a step back.

Cameras

• 50Mp f/1.8 main camera
• 8Mp f/2.2 ultrawide camera
• 4K @ 30fps video

Motorola has souped up its camera offering for the Moto G35 5G, if only slightly. While the 50Mp f/1.8 main camera remains, there’s now a dedicated 8Mp ultrawide too rather than a pointless macro sensor.

The main camera is capable of taking adequate shots in good lighting. They’re not the kinds of snaps that will take nicely to being blown up on a good laptop screen and poured over, but they’re eminently sharable in social media circles.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

As before, there can be a fair amount of over-saturation to bright colours, and a smidgen of over-exposure in highlights. But they generally look good for a cheap phone of this kind.

That quality completely falls apart in lesser lighting, with a night mode that ramps up the brightness, but really doesn’t seem to do all that much for detail or noise reduction. There’s no OIS (optical image stabilisation) here, which likely doesn’t help.

I also encountered a strange bug that saw several food pictures I took rendered irretrievable, with only a low-res thumbnail image remaining.

The 8Mp ultrawide doesn’t capture particularly great snaps, with a much lighter tone and a lack of sharpness, but its inclusion is welcome. You also get a solid 16Mp front camera that can capture adequate selfies.

The addition of an ultrawide camera completes a camera package that’s good enough for the money.

One big improvement with the Moto G35 5G is the addition of 4K video recording at 30fps. The Moto G34 5G could only manage 1080p, so this represents a considerable advance.

Battery Life & Charging

• 5000mAh battery
• 18W charging speeds
• No charger in the box

Motorola has used another 5000mAh battery for the Moto G35 5G. Once again, it produces strong results, though not quite as good as the Moto G34 5G before it.

In our usual PCMark Work 3.0 battery test, the Moto G35 5G lasted 10 hours and 30 minutes. That’s an hour and 12 minutes less than the Moto G34 5G.

You don’t have to look far to find the culprit for that, of course. Running significantly more pixels on a display will naturally sap more power, and it’s a trade-off I’m more than happy to make.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

Especially given that the Moto G35 5G was still able to get me through a day of moderate usage with ease.

In a 14-hour day with around 4 hours and 30 minutes of screen-on time, I’d still be left with around half a tankful left. That’s a strong result, if not exactly atypical within the affordable smartphone landscape.

This was with the display forced to 120Hz all the time, too, so you could eke even more out if you stuck with the default auto refresh rate setting.

One area where Motorola has taken a step back is with its charging provision.

You no longer get a power prick bundled in, unlike with the Moto G34 5G and other previous models. The industry has been going this way for a while and for some noble reasons but it’s still potentially a bit of a bind if you haven’t kept hold of a previous charger, or you’re moving from a different charging port.

In terms of supported charging speeds, Motorola has once again gone with 18W. Using a suitably capable third-party charger, I recorded the Moto G35 5G charging from empty to 21% in 15 minutes, and to 36% in 30 minutes. A full 0 to 100% charge took about 1 hour 45 minutes.

That’s broadly in line with the Moto G34 5G, as you’d expect. It’s not especially fast, but isn’t a terrible provision for the price.

Software & Apps

• Android 14
• Security updates until 2027

Motorola has long supplied some of the most appealingly clean software in the affordable phone market, and the Moto G35 5G keeps up that tradition.

It runs on Android 14 out of the box, with minimal embellishment and very little in the way of bloatware. There are a couple of third-party pre-installations I could have done without, led by TikTok and LinkedIn.

I don’t see the point of installing the Opera web browser as standard when Chrome is already there, either. Otherwise, this is a nice clean take on Android, with icons and menus that stick close to Google’s way of doing things on its own phones like the Pixel 8a.

Jon Mundy / Foundry

This is pretty spare even by Motorola’s standards. You don’t even get the dedicated Moto app this time, which provides a gateway to its custom tips and gestures.

You’ll now find the latter buried in the Settings menu. It’s a more streamlined approach, but I wasn’t averse to Motorola’s previous approach, as it was handled in a nice approachable manner and one we’ve always been fond of at Tech Advisor.

Motorola has still included its Moto Secure app, which provides an accessible way to manage your phone’s security. Family Space, meanwhile, lets you create a safe digital environment for younger family members with full parental controls.

When it comes to updates, Motorola has confirmed that the Moto G35 5G will get updated to Android 15 and that it’s down for security updates through to August 2027.

Price & Availability

You can buy the Moto G35 5G direct from Motorola UK for £149.99, which is the same price as the Moto G34 5G in 2023. It’s also available at the same price from third-party retailers like Argos, John Lewis, and Currys.

It won’t be made available in the US so look to the very similar Moto G 5G (2024) for $199.

That makes the Moto G35 5G one of the more affordable phones on the market. Samsung’s non-5G Galaxy A15 comes with an RRP of £169, while its Galaxy A05s costs £129.

Switching over to Xiaomi, the Redmi 14C gives you double the RAM and storage, a larger 5160mAh battery, and a larger (if less sharp) 6.88-inch display for £159. The Poco M6 offers something broadly similar for the same RRP.

Check out our list of the best budget phones for the top options.

Should you buy the Motorola Moto G35 5G?

We’re used to accepting compromises in our sub-£149 smartphones, but the Moto G35 5G arguably goes a little too far.

While I’m glad to see Motorola add a larger and sharper 6.72in FHD+ display, it has come at the expense of smooth performance. Using the Moto G35 day to day is an exercise in frustration.

If you can live with the constant stutters and pauses, you might appreciate the addition of a dedicated 8Mp ultra-wide camera, solid battery life, and Motorola’s clean software provision.

It still belongs in the ‘good enough’ category – just about – but spending a little more can get you a much slicker day-to-day experience.