Moto G5s vs Moto G5s Plus

Price When Reviewed

US$249.99

We explain the key differences between the two new budget phones from Motorola to help you choose which is best for you. Also see: Best budget phones and Moto G5s/Moto G5s Plus latest news

Key specifications

What’s different?

For a start, the price. The Moto G5s is £40 cheaper than the G5s Plus at £219, and if you’re on a tight budget that could make all the difference.

Neither phone is on sale just yet (they should be on sale imminently), but Amazon is already listing product pages for the Moto G5s and Moto G5s Plus.

Out of the box the first thing you’ll notice is the difference in size. The Plus model is roughly 3mm taller and wider than the G5s, but they are of a similar thickness. Correspondingly, the Plus weighs in a bit heavier at 168g versus 157g.

This is because the G5s Plus has a larger screen – 5.5in against 5.2in. If you want to watch films and play games this could be useful, but other than sheer size the screen is actually not any better than that on the G5s.

They each have the same number of pixels – a full-HD resolution of 1920×1080 – but because they are more tightly packed on the G5s the screen should be sharper (424ppi vs 401ppi). This is such a tiny difference, though, we’d be amazed if anyone could tell the difference.

The Moto G5s Plus has a bit of extra grunt, too, though neither of these budget phones are going to offer flagship performance. In place of the G5s’ Snapdragon 430 and integrated Adreno 505 GPU it has the Snapdragon 625 and Adreno 506. Both are octa-core chips.

The most important difference between the two is in the camera department. Both will suit selfie fans thanks to a dedicated LED flash at the front, though the Plus will turn out sharper images thanks to its 8Mp lens (over 5Mp in the G5s).

For more serious photography the G5s has a 16Mp, f/2.0 camera with single-LED flash at the rear, which is capable of shooting full-HD (1080p) video. The Moto G5s Plus trumps it with a 13Mp, f/2.0 dual-camera, dual-LED flash and support for 4K video.

If you want a dual-SIM phone you should opt for the Moto G5s, but note that in some territories (likely including the UK) it will be sold as a single-SIM phone. Connectivity is otherwise largely the same between the two handsets, save for the fact the Plus model lists Wi-Fi support of the dual-band variety.

One final minor difference might be found in the colouring of each model. While both the G5s and G5s Plus list grey and gold versions, the Moto G5s is referred to as ‘fine gold’ and the Moto G5s Plus ‘blush gold’. Without seeing the two side by side we’re not entirely sure what is the difference between the two.

What’s the same?

Pretty much everything else, including the memory (3GB) and storage (32GB with support for microSD up to 128GB) allocations.

Both phones charge over Micro-USB with support for Turbo Charge and have 3000mAh batteries. But because the Moto G5s Plus is more powerful and has a larger screen, we would expect its battery life to be slightly shorter than that of the standard Moto G5s.

Each also supports NFC, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, A-GPS and GLONASS, and features a 3.5mm headphone jack, bottom-facing mono speaker, two mics and a fingerprint scanner.

Neither Moto G5s model is fully waterproof, though they feature a ‘water-repellent nano coating’, which means they are in essence splashproof.