A stylish bargain – Motorola Moto G15 smartphone review

Motorola has now gone as far as to apply its design language, consisting of a faux leather back and gently integrated camera module, to its really affordable smartphones. The Moto G15 looks super high-quality for its price range and has a very clean finish. There are options for fans of brighter colors as well as for those who prefer something more understated.

In terms of performance, Motorola has made an effort to bring a little more power to its entry-level class, but it can't keep up with the Samsung Galaxy A15. During everyday use, you'll still have to live with stutters and waiting times.

Good battery life, precise location services and a decent ultra-wide-angle camera make the phone a good alternative for those on a budget.

However, some negatives remain: its short update period of only 2 years, lots of pre-installed bloatware, slow storage and only adequate speakers.

Compared to its predecessor, on the other hand, the Moto G15 is more stylish, significantly faster and has a better camera setup. Given the small price difference, the new model is therefore the better choice.

At the time of writing, you can get the Motorola Moto G15 from Amazon for $149.99.

Affordable and good—that may as well be Motorola's slogan. Nowadays, Lenovo's cell phone brand manages to cover every category from low-cost phones to high-end phones—with truly good devices with high build quality at low prices.

Has this once again been a success with the release of the Motorola Moto G15? At first glance, it looks very promising, with a beautifully designed case, a large battery and even a wide-angle camera.

And even at second glance, we find its case to be one of the most elegant currently available in a cell phone under $200. This is not only thanks to its artificial leather on the back, but also to its finish without any gaps, even material transitions and attractive curve which integrates the camera module into the back.

If our test device's orange color or the additionally available green colorway is too bold for you, you can also go for a simpler gray. Synthetic leather is used in all three variants and feels great thanks to its slight texture.

The Moto G15 has gained a little weight compared to its predecessor, the Moto G14, due to its larger screen and slightly higher-capacity battery. Nevertheless, at 190 grams, the Moto G15 is still quite lightweight compared to other low-cost phones.

Its screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 3 and the whole phone is IP54-certified. A little rain won't bother the phone, but you should avoid immersion in water.

The phone's storage can be expanded via a microSD reader. During our test with the Angelbird V60 reference card, the reader worked reasonably quickly.

Still, a CO₂ analysis of the product's production and life cycle is available: the analysis assumes 37.73 kilograms of CO₂ emissions. This is a relatively low value, so if you are looking for a cell phone that is as environmentally friendly as possible in this aspect, you can go for it.

Otherwise, its packaging is plastic-free and doesn't use mineral oil-based printing inks. It is difficult to find any repair instructions and spare parts online.

The Motorola Moto G15 is a 4G phone, which isn't unusual in this price range. The LTE frequencies it supports are sufficient for use in Central Europe, where this test was carried out. However, anyone planning to travel further afield should check in advance whether the phone can actually connect to the 4G network in your destination country.

WiFi 5 is its fastest available Wi-Fi standard. In our test using the Asus ROG Rapture AXE11000 reference router, our device hit expected transmission rates of around 260 - 370 MBit/s.

Motorola uses Google's standard app for making calls; it offers many functions and is well integrated into the system.

When on a call during our test, the phone's microphone recorded our voice quite clearly and distinctly—the earpiece sounded slightly muffled and some background noise could be heard from time to time. The loudspeaker and hands-free microphone also allowed us to be heard quite clearly by the person on the other end of the line, although our conversation partner sounded a little treble-heavy on our end.

In our test lab, the main camera took photos with an average sharpness level, but its color reproduction and contrasts were quite good. In 1 lux of residual light, only very bright areas of the test chart could be seen.

In addition to a protective silicone case, the phone comes with a data cable and a SIM tool. You'll have to buy a charger yourself but during our test, the smartphone worked with all our power adapters without any problems.

In the USA, the Motorola phone is covered by a standard 12-month warranty.

Motorola uses the same SoC as in its Moto G05, namely the MediaTek Helio G81, which isn't enough to be a threat to the Samsung Galaxy A15—but the Moto G15 at least offers a bit more performance than some competitors in the same price range.

Even so, stutters and waiting times can't be ruled out when navigating through the system, especially as the screen is only a 60 Hz panel, which doesn't increase the perceived responsiveness of the touchscreen.

Its GPU performance, too, is at a low level and only sufficient for basic tasks.

Although the Moto G15 is quite fast within its class when surfing the web, you'll still have to face longer loading times for websites and wait for images to load in when scrolling quickly.

Motorola has proven to be a little stingy when it comes to the phone's storage, only installing sluggish eMMC flash, while the Moto G14 predecessor model already had UFS 2.2 storage. This is annoying and slows down the system.

There's no need to worry about the Moto G15 heating up too much: Even after prolonged use, the device reached a maximum temperature of only 38.7 °C during our test. Although this is noticeable, it is by no means a problem.

It also maintained its performance: After many runs of various 3DMark benchmarks, the frame rates we measured stayed largely constant.

When it comes to power consumption, the Moto G15's performance is generally decent. However, at up to 8.5 watts under full load, it consumes significantly more energy than a Samsung Galaxy A15, for example. In idle mode, on the other hand, its consumption is low.

The phone can be charged at up to 18 watts. A full battery charge took around 2:30 hours during our test; a charger is not included with the phone.

The device's 5,200 mAh battery provides more capacity than comparable phones. As a result, the Moto G15 achieved slightly longer runtimes of almost 17 hours during our Wi-Fi test. With normal use, you should be able to use the phone for 2 days without charging.

Even so, the Samsung Galaxy A15 performs even better under load. So if you play a lot of games on your phone, you'll get longer runtimes with other smartphones.