Motorola debuts the Moto G51 with the new Snapdragon 480 Plus SoC

When leaks pointing to a couple of new Motorola devices began to emerge recently, they may have implied the development of a 2022 generation due to the altered product names involved. This, then, has made today's (November 3, 2021) launch for one of them all the more surprising. It now seems the phone owes its updated Gx1 moniker to the fact it runs on Qualcomm's freshly-debuted reboot of the low-end Snapdragon 480 5G platform.

The 480+ confers a boosted max clock of 2.2GHz on the Moto G51, as well as an improved Adreno 619 GPU. Motorola has also equipped it with a 6.8-inch FHD+ display that supports a 120Hz refresh rate and a 240Hz touch sampling rate: particularly nice perks as the panel in question is LCD.

Nevertheless, the G51's deal has been sweetened further with a 50MP main sensor for its relatively clean triple-lensed hump. This spec-set is rounded out with Dolby-enhanced stereo speakers and MYUI 2.0 based on Android 11, all kept on with a 5,000mAh battery.

On the other hand, there is no mention of any kind of fast charging here, nor that of a headphone jack. Nevertheless, this new device might be a hopeful sign of what is to come in the affordable end of the smartphone market for the rest of 2021, not to mention 2022.

Then again, that makes it all the more of a shame that Motorola has only launched the Moto G51 in 1 market thus far, and that it is, moreover, exclusive to China Mobile at present, priced at 1,499 yuan (~US$234) for an 8GB RAM/128GB internal storage SKU. However, there is nothing to say it will not join its predecessor on a more global scale later; additionally, there is now all the more scope for a novel G71 sibling that may now see its own debut soon.

Buy a Moto G100 on Amazon