How much should a smartphone cost? The Moto G13 covers a lot of needs

I want to know the minimum amount I have to spend to get a usable smartphone. My first attempt with the Nokia C12 was a disaster. «E-waste product from a picture book» was a very appropriate comment. Now I’ve increased my budget by 50 per cent and ended up with the Motorola Moto G13. It has a recommended retail price of 180 euros/francs, but you can find it for less. A look at the data sheet filled me with confidence that I won’t have to deal with a second disaster.

Acrylic glass on the back, Panda Glass on the front

The case of the Moto G13 is made of PMMA, better known as acrylic glass. This is different to the usual plastic cases in this price range. It feels tactile even without hatching, and its colour shimmers without being highly reflective. However, fingerprints are clearly visible.

The 6.5-inch IPS display is protected by Panda Glass, a cheaper and tougher product that competes with the more well-known Gorilla Glass. The resolution isn’t particularly high at 1600 × 720 pixels, but it ensures a sharp image with this display size. The colour reproduction is as good as with AMOLED displays, only black appears darker on them. On the G13, it’s more of a dark grey. The brightness of 400 nits is enough for use in sunshine. With a refresh rate of up to 90 Hertz, it lags behind the 120 Hertz of the top smartphones, but the 60 Hertz of the «old guard» are also easy to see.

Good enough is good enough …

While the Nokia C12 tested my patience with its slow hardware, I barely notice a difference between the Moto G13 and better equipped smartphones. For example, if I call up a photo in the gallery immediately after taking it, I sometimes have to wait a few seconds until the image processing is complete and I see the final image. App loading times can also be longer. But the user experience is smooth and there’s no delay between my input and the corresponding action.

Motorola installed the three-year-old Helios 85 by Mediatek in the Moto G13 and provided it with four gigabytes of RAM. The processor with eight computing cores is manufactured using the 12-nanometre process. The Nokia C12 has to make do with a 28-nanometer chipset. And, as the rough rule of thumb states, the more delicate the manufacturing process, the more powerful the processor. For comparison, the Nothing Phone (1)’s mid-range chipset is manufactured using the 6-nanometre process.

With 422 points in the single and 1,415 points in the multi-core mode of Geekbench 6, the Moto G13 doesn’t even reach 50 per cent of the scores of current top smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The Moto doesn’t come close to mid-range model the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite with a Snapdragon 695 either. The Nokia C12 still lags a long way behind, even if its Geekbench 5 results aren’t a direct comparison. But they can’t be compared like-for-like: Geekbench 6 doesn’t run on the Nokia and Geekbench 5 doesn’t run on the Motorola.

Despite its poor figures compared to top and mid-range smartphones, the Moto G13 isn’t too slow to use.

A big battery, two ports and a fingerprint sensor

The Moto G13’s 5000 mAh battery gets through the day very well. With a capacity like that of a top smartphone with less power consumption, this is hardly surprising. However, patience is required when charging. The inexpensive smartphone receives a maximum of ten watts via its USB-C port. You can expect a full charge to take at least three hours.

The fingerprint sensor in the power button on the side of the G13 works quickly and reliably. The same applies to face recognition, which is also an option.

With Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi 5, the Moto G13 isn’t quite up to date, but it’s not significantly behind either. NFC also enables mobile payment via services such as Google Pay and location detection can access three satellite systems – GPS, Glonas and Galileo. Depending on how you connect your headphones, you’ll either appreciate the 3.5 mm jack or ignore it.

The internal memory has a usable capacity of 128 gigabytes and can be expanded with a microSD card.

No Moto apps and an Android update

With Android 13, the Moto G13 has the current Android version – not a given in this price range. Motorola largely relies on standard Google apps. There is annoying bloatware, but it’s limited with three apps. However, Motorola does without its quite practical Moto apps. You can’t customise the UI like you can with the Edge 40 Pro, set up a space for your kids or connect directly to your Windows machine.

The promised update periods are more important for me. Again, they’re better than the Nokia C12, but not long enough for me. The latest news is that Motorola wants to provide the Moto G13 with an OS update. Up to Android 14, then that would be it. Security updates are to be available for a total of three years.

Three camera lenses, but only one takes good photos

There are three camera lenses on the back of the Moto G13, but only the main camera is actually relevant. The macro camera is poor and the third lens provides additional information for blurring in portrait shots. You have to do without an ultra-wide-angle or telephoto camera in this price range.

Colours/details

The main camera combines four of its 50 megapixels into one pixel so that the photos have a standard resolution of 12.5 megapixels. The idea behind this widespread technology – known as pixel binning – is hope for greater light sensitivity and thus better image quality.

In daylight, the main camera delivers images with a high level of detail and natural colour reproduction. The HDR mode is worth it to compensate for strong contrasts and bring out the clouds in the blue sky, for example.

Portrait

Portrait mode on the Moto G13 manages to separate an object from its background and blur it with the additional data from the depth of field lens.

Night

In the dark, the main camera offers a night mode with a longer exposure time. This brightens the picture a little, but causes a bit more image noise in the brightened areas compared to automatic mode. The photos look decent on the smartphone display in the dark, but they don’t come close to the quality of more expensive smartphones.

Macro

You can ignore the macro camera. With just two megapixels, it doesn’t take great photos. Despite the close proximity to the subject, it’s pixellated and out of focus. It makes more sense to take photos with the main camera and cut out the area you want.

Selfies

With eight megapixels, the front camera on the Moto G13 only has three megapixels more resolution than the Nokia C12. But this small difference is enough for good selfies in daylight with the underlying software. The level of detail is high enough and the colours look natural.

Conclusion: it covers the basics

The Motorola Moto G13 is a cheap smartphone that covers all your basic needs and can make you happy enough. The display’s good, the battery’s great and the workmanship’s top notch. The main camera’s alright, but you can get more out of it, especially by adding an ultra-wide-angle or telephoto camera.

To be completely satisfied with a cheap smartphone like this one, I’d like a little more performance and, above all, longer software updates. I’m going to increase my budget again and either give Nokia a second chance or look at the latest entry-level model from Samsung.

Header image: Jan Johannsen