Is this phone really $4-600 better than the Moto G5 Plus?

More often than not, the answer to that question was no. Obviously, the Law of Diminishing Returns exists for a reason, but there's no doubt in my mind what Motorola did with this $180 phone is important. In many ways, this little budget phone is the most important phone to have been released this year.

Motorola's low-end phones have been exceptional for a few years now. They have a history of performing above expectations, packing batteries which frequently pass the more expensive competition, and usually have cameras that are better than anticipated. The Moto G5 Plus is the latest in that line, and brings to the table a build quality much greater than you'd expect for the price as well as the remarkably good software Motorola has been building upon since the Google days.

And that's what makes this phone such a big deal. The G5 Plus doesn't look or feel like a budget phone. It's for a great fingerprint sensor, ridiculously good battery life, decent speakers, and a middle-of-the-road camera at a price you'd usually see a carrier offer as one of those old "buy this expensive phone and get this cheap thing for your kid" deals.

This phone also does a great job highlighting just how small the difference is between the best of the lower end and these "flagship" phones is right now. You can buy three of these phones for the same price as the Pixel 2, and if you handed these two phones to someone who didn't know anything about phones there's a good chance it wouldn't be immediately clear to that person which phone was superior.

Motorola's low-end phones have been exceptional for a few years now. They have a history of performing above expectations, packing batteries which frequently pass the more expensive competition, and usually have cameras that are better than anticipated. The Moto G5 Plus is the latest in that line, and brings to the table a build quality much greater than you'd expect for the price as well as the remarkably good software Motorola has been building upon since the Google days.

And that's what makes this phone such a big deal. The G5 Plus doesn't look or feel like a budget phone. It's for a great fingerprint sensor, ridiculously good battery life, decent speakers, and a middle-of-the-road camera at a price you'd usually see a carrier offer as one of those old "buy this expensive phone and get this cheap thing for your kid" deals.

This phone also does a great job highlighting just how small the difference is between the best of the lower end and these "flagship" phones is right now. You can buy three of these phones for the same price as the Pixel 2, and if you handed these two phones to someone who didn't know anything about phones there's a good chance it wouldn't be immediately clear to that person which phone was superior.

Realistically, that decision has been less and less about hardware, and more about services. These high-end phones have to demonstrate how my life is improved with its services, which is another thing we largely have Motorola to thank for. The Moto X, flawed as it was, focused deeply on making life simpler for the user. Things like quickly accessing the camera, enabling specific features when you were driving, and delivering information to a display that woke up when you looked at the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 spare parts . Degrees of this are everywhere now, including the Moto G5 Plus, and contextual computing through Machine Learning is a huge part of how Google plans to improve Android over the next year.

As Google's AI continues to make the Pixel better than the hardware technically is capable of, phones like the Moto G5 Plus will continue to improve the "basic" experience at price points that seem impossibly low for what you are getting. It's great news for anyone using their phone as their only phone, and especially as their only computer.

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