The Moto G52 is a 90Hz OLED budget champion

Moto G52 design

The G52 sticks with Motorola’s design language of late, offering pleasing curves, and a somewhat conservative but elegant pill-shaped camera bump on the back. The phone is pretty thin and lightweight at just 7.99mm and 169g respectively.

The 6.6-inch OLED screen features a generous bezel around it, with a prominent chin, and a center-positioned hole-punch selfie camera. There’s a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The phone also comes with an IP52 water and dust protection rating (limited dust ingress protection and water slash resistance).

Moto G52 display

The display of the Moto G52 is one of the main highlights of the phone - it’s an OLED panel with FullHD resolution (1080 x 2400 pixels), and a 90Hz refresh rate. The G51 model in comparison featured an IPS panel (although it supported 120Hz, so an upgrade of sorts).

The display covers the DCI-P3 color gamut, and has a pixel density of around 402 PPI, which should result in a pleasant and shart image. There’s no word on maximum brightness, so we’ll have to put the phone on our test bench to find out how bright it can go.

Moto G52 hardware and performance

One of the biggest differences between the G51 5G and the G52 (again, in a typical Motorola fashion, these two phones are not that closely connected as one might think, judging by the names) is the chipset.

The Moto G52 comes with a Snapdragon 680 onboard, which means two things. It’s a midranger and a step up from the 480 (found in the G51), and second - it’s a 4G phone. The latter might be a lackluster and a dealbreaker for some but given the slow adoption of 5G, and the miniscule real-life difference in some regions of the world, it might not be such a big drawback after all.

The phone comes in different memory flavors - you can have it with 4/6GB of RAM and 128/256GB of built-in storage, and the pleasant surprise is the presence of a microSD card slot, supporting up to 1TB cards.

The Moto G52 comes with a clean version of Android 12 out of the box, which means Material You will be there right from the start, accompanied by My UX.

Moto G52 camera and audio

On the camera front we have a triple system on the back consisting of a 50MP main shooter (using pixel binning to offer 12MP shots) with f/1.8 and 0.64μm pixel size. The second camera is an 8MP ultrawide snapper, and the third is actually a depth sensor, working with the main camera to offer those bokeh portraits.

On the front there’s a 16MP selfie camera with a small aperture giving users the ability to see and share more of the surroundings in their shots. The Moto G52 sports stereo setup (which is great to see at this price point), and the system also supports Dolby Atmos.

Moto G52 battery and charging

There’s a hefty 5,000 mAh battery in this phone, and with the energy efficient chipset, and the 4G connectivity might result in great stamina and longevity. The phone supports Motorola’s TurboPower 30 technology, allowing fast charging with up to 30W of power.

Conclusion, price and availability

The Moto G52 will be available in select European countries in the following weeks with a price tag of 249.99 euros, making it one of the cheapest phones with a 90HZ OLED screen. The phone is aimed to conquer the low-midrange class, and offers a healthy bang for your buck, at least on paper.

Stay tuned for our full review in which we will try to find if the Moto G52 is the new budget champion.