Moto G5 release date, news and rumors

Update: The Moto G5 may have just passed through the FCC, revealing the battery size and other details.

Moto G4, Moto G4 Plus and Moto G4 Play were some of the best budget phones of 2016 and we expect Motorola may have some big improvements in store for the next generation.

Word of the Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus has already begun leaking out and we may see Motorola’s new budget phones sooner rather than later.

If you’re after a low-cost, relatively high-spec phone upgrade soon, you should keep an eye on the Moto G5, Moto G5 Plus and Moto G5 Play.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The next value-focused phone lineup from Motorola
• When is it out? We expect May 2017, maybe earlier
• What will it cost? Low price – expect around $199 (£169, AU$330)

Moto G5 release date

Motorola announced the Moto G4, Moto G4 Plus and Moto G4 Play in May 2016 and released the first two phones by June, with the G4 Play following in August.

We’d expect a similar release schedule for the Moto G5. Considering how Motorola has usually announced the G line in the past, we'd expect it to launch at its own event in May.

Moto G5 price 

Price will come down to what model of the phone you opt for, of course. The Moto G4 cost $199 (£169, around AU$330) and we’d expect a similar price point, if not a little higher for the Moto G5.

The Moto G4 Plus launched at the slightly higher price of $249 (£199, around AU$325) so we’d expect the Moto G5 Plus will be a similar price. However, the G4 Plus notably dropped in price quite quickly to make it only slightly more expensive than the Moto G4, so fingers crossed the Moto G5 Plus will do the same too.

The Moto G5 Play will likely be the cheapest phone in the range, as the G4 Play cost $149 (£129, AU$249).

Moto G5 design

Initially, we didn’t expect a major design change for the Moto G5 - the Moto G3 to the Moto G4 was a big change already - but recent leaks suggest the G5 range may be getting a very different look.

Leaked photos of what a source is calling the Moto G5 Plus suggests Motorola may be ready to graduate to using metal build materials on the cheaper Motorola range.

Studying the leaked image above, the size of the phone looks similar to the Moto G4, but it has a metal unibody design rather than plastic. There’s a large camera bump on the back of the phone and the Motorola logo is emblazoned just below it.

There’s a slot for your microSD and SIM cards, a volume rocker and power button on the right hand edge and a headphone jack at the bottom alongside the micro USB charging port.

Whether this leak is real is up in the air right now. It’s from a Romanian seller who advertised the phone as an early sample of the Moto G5 Plus on a marketplace site called OLX.

The source claims it will be announced officially in March this year, but it's unclear where the photographed phone is from.

A press shot of the Moto G5 Plus has also leaked on Chinese social networking site Weibo, and it looks remarkably like the phone we've seen in the hands on shots.

If these aren't real leaks, we’d expect it to be a similar design to previous Motorola phones, like the Moto G4. That said, any work Motorola can do to further blur the line between its budget and flagship lines will serve it well.

Moto G5 display 

So far, there’s no word on what kind of display the Moto G5 or Moto G5 Play will sport. 

We’d expect similar specs to last year’s phones – so the Moto G5 could come with a 5.5-inch Full HD screen while the Moto G5 Play may sport a 720p 5-inch display.

The previous leak of the Moto G5 Plus suggests the phone will come with a 5.5-inch Full HD display, just like the Moto G4 Plus.

Moto G5 specs and features 

Not much is known about the Moto G5 or Moto G5 Play yet, though the standard Moto G5 appears to have passed through the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), as spotted by motog3.com, and is listed as having a 3000mAh battery (the same size as the Moto G4's), NFC and a digital TV tuner of some kind.

As for the Moto G5 Plus, the one leak we've seen so far suggests it'll have a similar spec list to the Moto G4 Plus.

The leak states there will be an octa-core Snapdragon 625 chipset in the phone, 4GB of RAM onboard, 32GB of internal memory and a 3,080mAh battery inside.

It also suggests there will be a 13MP rear camera and 5MP front-facing shooter. Whether any of this will turn out to be true is currently unclear and we'll have to wait a while to find out directly from Motorola.

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from TechRadar: Phone and communications news http://www.techradar.com/news/moto-g5-release-date-news-and-rumors