Introduction
After a spate of leaks, the Motorola Moto G8 Power Lite has finally gone official. As the name suggests, the G8 Power Lite is a weaker version of the Moto G8 Power that was made official in February. The G8 Power Lite houses a big display, and it has AI-powered triple cameras on its back. Like the other Power-branded devices from the Lenovo-owned company, the G8 Power Lite is also backed by a massive battery.
The Moto G8 Power Lite will be coming to Mexico and Germany soon with a price tag of 169 euros ($183). The handset will also be brought to other markets in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The phone comes in Royal Blue and Arctic Blue color editions. With $183 price tag, the Moto G8 Power Lite is poised to be an even more affordable version of the Moto G8 Power (known as the Moto G Power in the US) that was announced earlier this year, keeping its 5,000mAh battery but leaving off some of the more refined features and specs to come in at nearly half the price.
Design and Display
The Motorola Moto G8 Power Lite measures 164.94 x 75.76 x 9.2mm, and it weighs nearly 200 grams. That weight is surely attributable to its massive battery, as the plastic back and frame (which don’t actually feel cheap) of the device would otherwise help keep the overall weight of the phone down. The Moto G8 Power Lite has a 6.5-inch IPS LCD Max Vision panel. The waterdrop notch totting display delivers an HD+ resolution of 720 x 1600 pixels. The aspect ratio offered by the phone is 20:9. The handset features a splash-resistant chassis. The screen can get fairly bright and actually managed impressive black levels for an LCD display. When the screen lights up to show the time, the black background shows almost imperceptible backlight bleed. The Moto G8 Power Lite features a USB-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom. The bottom also houses one of the speakers, while a second speaker lives in the earpiece. Those two speakers deliver stereo sound backed by Dolby audio. Around back, you’ll find Motorola’s typical rear fingerprint sensor.
Front and rear cameras
Moto G8 Power Lite’s rear has a triple camera setup that includes a PDAF assisted 16-megapixel primary shooter with f/2.0 aperture, a 2-megapixel macro lens with f/2.4 aperture and 2cm focal length and a depth sensor of 2-megapixel with f/2.4 aperture. The primary sensor has fairly sizable 1.75-micron pixels that should give it passable performance in low-light settings. The macro camera can be more tedious to work with, as its autofocus is hard to rely on when just minor shifts of our hands dramatically impact the focus. Fortunately, it works with manual mode, so if you want to get the very closest shot possible, you can just set it to the minimum focus distance and then move the camera closer until the subject comes into focus. The triple cameras support dual camera bokeh, face beauty, HDR, Google Lens, and more. At the front is an 8-megapixel selfie snapper that supports HDR, face beauty, and bokeh video. The front and rear shooters can record Full HD (1080p) videos at 30fps.
Software, Processor, and Battery
The MediaTek Helio P35 chipset drives the Moto G8 Power Lite through its 2.3GHz octa-core processor. The handset ships with 4 GB of RAM and internal storage of 64 GB. There is a microSD card slot onboard for more storage. One of the biggest and most important specs of the Moto G8 Power Lite is the source of its power: the battery. This phone packs a beefy, 5,000mAh battery, which Motorola claims can last for up to three days of use. The Moto G8 Power Lite also supports rapid charging at 10 watts, so even when the battery finally gives out, it can top back up fairly quickly. We find the phone runs fairly fast when web browsing and switching between apps, though we do see it run into a bit of a wall with the more intensive tasks of playing a video or launching the camera. The phone can playback video just fine, but we notice some stutter when opening the notification shade while a video is playing. The camera also takes a second to ready itself, whether we’re launching it fresh or switching back to it from another app. The handset is loaded with Android 9 Pie OS. As a budget handset, there are naturally some corners cut. The Moto G8 Power Lite doesn’t have any NFC support, so you won’t get quick pairing with wireless devices or support for Google Pay cardless payment. It’s also still running on Wi-Fi 5 while more and more devices are making a move to Wi-Fi 6.