Moto E7 Power Review: A perfectly decent phone

The Moto E7 Power does what it says on the box and admirably well, but does it do enough to stand out from the stiff competition in this segment? The answer is complicated.

Design

Over the weekend while testing the phone, I had placed the Moto E7 Power on the table next to my wife’s Coolpad Cool 5 and a friend’s Infinix Hot 8 Pro. For a second, we were all genuinely confused as to which phone belonged to whom. Of course, we used the camera modules on the back as a visual guide to pick ours from the list, but it does not do the phone’s any favours if you place them screen up.

The point I am trying to make here is that the current trend for phone design in this segment is to be serviceable in the most generic way possible. It really hurts to say that because I was one of the Moto fanboys back in the day, gushing over the design of the Moto Razr or the Pebl. The name Motorola for me is associated with unique design and for them to make such average looking phones hurts just a little bit.

To be fair, there is only so much you can do at these price points, but a little creativity would help and will allow the brand to stand out amongst a sea of competition that, more or less, look the same.

That little ramble aside, The E7 Power has an inoffensive design, it will not blow your socks off, but it does not dampen your mood either. If it is any consolation, the phone’s design fades well into the background when you start using it and that’s both a good and a bad thing. There are some design touches here to love though, for example – the volume rocker, the google assistant button and the power button are all on the same side which makes it super easy to operate the phone one-handed without constantly having to do a ballet with your fingers to reach buttons on either side.

Another thing I like is the inclusion of USB Type-C, which is now becoming a common feature in this price segment. The front of the phone has the same boring teardrop design we have seen from numerous phones in this segment to house the front-facing camera. The back of the phone has a slit for the speaker at the bottom, the vertical three-sensor camera module to the top and the familiar Motorola logo which doubles up as a fingerprint sensor.

This phone feels heavy in the hand too, which might be a good or bad thing depending on what you like. I personally love the phones I use to have a little girth. With that being said, the E7 Power is a tall device, there was no way it was not going to be with a six-inch plus screen. People with small hands, consider yourself warned.

Performance

The E7 Power has a MediaTek Helio G25 processor to keep it humming along and paired with 4GB of RAM in our review unit, it does remarkably well to keep workflow on the phone smooth as it can be. There are few hiccups though, sudden dips in performance are noticeable especially when switching apps or wading through a crowded notification shade but the good news is these are minor and go away quickly.

As with most phones in this segment, it remains to be seen how well the phone performs after a few big updates, but Motorola does have one huge thing in its favour when it comes to the user interface. It is as clean and as bloatware-free as it can be without it being a Google phone. It is almost stock Android 10 with a few additions from Motorola sprinkled on top and the company should be commended for that.

So far, Motorola has kept mum when asked about Android 11 but I would imagine that wouldn’t be too hard to pull off, given the nearly stock Android experience. As for gaming, I tried out Elder Scrolls Blades, Genshin Impact, OSRS (Old School Runescape) and they ran fine. Things were not as buttery smooth as they would be on a high-end device but the E7 Power is a budget phone and its performance is comparable to the other phones in this segment.

The 6.5-inch IPS display is another highlight. Videos on YouTube looked crisp, there was enough detail in the images and no noticeable artifacting during darker scenes or scenes with a lot of black in them. As expected, there are colour filters in the settings menu to tweak things to your liking, but I liked the default “Natural” profile and left it at that for the duration of the review.

The fingerprint reader is snappy and responsive. Very rarely did it miss inputs or not recognise my print. A rather irksome thing is the absence of support for 5GHz Wi-Fi, granted most phones in this segment do not have support for it but what this means is the ones that do going forward will have a clear advantage.

Barring the occasional chugs, the E7 Power did not get in my way too much when using the phone. Its performance is not mindblowing but you can hardly expect that in this price range. It was a fluid experience with the occasional stutter here and there.

Camera

Let us get this out of the way first, I am not an avid camera user. I probably pull out the phone maybe once or twice to take a photo during the day and for that, this camera was more than enough. The rear module has a 13-megapixel primary sensor and a secondary 2-megapixel macro sensor that can take some good photos.

In bright light, the camera captures details well, but the colours are noticeably washed out. In low light, it's fair to say the camera does not perform well. The images are noisy and lack detail. For the price point, this is a common compromise but there are phones out there that do much better than the E7 power. The 5-megapixel front-facing camera is once again serviceable for video calls or chat but do not expect it to be making the next big viral video using this phone.

Battery

This is a big selling point. The 5000mAh battery claims it can power the phone through two days on a single charge and that in my experience has been true. Under heavy stress, with multiple applications open, games running in the background and no restrictions on background apps, the phone lasted just under a day. With light use during the day, mostly to check emails and respond to messages with the occasional gaming session, the phone easily lasted more than one and a half days.

The 10W charger is not quick charge and given the size of the battery, it charges to a 100  percent in about an hour and forty-five minutes.

Conclusion

I really don’t know how to conclude my thoughts on the E7 Power, On the one hand, a part of me thinks I am being too harsh because I am a ‘Moto fanboy’ at heart but on the other, the cynical part of me agrees that this a perfectly decent phone. It is good at what it does, offers a clean Android experience and performs admirably but does not do enough to punch above its weight.

To be clear, it does not need to but not doing so means that it will likely get lost in a sea of phones in this segment where hardware specifications are the mantra on everyone’s lips. Motorola had a good chance to do something unique here but the E7 Power just does not do enough to stand out from the crowd.

The phone will be available starting February 26 and will be sold exclusively through Flipkart online and leading retail stores. The 2GB RAM and 32GB storage variant will be sold for Rs 7,499 and the 4GB RAM and 64GB storage variant will cost Rs 8,299. The phone will be available in two colours - Tahiti Blue and Coral Red.