The Moto G62 5G is a leader in its own lane

At a price of just $399, Motorola's latest budget buy ticks a lot of the same boxes as something like the Google Pixel 6a does. 

While the Moto G62 5G doesn't come with the Google-made goodies and camera tech that make the Pixel 6a such a great buy, the clean software here makes the overall experience feel surprisingly similar. It's not quite an alternative, but it can cut it as an echo.

For those with modest expectations or no demands other than the price being below $400, it might be one of the best Android-based options out there. The Moto G62 5G won't blow you away, but it will probably be good enough to get the job done.

The Moto G62 5G is priced at an RRP of $399 in Australia. That price tag makes it one of the cheapest 5G handsets on the market.

While the handset can be found via all the usual retailers, it can also be found through a number of Australian mobile providers like Telstra. Those picking up the device on a 24-month plan should expect to pay around $16.60 per month in handset fees.

If you're looking to buy outright, the table below shows how Australia's retailers and resellers compare when it comes to offering the best Moto G62 5G price.

If you stare at the spec sheet for the Moto G62 5G for too long, there's a good chance your mind will begin to quickly glaze over. If you gazed even briefly at the Android smartphone market over the past few years, you'll be right at home.

To start with, there's a 6.5-inch 1080p+ display with a circle-shaped cutout and 120Hz refresh rate. Then, there's the Snapdragon 480+ processor, a 5000mAh battery, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of expandable storage.

Measured by the numbers, Motorola's latest budget buy can come across as overtly familiar, if not a little too average. Aside from the soft texture finish on the back of the device and the 5G connectivity inside it, there's not much to distinguish the Moto G62 5G from the rest of the pack.

Motorola's latest budget buy is as by-the-numbers as these things come, but that's not necessarily a bad thing once you factor in the all-important price tag.

Context tells a story that the numbers cannot. Sure, the material design on the Moto G62 isn't as sleek or svelte as something like the Pixel 6 or iPhone 13, but compared to the rest of the sub-$400 market, the tendency to err towards keeping things as clean and simple as possible works well.

Motorola doesn't have to make the nicest feeling smartphone ever, just something better than everything else this price-point can offer. Within that framing, the Moto G62 is a more-than-modest success story. Held in your hands, the device feels solid and tangible. It doesn't feel cheap, and it doesn't feel flimsy. It's a little on the heavy side, but that's a small price to pay for the tangible benefits that a larger screen and a 5000mAh battery earn you.

On the back of the Moto G62 5G, you'll find three cameras: a 50MP primary lens, an 8MP ultra-wide lens, and a 2MP macro lens. This trinity comes complemented by a 16MP selfie shooter on the front.

Like these specs suggest, the camera quality here is fairly middle of the road. The addition of an ultra-wide lens adds some flexibility, though a telephoto would have been nice to see rather than the narrow and niche utility of a macro lens.

You're not getting something that swings above its weight in the way that Google Pixel 6a does, but (again) the Moto G62 5G gets surprisingly close given the difference in price. Check out the camera sample gallery below for a sense of how the Moto G62 5G's triple-lens setup fared in action.

While it isn't as attention-grabbing or high-performance as something like Google's Tensor or Apple A16 Bionic, the Snapdragon 480+ processor powering the Moto G62 5G is low-key quite good. Apps loaded quickly, though not strikingly so, and I had little trouble with most mobile games.

Less-demanding titles like Marvel Snap and Legends of Runeterra ran best, but I found that League of Legends: Wild Rift, Call of Duty: Mobile and Star Wars Hunters fared reasonably well too. It's hard not to wish for a little more RAM or extra onboard storage, but I found myself straining against those limits less than I expected. 

All told, the under-the-hood hardware here proved to be a natural complement to Motorola's long-standing and very hands-off approach to Android itself. There's little in the way of bloatware, with the final experience of using the Moto G62 soars to a level of responsiveness that's rare among devices of this price point. While the processor here can't compete with the snappiness of a flagship one, a 120Hz refresh rate makes the difference between the two feel surprisingly fungible.

The Moto G62 5G is an incredible showpiece for just how well an Android device with just 4GB of RAM and a budget-friendly Qualcomm processor can feel to use. It doesn't cost that much more to get your hands on silicon that's a little faster, but the fact that the hardware here is fast enough says a lot about how far budget devices of this calibre have come.

It says a lot about the quality of the performance and software involved that the Moto G62 5G makes the difference between the mid-range and budget smartphones feel this small.

Depending on the setting I had enabled, I'd usually manage something like a day and a half of regular usage from the battery inside the Moto G62 5G. Results varied, but it wasn't uncommon for the Moto G62 5G to deliver around eight hours of screen-time on a single charge. More dedicated testing found that the device took 21 hours and 38 minutes to burn down from 100% to 0% using video content streamed via YouTube.

Compared to its competitors, that's an impressive result. High-end smartphones typically don't fare as well as more modest devices do when it comes to battery life, and the 5000mAh battery here helps Motorola match even the long life you'll get from standouts like the Samsung Galaxy A73.

There's an art to making a smartphone that's cheap but doesn't feel it. Motorola has always had a knack for walking that line, and their latest budget-friendly smartphone is no exception.

If you're looking for high-end specs or  professional-grade photography hardware, you're going to better off looking elsewhere. However, if you want to spend less than $500 on an Android smartphone and don't mind the larger form factor, there's a lot to like about the Moto G62 5G. It ticks all the boxes you'd want it to, and it steers clear of the usual pitfalls.

The Moto G62 5G is smart enough to stay in its lane, but it nails the essentials nevertheless.