If you only have R4k to buy a 5G smartphone, what’s a solid choice? The Motorola G37 offers decent specs that make the most of the price – up to an extent.

Let’s start with the good. The unit we received came in PANTONE Nautical Blue vegan leather inspired back, which is not only a stand-out colour but also provides a really grippy texture to hold the device. The rubber protective case, also in similar blue, provides decent protection, but not the same grip.

One thing almost unique to the G37 is a 3.5 mm audio jack, which is great for those of use that still has decent wired headphones before Bluetooth connectivity took over.

The sound on the device is solid and the G37 gets sufficiently loud through its stereo speakers. There’s also Dolby Atmos to help with spatial audio and stereo sound, also offering  automatic sound adjustments according to what type of audio is playing – music, podcasts, games, etc. Interestingly, the G37 also includes a radio since it can use your wired headphones as antenna.

Also decent is the 5200 mAh battery that can last well into the next day depending how much you’re using your phone and apps like YouTube. This 5G device can also take two SIM cards, or swap one out for a MicroSD card.

As far as the G37 camera system is concerned, Motorola notes two rear cameras, but there’s for all sense and purposes only really one. The first is a 50 MP unit with a decent f1.8 aperture, with the second more of a light sensor of sorts. The image quality is good when you have enough light, but as soon as you must contend with less, for example indoors, the photo quality degrades and becomes smudgy. The same is true for the 8MP f/2.0 fixed focus selfie camera. 

As a Motorola smartphone, the unit is much dependent on Google’s own apps. Viewing photos or pictures works through Google Photos as an example. While great for reviewing past memories if you’ve made previous backups using the app to the cloud, it’s an extremely frustrating app to quickly edit or share images. That said, you can create stickers, AI enhancement of images and use a magic eraser to delete unwanted stuff in the background.

Talking of Google, the G37 comes with Android 16 straight out the box, one version behind the latest 17 that launched in June and currently running on Pixel devices. This includes making use of Gemini voice commands as well as circle-to-search.

Where the G37 starts showing its limitations is with the engine of the phone, with the MediaTek Dimensity 6300 (2.4 GHz) octa-core and 4 GB of RAM present. The 4 GB of RAM is a sign of the times, as a worldwide RAM shortage is hindering supply lines across the globe. Once launched, apps work well, however, you do have to deal with lag to do so. 

Motorola offers RAM boost, but in my opinion, it doesn’t help much and takes space away from your regular storage.

Finally, the display is not Full HD, instead offering an HD+ resolution of 1604x720 pixels, at 264ppi. However, one has to appreciate the 6.67” display’s Gorilla Glass 7i cover glass that provides improved scratch and drop resistance, at least at the midrange level. After using the G37 for more than two weeks, there was not a scratch present on the display.

The Motorola G37 next to the Motorola Edge 70

The midrange market is especially crowded, with the Huawei Y74, Oppo A40M and Samsung Galaxy A17 all competing against the Motorola G37 in the sub R4 000 category. Each phone has its own pros and cons, however, the Motorola G37 stands out for its quirky colour palette, solid sound options alongside a 3.5mm audio jack, and decent battery. 

FULL DISCLOSURE: The Motorola G37 was received as a review unit and not returned.