Moto G4 and G4 Plus review: Bigger and better

When it comes to getting the most smartphone for your dollar, the Moto G line has been your best choice for the past few years. We adored the previous model, which came in at a mere $180. Now with the Moto G4 and G4 Plus, Motorola is literally aiming to make its budget lineup bigger and better. They've got larger and sharper screens, improved cameras and, of course, speedier processors. With those upgrades come compromises, though. For one, they're more expensive:

The G4 starts at $200 and the G4 Plus at $250. Motorola also made some curious design decisions, which in many ways feel like a step back. Still, they both manage to carry the mantle of Smartphone Value King. Motorola's latest Moto G (4th generation) follows the industry trend of releasing two different versions of one phone: standard and plus. Only in this case the "Plus" has nothing to do with size; instead it's a slightly more expensive model with a superior camera, better memory options and a fingerprint sensor. If the Moto G4 is a standout mid-ranged phone, the Moto G4 Plus starts to blur the lines between mid-range and high-end. Read on for our review.We love how the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus feel in hand. We sing the praises of all-metal, all-premium unibody phones as much as anyone (for good reason ... they look phenomenal), but these two plastic phones are a pleasure to hold. It helps that they don't feel at all like cheap plastic: The back is an almost leathery-feeling material with fine cross-hatched detailing, while the side is a faux-metal plastic that, in hand, can almost pass for aluminum. Motorola had to take shortcuts somewhere to keep these prices down, and going with a plastic build – albeit one that's attractive, light and feels more comfortable in our hands than most premium phones – is probably the smartest place to start.There's nothing budget about the 5.5-inch 1080p displays on the G4 and G4 Plus. They're not quite as fancy as the quad HD displays we're seeing in some flagships, but they still pack in 401 pixels per inch, which is plenty sharp for typical usage. Colors were bright and bold, even in direct sunlight, and viewing angles were surprisingly great. I didn't notice much of a difference between my iPhone 6S while reading long articles from Pocket and the New York Times app. Videos also looked uniformly great.

The big downside is that they're less capable when it comes to mobile VR. It's no wonder they're not Google Daydream ready (though nothing is stopping you from plugging them into a Google Cardboard headset). On the sound front, Motorola made the curious decision of replacing the last Moto G's solid stereo speakers with a single one. It's plenty loud, but it doesn't sound nearly as good as before. Now that Bluetooth speakers are cheap and small, I'd recommend just snagging one as an accessory. One nice feature that I never thought I'd have to call out in 2016: both phones have headphone jacks! For the uninformed, you use them to connect a wide variety of audio devices, including headphones. Someone should tell Motorola that these audio ports, which have been universally supported for decades, would be a nice addition to their flagship Moto Z lineup. That's especially true for the Z Force, which is thick enough to fit a headphone jack. (Yes, the Moto Z comes with a dongle, but that comes with plenty of compromises. You won't be able to charge the phone when the dongle is plugged in, for example.)

Motorola delivered a nearly stock OS on the G4 and G4 Plus, specifically Android 6.0.1. Marshmallow. The phones are devoid of the junkware and sponsored apps you often find on budget devices. None of this is new for Motorola, it's been trying to deliver vanilla versions of Android since it was under Google. But it's nice to see the company stick with that philosophy under Lenovo. Motorola's unique gestures, which made their debut on the original Moto X, once again make an appearance. Twisting either phone twice, similar to turning a door handle, quickly loads up the camera from anywhere in the OS. Making a double-chopping motion turns their flashlights on and off. What's particularly nice is that both features work consistently even when the phones are in standby mode.

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NVIDIA's GTX 1070 is a mid-range GPU that feels high-end

NVIDIA's GTX 1070 It's more affordable than the flagship GTX 1080, and nearly as powerful.

As impressive as NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 GPU is, its high price of $599 is tough to stomach for even the most dedicated gamers. That's where the mid-range GTX 1070 comes in: It's almost as fast as its more powerful sibling, but it starts at a more reasonable $379. That's still a hefty chunk of change, but for the money it can tackle pretty much every game today (and likely for the next year or two) without breaking much of a sweat. That's not too shabby for a mid-range video card.

Due to travel (Computex was quite the trip) as well as limited supply from NVIDIA, it's admittedly taken me a while to put the GTX 1070 through its paces. But now that I've had some time with it, I can say without a doubt that the 1070 is an intriguing GPU. Even NVIDIA admits that among this generation of cars, this is the one most consumers will likely end up going for. Rounding out the lineup, the company also announced the lower-end GTX 1060 this week, which is quite the bargain at $249. The GTX 1070 is NVIDIA's second card based on its 16 nanometer Pascal architecture, and it packs in 8GB of GDDR5 RAM and clock speeds between 1.5GHz and 1.7GHz. The company claims it pumps out 6.5 teraflops worth of computing power, compared with the 1080's nine teraflops.
I tested the slightly pricier $449 Founders Edition of the card, which sports the same elaborate metallic heatsink design as the 1080 Founders version. It has three DisplayPort connections, one HDMI port, one DVI port and is powered by a single eight-pin connector. Let's get to what you're really here for: benchmarks! Not surprisingly, the GTX 1070 sits right between AMD's $240 Radeon RX480 8GB card and the GTX 1080 in terms of performance on my rig (a 4GHz Core i7-4790K CPU, 16GB of 2400Mz DDR3 RAM and a 512GB Crucial MX100 SSD on a ASUS Z97-A motherboard). But it also consistently bests the Radeon R9 Fury X, which was AMD's flagship card from last year. (Unfortunately, I didn't have a GTX 970 or 980 Ti to benchmark.) Rather than pining for 60 fps 4K performance, I've settled on 1440p (2,560 by 1,440 pixels) as my ideal gaming resolution.

It's noticeably sharper than 1080p, and it's easy to get high frame rates even with every graphical nicety imaginable turned on. With the GTX 1070, I consistently reached 60 fps with ultra settings (which will still look pretty great on a 4K display). Of course, it also had no trouble scoring well in 1080p benchmarks, but that's no surprise. If you're getting a new GPU today, you're better off aiming for 1,440p performance.
       

 Given that AMD's cheaper RX 480 had no trouble with VR, I didn't expect any hiccups with the GTX 1070. Indeed, it didn't disappoint.

	3DMark	3DMark 11
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070	Standard 13,918/ Extreme 7,703/ Ultra 4,110	X7,778
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080	Standard 15,859/ Extreme 9,316/ Ultra 5,021	X9,423
AMD R9 Fury X	Standard 13,337/ Extreme 7,249/ Ultra 3,899	X,6457
AMD Radeon RX 480	Standard 10,279/ Extreme 5,146/ Ultra 2,688	X4,588

Dogfighting in Eve: Valkyrie was fast-paced and didn't show any sign of slowdown, and exploring alien environments in Oculus' Farlands felt as immersive as ever. In fact, I didn't notice any performance difference from the GTX 1080 with VR. When the GTX 1070 was announced, it seemed like the ideal affordable choice for PC gaming. Since then, though, we've seen the $200 AMD RX 480 debut, and NVIDIA announced the GTX 1060, a $249 option of its own. So where does that leave the 1070? Based on what I've seen so far, it's still a better option than the RX 480 and 1060 if you want to play at 1440p, or simply want a GPU that can handle next year's games. And, of course, you've also got the option of picking up another GTX 1070 to run in SLI mode in a year or so, as well as overclocking to get some extra performance free. It's hard to call a $379 video card affordable, but when you're comparing it to a $599-and-up card, it seems a lot more palatable. And when you put it in context, as a GPU that trounces the cream of the crop from last year, the GTX 1070 is undeniably a great value.