Motorola moto g34 5G - Some Phones Just Feel Nicer

Over the years I have become a real phone snob. It's not my fault. When you review phones all the time you get to try the latest and greatest and that means you miss all those premium features if your daily handset doesn't have them.

Do I actually need a phone with a terabyte of storage, wireless charging and the ability to be dropped in the ocean and survive? Probably not.

But knowing there are other people out there using phones like that... well that just drives me crazy.

So it's easy for someone like me to slip into the mindset that no phone under $2000 is even worth taking out of the box.

This is, of course, ridiculous. Every now and then I need to give myself a couple of uppercuts, take a reality check and see just how far down the price-range I can go while still getting what I really need from a phone.

Turns out, it's pretty far.

The Motorola moto g34 5G retails for NZ$319.00. That's ten times less expensive than some phones I've reviewed.

Okay, I'm exaggerating. It's actually more than ten times less expensive than some phones I've reviewed.

And yet, I've been using it for a week or so now and you know what? My life is not ten times worse as a result. In fact, you could argue things haven't changed much at all.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Ironically, unlike many far more expensive handsets, the moto g34 ships with a 20W charger in the box. The bigger irony is the moto g34 is possibly the first phone I've ever reviewed to be packaged already in its included case. Don't get me wrong, I love it when a cover is included. Sure, it's a relatively basic, transparent TPU case with opaque edges but that's better than no case at all... Except... This phone has a vegan leather back which feels absolutely incredible in your hand. There's no way I'm depriving myself of that tactile experience by tucking it away in a plastic case.

I absolutely love holding this phone. There's a slight catch - in order to get vegan leather you have to opt for the Ocean Green variant. If you prefer the Charcoal Black option alas that only comes in a smooth, acrylic glass finish.

Either way, the handset is light and slim - the display is large but in a tall and skinny way which makes the phone easy to operate with one hand. It's a 6.5-inch LCD panel with a 120Hz refresh rate - I don't love an LCD screen on my phone because means it's hard to see when I'm wearing my polarised sunglasses however, that high refresh rate certainly belies the budget-friendly price-tag.

Which hints at quite a list of other "premium" features I was surprised to find... like NFC payment, a stereo speaker array and eSIM capability. Get used to this last feature - in places like America, many phones are now eSIM-only. However, this one still accommodates dual physical SIMs as well and you can add a microSD (up to 1TB) for extra storage space.

There's already 128GB built in - which is pretty much my bottom line for any phone now, otherwise you'll be scratching around for space to store your high-quality pics and vids.

I would have also said 8GB of RAM is my bare minimum these days but the moto g34 only rocks 4GB. Luckily, thanks to RAM Boost, the phone can use some of the available storage as virtual memory. This seems to work surprisingly well and while this is no gaming powerhouse, the only time I've experienced any major stutters or slow-downs is transitioning in and out of the Camera app.

Which is not to take anything away from the camera performance as a whole. Again, because of the moto g34's low price, I was bracing myself for substandard photo and video performance in anything but the most ideal of conditions. Yet sure enough, my expectations were exceeded by quite some margin. The moto g34 performs quite well in dim lighting and generally produces clear, bright, colourful shots.

Both the 50MP primary shooter and the 16MP selfie-cam consistently came up with the goods - it's always those split-second, spontaneous shots you only get one chance at that are the true test of a phone camera's performance. I thought this one of my "Wine-ing" dog came out pretty well.

Back to the camera app - although the phone is a little sluggish swapping between its live view and the camera roll, yet again there are some nice-to-have features here that actually work. There's a Dual Capture option that lets you shoot from both front and rear cameras simultaneously and there's even a Magic Eraser tool which I used to blot out a distractingly over-lit leaf on the right of this bunch of flowers.

I'm not much of a fan of macro lenses though - especially 2MP sensors like the one on the back panel here. We often find macro lenses like these on budget phones and I don't really know why - is it just to make the camera array look more impressive in a bit of "two lenses must be better than one" logic? Doesn't really bother me given the overall camera performance here is well above average - even the portrait shots I took looked pretty good to me.

Battery life is excellent. The 5000mAh cell gets me through two days easily, although that 20W charger doesn't juice things up particularly quickly. Unfortunately, wireless charging is one high-end feature this phone does not have. While that's a deal-breaker for me, most "normal" people don't seem to mind plugging in.

The moto g34 is also described as "water repellent". It's hard to know exactly what this means as it doesn't carry any IP rating and it certainly isn't submersible. I think the idea is it won't matter too much if you sweat, get rained on or accidentally spill a drink in its vicinity.

As for the My UX operating system, built over Android 14 - it's so stripped-back, it's barely noticeable - and that's just the way I like it. Most features and settings are easy enough to find and customise, although because of the display's tall 20:9 aspect ratio, there's only room for four icons across the home screen. It's a small niggle, but when you're used to five it's a tough decision which app you'll lose from your favourites bar at the bottom.

I'd like to be able to comment on the fingerprint and face unlock functions but for some reason my loan agreement forbade me to set these up so maybe they work, maybe they don't.

What does work is everything else - and it all works well. I never thought I'd be this satisfied with the performance, camera setup, look and feel of a sub-$350 handset, and yet, here I am. This is a phone that fits very nicely in my pocket.

    

Click here for more information on the Motorola moto g34 5G.

Samsung Galaxy A-Series (2024) - Spot the Difference

It's that time of year again... when it becomes a real challenge to understand the difference between all the phones Samsung has to offer.

By now the three Galaxy S24 flagships are well and truly out and about. They're pretty pricey though, so you might be considering the S23 FE from late last year as a more budget-friendly alternative.

Of course, if you want something bendy, the Z Flip and Fold are both great options, although there'll be new models out in a few months time.

And as if things weren't complicated enough, the 2024 A-Series has just hit the shelves. That's another six phones to add to the mix. Oh boy.

Samsung loaned me an A55 and an A35 for this review and i can tell you straight off the bat, the only thing that would keep me from buying either one for my own personal use is a lack of wireless charging. I'm afraid that's become a dealbreaker for me which is a shame because wireless charging seems to be one of the first "premium" features to be sliced off the list when manufacturers design a sub $1000 phone.

This year's A-Series handsets almost make up for it though by supporting 25W fast charging right across the range. Both my review devices had excellent battery life too - coasting through two full days on a single charge.

Both the A35 and A55 carry an IP67 dust and water resistance rating - that's pretty unusual for a phone in this price range. 

What I found even more unusual was how good the camera quality was - in both devices. While these phones obviously aren't capable of producing the unrivalled photo and video performance of their S-Series big brothers, they don't fall too far short. The main difference between camera arrays is the A55 has a 12MP Ultra-Wide sensor, while the A35's is only 8MP. The A55 also boasts an impressive 32MP selfie-cam, as opposed to just 13MP on the A35. That said, both rock a decent 50MP main shooter and both sport fairly advanced features like Super HDR Video, both optical and digital image stabilisation and advanced "Nightography" for better low-light shooting.

Neither device really offers the advanced on-device AI processing Samsung was so emphatic about with its S-Series launch at the beginning of the year but if you can do without live translation and AI-assisted Google searches, you can definitely save somne serious cash and still end up with a very decent phone.

At $NZ799.00 the A55 comes in Awesome Navy or Awesome Iceblue (which is really white with a slightly blueish tinge). It feels evey bit as premium in the hand as any other flagship that sells for more than twice the price. This is thanks to the glass back, metal rails around the edges and upgraded durability for the glass over the display.

Although the NZ$649.00 A35 is essentially exactly the same shape and also comes in Awesome Navy, its other option is Awesome Lilac and while it still has a glass back, the sides are plastic instead of metal. As you would expect, the chip on the A35 is a step down from the A55... but not that far down. In fact, it's the same chip that ran the A54 last year.

Confused yet? I don't blame you.

Perhaps the most confusing thing of all is although both these phones cost less than half of their S-Series stablemates, they're way better than half as good. I was expecting slow app launches, stuttering performance in the camera app and jittery tranistions between apps but I experienced none of that. Instead I got smooth, trouble-free performance, crisp, colourful displays and excellent video and photo quality - I'm not just talking above-average either.

Check out these shots from the A35 - taken at 1x, 2x and 3x zoom. They're very clear and true-to-life, even once the digital zoom takes over.

This next pic was from the A55 - successfully capturing every detail of both dog and heron in flight. (Don't worry, the dog didn't catch the heron!)

These phones also slot easily into the wider Samsung ecosystem. Thanks to the latest One UI operating system and updates to the Wear app and WearOS, swapping my Galaxy Buds Pro2 and Galaxy Watch5 from one Samsung phone to another is now quite painless - no resets required.

Slightly less painless is moving from physical sim to eSim - something I did earlier in the year when changing phone plans. This is where the A55 sets itself apart from the rest of the "A"s - it's the only one in the series that's eSim compatible, although the rest all have dual-sim trays that can also be used to expand storage using a microSD card.

Other than that, I found the user experience on both the A35 and A55 to be very similar - and that experience surprised me by just how good it was. That means Samsung has made life very hard for itself; both these phones come dangerously close to premium performance at a far lower-than-premium price tag. If you don't believe me, get to a local Samsung dealer and try them out for yourself. I'm confident you'll be just as impressed as I was at how well they stack up.

    

Click here for more information and pricing on the Samsung Galaxy A-Series (2024).

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra - AI On Another Level

So it's been tricky for the big phone brands for a while now. How do they really make a splash launching their new phones when they're usually pretty much like last year's with a faster chip and slightly better battery life?

There will always be tech-addicted early adopters who absolutely have to have the latest handset as soon as it comes out but convincing the rest of the market to upgrade requires a bit more incentive.

Starting from NZ$2,449.00, Samsung's latest flagship had better provide a damn good incentive indeed.

Unsurprisingly, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra doesn't look that different from the last couple of generations. It still boasts a 6.8-inch screen, still has a similar-looking camera array on the back and still supports the S-Pen stylus.

But this year, even those most obvious features have been given a decent tweak. The large QHD Dynamic AMOLED display is now completely flat; it seems the age of screens that curve away at the edges may be coming to an end - somewhat ironic given it was Samsung that introduced us to the concept of curvy screens some years ago, even naming these phones "Edge." Turns out, while those curves may look cool and feel nice - they actually make the phone harder to use, especially with a stylus. 

The upper (ear) speaker slot is pretty much invisible now, taking up virtually no screen space below the top bezel and the screen glass is a new concoction from Corning called "Gorilla Armour" - more resistant than ever against cracks and scratches to match the toughness of the new titanium frame.

The display is crazy bright too - clocking in at 2600nits compared to 1750nits on the S23 and S22 models.

The S-Pen now matches whichever colour of S24 Ultra you choose; Titanium Black, Titanium Grey, Titanitum Violet or Titanium Yellow. It also now has a flat head. See? Curves are so 2023.

And just when I thought I had a handle on how smartphone cameras work, Samsung has blown my mind by taking out the 10X zoom lens and replacing it with a 5X one. Don't panic, this has actually resulted in better close-ups. That's because last years zoom sensor was only 10MP - the 5X one on the S24 Ultra is 50MP. That significant jump in resolution combined with the sheer processing power of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chip adds up to some spectacular photographic wizardry.

Because of the way the S24 Ultra now uses multiple images from multiple sensors to create the absolute best photo possible, terms like "optical" or "hybrid" zoom have kind of lost their meaning. Enter the age of Galaxy AI.

While you still have easy access to a raft of "expert" settings if you so desire, that's way outside my area of expertise. I like to let the phone do the work for me and now that means an awful lot of work.

A few years ago, when Samsung first introduced 100X zoom it was really a bit of a gimmick. The images were usually too blurry to be of much use and that's if you could hold the phone steady enough to get what you were aiming for in shot at all.

That's all changed now. Can you see the crane across the gully from my house?...

No? Well, let's zoom in and see if we can find out who the construction company is...

Not bad, eh? The improved stabilisation makes long-distance zoom shots dramatically easier to take and the results speak for themselves. The really impressive thing about this new Galaxy AI is how fast it works on this phone. Not just when taking photos - and to be sure options like nighttime shooting are noticeably quicker - but also when editing.

Galaxy AI means a feature like object removal is almost instant, not just removing what you don't want but rebuilding the background to match.

When you have clumsy digits like mine, a thumb in shot always seems to happen just when you want it least. But with a few swipes, all fixed...

Oh, and I couldn't resist showing off the "Remove Relfection" option - check it out...

Before

After

Of course, there have been updates to the video settings as well. Most notably Director's View has been renamed Dual Record - previously it was possible to record a picture-in-picture video using the selfie cam and one of the forward-facing lenses. Now you can use a combination of any lens, giving you the option of shooting wide-angle and close-up simultaneously.

Using the built-in mics on your paired bluetooth earbuds for video is another useful new addition. And you no longer have to shoot in slow motion to watch your video in slo-mo. Just long-press your vid while it's playing and the action will slow down until you lift your finger. You can make this a permanent edit after the fact.

The large, flat, bright screen makes the S24 Ultra a fantastic gaming phone and it's one of the few to offer ray-tracing via its improved GPU for the most convincing graphics response you could ask for. Samsung has also completely revamped the cooling system, combining several layers of different cooling techniques to ensure maximum performance over even the longest gaming session.

And thanks to an impressive battery performance from the 5000mAh cell, that gaming session should definitely last the distance. Most nights I still have around 70% juice left when I put the S24 Ultra on to charge - that's almost unheard of from a high-demand, large-screen flagship like this.

Unfortunately, rumours of an upgrade to Qi2 wireless charging have proven to be unfounded. This would have opened the door to a whole new range of magnetic charging accessories and cases a-la a certain other successful brand of phones out of Cupertino - but we might have to wait for the S26 series before we can magnetise a wallet onto the back of our Samsungs.

But the big star of the S24 launch was Galaxy AI - and justifiably so. Want a live transcript of your meeting or lecture? Just select the shortcut from the pulldown menu on the notification bar.

Need a translator? There's another shortcut for that. Simply download whichever language pack you require and you'll have instant access to both written and spoken translations. There are currently 13 languages on offer, presumably with more on the way and thanks the the S24 Ultra's NPU, the translation happens on the phone itself - no data connection required. This might be pretty handy if you've just arrived in a strange country and you're trying to find out where to buy a local sim card. You can even live-translate your phonecalls which makes dealing with international business partners so much smoother. The potential productivity gains are pretty obvious.

Galaxy AI doesn't stop there. You can press that distinctive star logo to summarise emails, documents and web pages. You can even change the tone and format of your own messages - make your silly dad jokes sound more formal or instantly add all the appropriate emojis you can never remember how to find.

Thanks to Google Circle to Search, you can now highlight anything on screen to find out more about it online - again, this happens within seconds. For example, you like the look of the phone I'm holding in the video below? Bring up the Google prompt, circle the phone and you'll be presented with an instant list of places where you can buy the S24 Ultra.

Google and Samsung seem to have settled the double-up of Quick Share and Nearby Share and they've now agreed Quick Share is the way we'll transfer photos, videos and other files from device to device. In an uncharacteristically open-source move, you can now Quck Share via QR code, meaning even non-Android devices can also have instant access to your stuff.

While Samsung's latest flagship may not look dramatically different from its predecessors, its new Galaxy AI capabilities combined with the latest, most powerful Android SoC available mean the performance and useability of this device are worlds ahead of where we were twelve months ago. Language is no longer a barrier. Traditional phone-photography limitations like long-distance and low light have been well and truly overcome. Complicated photo and video editing is now user-friendly, fast and happens within the native apps already on the device. And apart from anything else, this is an attractive, durable handset with a class-leading display and excellent battery life.

Is it worth NZ$2449.00? Well... if any phone is, this one is.

    

Click here for more information and pricing on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.