Moto G73 5G First Impressions: Focussing on 5G

Motorola's current G-series lineup can be best summarised as confusing. The older Moto G62 had 5G connectivity, but the recently launched Moto G72 (Review) missed out on it. Now, there's the new Moto G73 which gets 5G connectivity but is officially priced the same as the G72. The latter fared well in our review, save for the missing 5G element which we considered as a big drawback. Despite Motorola's odd reasoning behind this move, the G72 felt a bit out of place, especially at a time when 5G connectivity was already available in major cities.

The new Moto G73 5G is expected to be the much-awaited Moto G62 5G upgrade, but it also serves as a 5G alternative to the more recent Moto G72. Here's our first impressions of the new smartphone. 

The Moto G73 5G has a slim and chiselled appearance, compared to the Moto G62 5G it replaces

It is easy to spot this generational leap once you have seen Motorola's new design philosophy, which is quite evident in the chiselled and slick appearance of the premium Motorola Edge 30 Fusion or the Edge 30 Ultra. The Moto G73 5G also follows this design by going with a slim design that is just 8.29mm in thickness, and it does not feel too heavy at 181g. The device's rear panel is made from, what Motorola calls, acrylic glass which gives the appearance and feel of glass but is actually plastic.

This soft, matte-finished rear panel has a premium appearance in the Midnight Blue finish, but seems to be a dust and fingerprint magnet. The frame is made from polycarbonate and also has a soft matte finish, which makes the phone very slippery. Thankfully, Motorola offers a soft TPU case in the box, which makes it a lot easier to grip.

The Moto G73 5G has a 6.5-inch full-HD+ LCD display which seems like a downgrade over the Moto G72's pOLED panel. The G72 5G has a 120Hz variable refresh rate and also offers 240Hz touch sampling rate, which should be good for gaming.

The Moto G73 5G is also the first smartphone in India to offer the recently announced MediaTek Dimensity 930 SoC, which has support for 13 5G bands. The phone will be available in a single 8GB RAM and 128GB storage option which is priced at Rs. 18,999 in India.

Unlike the Moto G62 5G, the Moto G73 5G offers stereo speakers along with Dolby Atmos support. Also present is an IP52 rating for basic water resistance. Motorola retains the 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom as well as a Type-C port for charging and data transfers.

Moto Secure brings all of the phone's security and privacy-related settings in one app

The Moto G73 5G runs a fresh serving of Motorola's MyUX software which is based on Android 13. It features tonnes of customisation options but also comes with more Motorola-branded apps than ever before. There's a new Family Space app which offers the usual kids mode, but also lets caretakers get remote desktop-like control of another Motorola device, allowing them to provide remote assistance to another user (like the elderly or a child). Of course, this is only allowed once the necessary permissions have been given. Motorola also claims that it is quite secure as the end-to-end security has been provided by its ThinkShield platform.

There's also a brand-new Moto Secure app, which basically brings some ThinkShield-level security features to the forefront apart from what Google's Android already offers. This includes Secure Folder, Network protection, Lockscreen security and PIN pad scramble. The app also hosts the usual Android features like the privacy dashboard, permissions manager and more, which bakes all of the phone's security and privacy-related features into one app.

While the phone packs in the usual apps from Motorola, I also noticed the Facebook app which is the only third-party app that comes preinstalled. Motorola promises an assured upgrade to Android 14 and up to three years of security updates.

The Moto G73 5G has two rear-facing cameras, which includes a primary camera and an ultra-wide camera

As for its cameras, this Moto packs in just two rear cameras. This includes a 50-megapixel primary camera which Motorola claims comes from last year's premium Edge 30 Pro, and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide, which also works a macro camera and is also used for calculating depth when using the camera's Portrait mode. Selfies are handled by a 16-megapixel front-facing camera.

Motorola has retained the Moto G62 5G's 5,000mAh battery capacity but has improved the charging speed by offering a 30W Type-C charger in the box.

Does MediaTek's new Dimensity 930 SoC offer that big of a performance leap to justify the Moto G73 5G's pricing? Stay tuned for our detailed review, coming soon on Gadgets 360.