Computer Act!ve - UK (2022-06-08)

25

CHOOSE THE RIGHT SPECS

Issue 633 • 8 – 21 June 2022

PHONE ❘ £124 from Amazon http://www.snipca.com/42051

Motorola Moto G22

Talk is cheap

SPECIFICATIONS

Eight-core MediaTek Helio G37 processor •• 4GB RAM

• • 64GB storage •• 6.5in 90Hz 1600x720-pixel LCD
  screen •• 50-megapixel rear camera •• 8-megapixel
  ultrawide camera •• 2-megapixel macro camera ••
  Wi-Fi 5 •• Bluetooth 5.0 •• Android 12 •• 8.5x75x164mm
  (HxWxD) •• 185g •• One-year warranty
  http://www.snipca.com/42051

Motorola is expanding its range of budget

models with the Moto G22, which means

you don’t have to spend a small fortune

on your next smartphone. It launched

recently at £150 for a SIM-free model,

and is already being discounted by many

retailers, including Amazon. It’s a

relatively chunky device, but it’s nicely

curved and feels well made. Its thickness

(8.5mm) doesn’t compare with the

slender 7.7mm of the iPhone 13 or 7.6mm

of the Samsung Galaxy S22.

Inside, there’s a MediaTek Helio G37

processor, 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage

(though you can expand this via a

microSD card if you need to). These

specifications are just about the bare

minimum you need to run Android.

Everything works fine, but it felt slightly

slow in our tests, with noticeable lags

after tapping to open menus, switch

between apps and load websites.

This feeling was confirmed in our

performance benchmark tests. The phone

scraped together scores of 171 in the

single-core test and 960 in the multi-core

test. These are among the lowest we’ve

seen on a phone in recent memory. For

comparison, our current favourite phone,

the Realme GT2 (see page 30), scored

3,562 in the same multi-core test, though

it’s significantly more expensive (starting

at £499). The benefit of the G22’s

lightweight performance is that the

Theoretical

router speed

What is it?

It’s the absolute maximum speed that

a router could achieve in lab conditions,

which is a lot higher than you can

expect to get when using the router at

home. It’s a figure that manufacturers

often use when stating the speed

of their routers on packaging and

marketing material.

How is it calculated?

The manufacturers use a couple of

tricks to boost these stated speeds.

First, they don’t use a regular house

with brick walls and multiple floors

when testing their maximum speeds.

Instead, they make sure there are no

obstacles between their test devices

and that they are positioned closer than

most home users would ever have

them. This gives them the best possible

signal and the fastest speeds. It’s also

normal for manufacturers to add the

maximum bandwidth of all the router’s

available networks together to reach a

grand total. That speed isn’t achievable

by a single specific device connected

to the router, but it’s a guide to the

maximum speed you could get in total if

you had a few devices spread across all

the router’s available networks.

What are the specs?

As an example,

Netgear’s Nighthawk

AX11000 Tri-Band WiFi

Router (pictured, £549

from http://www.snipca.

com/42054), which is one of

the fastest routers around, claims

speeds of up to 10.8Gbps. However, it

reaches this number by adding the

theoretical maximum speed of its three

available networks: one 6Hz Wi-Fi 6e

network at 4.8Gbps; one 5GHz Wi-Fi 6

network at 4.8Gbps; and a 2.4GHz

network that maxes out at 1.2Gbps.

Can I change it later?

Even if you could reach these theoretical

maximum speeds, which would be

almost impossible outside a lab, it’s not

something you can upgrade later.

Budget phone

makes compromises

on performance, screen

and camera

VERDICT A very affordable

smartphone that comes with Android

12 and lasts a good while between

charges, but its performance and screen

quality reflect its low price

★★★★★

ALTERNATIVE Redmi

Note 10 Pro £219 Spend a bit

more money and you’ll get

a phone that really delivers,

with a better screen and faster

performance

battery takes longer to drain. As a result it

can easily last two days of light use on a

single charge.

The 6.5in IPS LCD screen is another

casualty of its limited budget. With a

resolution of 1600x720 pixels it’s not

particularly sharp, and it’s not especially

bright or vibrant either. You do at least

get a refresh rate of 90Hz rather than the

old standard of 60Hz, though the benefit

of a slick screen is undermined by the

G22’s slow-running processor.

The rear camera takes snaps up to

50 megapixels, and there’s also an

ultrawide and macro lens. On the front,

the selfie camera is up to 16 megapixels in

size. It takes reasonable enough pictures

in good light, if you can hold the phone

steady. In low light we found photos

grainy and somewhat disappointing.

There is a night mode you can switch to

for shots in the dark, but we didn’t find

that much help.