The Motorola Moto G37 is a very attractive phone that, thanks to its price, is suitable for people on a tight budget or as a secondary phone. You don’t have to sacrifice 5G; you get stable and sufficiently fast Wi-Fi data speeds as well as a reasonably bright screen.

The camera image quality is sufficient for basic needs, the fingerprint sensor works quite reliably, and the battery life is roughly on par with the competition.

However, there are also significant cost-cutting measures compared to its predecessor, the Moto G35—likely due to the sharp rise in memory prices: The wide-angle camera has been removed, the screen has a significantly lower resolution, there’s no protective case included in the box, the storage is noticeably slower, and eSIM support has also been removed.

The current generation of budget smartphones is characterized by cost-cutting measures. At the same time, older generations usually receive security updates for only a short time—if at all. If you can wait, you should hold off on buying a new phone model for another year or two until the situation on the memory market has eased up again.

If you absolutely have to buy one now, the Moto G37 is a solid, reasonably priced smartphone—though it lags behind the competition.

Motorola is asking just under US$ 300 for the Moto G37, e.g. at amazon.com.

Note: The manufacturer may use components from different suppliers including display panels, drives or memory sticks with similar specifications.

Motorola has adapted the Moto G37 to its current design line. That means three stylish Pantone colors (fuchsia, blue, and gray); internationally, a turquoise version is also available. In addition, the back is made of a soft plastic material and features a stylishly integrated camera module.

The transitions between the materials and the frame aren’t quite as seamless as on the manufacturer’s more expensive models, but the phone is solidly built and doesn’t bend.

It has IP64 certification, which means the phone can withstand dust and dirt well, though you shouldn’t submerge it in water.

It comes with 128 GB of storage and 4 GB of RAM; internationally, there are even versions with only 64 GB of storage. And we thought that kind of storage capacity was a thing of the past, even for budget phones...

Storage can be expanded using microSD cards, and the card reader performed quite quickly in our test.

      Motorola Moto G35       Motorola Moto G37       CMF Phone 2 Pro       Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 5G       Samsung Galaxy A37 5G       DIN A6 ❌

166.3 mm / 6.55 in 76 mm / 2.99 in 7.8 mm / 0.3071 in 188 g0.4145 lbs166.2 mm / 6.54 in 76.5 mm / 3.01 in 7.9 mm / 0.311 in 191 g0.4211 lbs164 mm / 6.46 in 78 mm / 3.07 in 7.8 mm / 0.3071 in 185 g0.4079 lbs164 mm / 6.46 in 75.42 mm / 2.97 in 7.35 mm / 0.2894 in 178 g0.3924 lbs162.9 mm / 6.41 in 78.2 mm / 3.08 in 7.4 mm / 0.2913 in 196 g0.4321 lbs148 mm / 5.83 in 105 mm / 4.13 in 1 mm / 0.03937 in 1.5 g0.00331 lbs

Wi-Fi 5 is top-of-the-line, so the Moto G37 delivers expected speeds of around 260–330 Mbit/s. That’s not particularly fast, but for those who don’t have gigabit internet at home anyway and don’t plan to use the phone on a fast home network, it’s sufficient.

Some international cellular frequencies are missing, so before traveling abroad, you should check whether you can use the Moto G37 for mobile internet in your destination country. Reception proved to be solid in our test. In challenging situations, such as between tall buildings, however, the signal can occasionally drop out.

The display can render up to 120 frames per second, and the touchscreen is precise and reasonably responsive. A fingerprint sensor is built into the standby button on the right, which unlocks the phone reliably and quickly.

Android 16 comes preinstalled, overlaid with MotoUI, which makes only minor changes to the original Android and tends to offload advanced features into its own apps.

New security updates are scheduled to be released through April 2029—which isn’t really long.

The packaging is plastic-free, but no further information on the phone’s sustainability is provided.

Image comparison

Choose a scene and navigate within the first image. One click changes the position on touchscreens. One click on the zoomed-in image opens the original in a new window. The first image shows the scaled photograph of the test device.

PlantSurroundingLow Light

Cost-cutting measures are also evident in the IPS display: the resolution drops to 1,604x720 pixels.

This puts the phone behind similarly priced competitors, especially since those often feature significantly brighter OLED displays.

Color reproduction is quite accurate, but here, too, the competition is ahead.

* ... smaller is better

The Moto G37, with its MediaTek Dimensity 6300, doesn’t really offer any more power than its predecessor. Its performance also lags significantly behind similarly priced competitors, and it doesn’t always run completely smoothly in everyday use.

At least the maximum temperature of the chassis under load is acceptable, and even after prolonged use, only minimal performance losses are noticeable.

The small speaker on the bottom edge is supplemented by the earpiece. Nevertheless, the sound profile is very treble-heavy, which isn’t particularly impressive. If you connect speakers or headphones via USB or Bluetooth, you’ll get clean sound. The selection of wireless codecs for audio transmission covers the most important options.

The battery has been designed with a slightly higher capacity of 5,200 mAh and offers about an hour more runtime in our Wi-Fi test. However, the competition is already ahead in this area as well. The phone can be charged at up to 20 watts; a full charge takes over 2 hours.

(±) The average temperature for the upper side under maximal load is 37.2 °C / 99 F, compared to the average of 33 °C / 91 F for the devices in the class Smartphone.
(±) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 40.9 °C / 106 F, compared to the average of 35.3 °C / 96 F, ranging from 21.9 to 247 °C for the class Smartphone.
(±) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 41.3 °C / 106 F, compared to the average of 34 °C / 93 F

Frequency diagram (checkboxes can be checked and unchecked to compare devices)

* ... smaller is better

Battery Runtime

Total Sustainability Score: 42.4%

The selection of devices to be reviewed is made by our editorial team. The test sample was provided to the author as a loan by the manufacturer or retailer for the purpose of this review. The lender had no influence on this review, nor did the manufacturer receive a copy of this review before publication. There was no obligation to publish this review. As an independent media company, Notebookcheck is not subjected to the authority of manufacturers, retailers or publishers.

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Editor of the original article: Florian Schmitt - Managing Editor Mobile - 1587 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2009

I initially wrote about gaming laptops when I joined Notebookcheck in 2009. I was then involved with the setup of the comparison portal Notebookinfo and worked with social media concepts for large companies like BMW and Adidas, while also returning to work for Notebookcheck in 2012. Nowadays, I focus on smartphones, tablets, and future technologies. Since 2018 I have been Managing Editor for mobile device reviews, working alongside my colleague Daniel Schmidt.