Motorola Moto G6 review: You'll get plenty of mileage from this cheap phone

Some people are happy driving a Honda Accord or Kia Soul, while others are willing to pay more to drive a BMW or Mercedes.

The same concept goes for cellphones.

Some people will pay $1,000 or more for the latest Apple iPhone X or Samsung Galaxy S9, while some wouldn’t dream of spending that much for a phone that will last three or four years.

At $249.99, the Amazon Prime Exclusive version of the Motorola Moto G6 is the cellphone equivalent of a Honda, but it's still impressive.

If you like the full-screen, small-front-bezel looks of the Galaxy S9 or the iPhone X, the Moto G6 will look familiar — in a good way. The Moto G6 is a smaller handset with a bigger screen. The front and back of the G6 are made of Corning Gorilla Glass, and the back curves up on the sides, which makes it easier to pick up but slick in the hand.

The main cameras (dual sensors) are mounted in a quarter-sized round bump on the back of the G6. The only buttons are for volume up and down and for sleep/power. They are all located on the phone’s right edge for easy one-handed operation. The G6 looks as sleek and refined as any flagship phone.

As you might expect, the G6’s specs are a step down from more expensive flagship phones. It has a 5.7-inch IPS display with a resolution of 2,160 by 1,080 pixels for a pixel density of 424 pixels per inch. It runs Android 8.0 (Oreo) on a 1.8 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU with three gigabytes of RAM and 32 gigabytes of onboard storage with the ability to add up to 128 GB with a microSD card.

The “water-repellent” coating protects it from accidental splashes or light rain, according to Motorola’s website. It is not designed to be submerged in water, and it is not waterproof. The battery capacity is 3,000 milliamp-hours, which is big enough to last all day.

The small, capsule-shaped fingerprint reader is below the screen on the front bezel. The phone also can recognize your face to unlock the phone.

There are plenty of reasons to avoid spending a lot for a smartphone. A Honda will move down the road the same as a BMW. Although the G6 is a great phone, you have to realize that it’s not meant to compete with the iPhone X or Galaxy S9. It's designed to live alongside those flagship phones as a handset that is quite capable and even shares some of the same desirable features as those expensive phones but at a quarter of the price.