Moto E6S Review: The Affordable Moto You Can Miss

Motorola has dropped yet another Moto smartphone in the pond. It’s Moto E6s is the latest offering available with a decent mobile platform, a modern design clubbed with excellent colour variants, and a few throwbacks feature to cherish such as the removable battery. Moto E6s is a rebranded version of Moto E6 Plus. It brings the simplicity of a budget smartphone with an optimistically brilliant design on-board, and that’s all while falling right into your budget at just Rs 6,999/-.

It does make some compromises, but it also brings a lot on-board that the price range could buy so don’t underestimate it. Moto E6s has many calibres, and we found them after reviewing the device for a few days. Here is what we know about the device so far and if you should look into buying it or not.

Motorola Moto E6s is available online on various websites, including Amazon India. However, you can enjoy a full suite of offers on Flipkart where Moto E6s is available at Rs 6,999/- for its 64+4GB variant. Available in three colour variants that are Rich Cranberry, Caribbean Blue, and Polished Graphite, the device comes preloaded with a tonne of offers that you can avail of buying it from Flipkart. At the moment, only the 64+4GB variant is available in India.

You’ll get Moto E6s is a decent red-coloured retail box. About the content in the box, you’ll get the phone (of course), a 10W Rapid Charger, SIM ejector tool, Quickstart guide, and a MicroUSB cable to go along with it.

Moto E6s comes with a modest processor, i.e. MediaTek Helio P22 octa-core 2.0GHz processor which does its job although might not be able to pull off intensive tasks for that matter. The device is still underpowered even though there is a 4GB and 6GB RAM variants of which, only the former is available in India at this moment. The device comes with 64GB internal storage and can be expanded up to 512GB using a microSD card.

Apart from this, there is no NFC on the device. It also lacks a gyroscope and compass so using Google Maps might be a bit difficult although not impossible since you can always use all its capabilities except the one where the arrow points in the direction you are heading.

The device has a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner as well along with other vital components such as a single front camera and a dual rear camera setup, a micro-USB slot, a speaker at the bottom and a 3.5mm headphone jack on top among others. Moto E6s supports dual SIM cards supporting 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies. It supports WiFi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, and other features as well.

Fortunately, Moto E6s shares the same DNA as any other Moto smartphones you would see. This evokes mixed response, especially considering the Rich Cranberry colour option.

First up, the design is simple and sober with an elegant Motorola-inspired design. The front has a 6.1-inch display covered with thick bezels around the edges. The chin at the bottom is considerably thick as well, which isn’t an uncommon sight on a budget phone. It does offer a large display for better viewing experience. There is a tiny teardrop-shaped notch that encapsulates a front selfie camera while other sensors tucked on the upper bezel which isn’t slim as well.

The phone is available in three colour trims of which, I would personally recommend trying out the Rich Cranberry version. However, others, including Polished Graphite, are fingerprint magnets so beware. It is better to install a TPU case or any other case to prevent smudges and fingerprints from ruining the removable back panel.

The rear panel doesn’t have much except a dual rear camera setup that protrudes a bit while the centre-mounted fingerprint scanner is camouflaged into Motorola’s logo.

Moto E6s uses a massive 6.1-inch HD+ display with a screen resolution of 720×1560 pixels. The aspect ratio is 19.5:9, which aids in watching movies thanks to its better viewing experience. Although thick bezels surround the display, the display is still punchy and on par with other Moto devices in the same segment.

Apart from that, the IPS display is tall and not that wide, and with a weight of just 150g, it is more comfortable to hold the Moto E6s for longer. The larger display also makes it a great companion for gaming although you might not be able to play graphics-intensive games as I have explained it briefly in the ‘Performance’ section.

I am disappointed with the choice of processor Motorola made with Moto E6s. The Realme 3i, which is also a budget smartphone, runs on the much faster MediaTek Helio P60 SoC which gives a sense just about how underpowered the E6S is when compared to its competitors.

Playing intensive games would throw it off the rails for sure. However, we were able to pull off PUBG Mobile Lite on the phone. The gameplay did suffer from frame rate drops when the action in the game got intense, which is kind of a buzzkill since you might lose the game in a jiffy.

Moto E6s can handle a bunch of apps and games although you will have to keep an eye on the RAM consumption since Android smartphones have a massive issue of lagging and whatnot when the RAM is not sufficient to run the device smoothly.

Talking about the rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, it unlocks the phone although the animation is a bit slow. Moreover, the success rate isn’t that high either. The Moto E6s also has a face unlock feature that uses the front camera, which I won’t perceive as the most secure, but it is there. It lags in recognising the face and unlocks during low light conditions such as at night or when you are in a dull room.

Moto E6s uses a near-stock version of Android 9.0 Pie which is a blessing in itself. This is because the stock Android allows the phone to have a smooth experience compared to other budget offerings with custom user interfaces and bloatware.

However, we found out that even after having 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage, the phone does lag a bit here and there. In fact, the phone tends to lag even in basic tasks, like making a call. The app loading on Moto E6s is prolonged as well, which is a massive shortfall even if it is a budget smartphone. This could potentially throw it under the rails when compared to rivals from Xiaomi.

Moto E6s has three camera sensors overall which include a single front camera and a dual rear camera setup. The front is an 8MP sensor that uses AI for post-processing. The sensor clicks decent images, although you can’t compare it with mid-range devices. Images shot using the front camera are average and do contain grains under low-light conditions. However, you can pull off more than average photos under excellent lighting conditions.

Next up, the rear camera setup has a 13MP primary and 2MP depth sensor arranged in a vertically stacked camera module. As per our testing, we found out that the phone doesn’t have quick autofocus which means you might not be able to capture moving objects accurately. The HDR on the rear cameras is good against the light, although it might suffer otherwise. 

When you click images with the rear camera, the closeups are good, but you will notice that the details of the farthest objects are fading or getting softer, which is a loss of quality. Further, Moto E6s doesn’t have electronic stabilization let alone optical image stabilization so yes, the videos that max at 1080p will be shaky if you move the cam a lot. 

I must add that the battery life is mediocre. With a 3,000 mAh battery, you cannot expect a lot. It will surely take you through the day if you are indulging in mixed usage rather than relying on heavy usage. Moreover, the battery lasted for over 12 hours and 22 minutes on an HD video loop test which isn’t bad.

Motorola calls it a Rapid Charger, but it takes the 10W charger around 3 hours and 45 minutes to juice up the battery to its maximum capacity which isn’t quick. It is a budget smartphone so yeah, there are a few things that you will have to let go if the price tag is as low as Rs 6,999/-.