We spend a lot of time thinking about which phone deserves that coveted Best title here at Android Central. It's a moving target throughout the year, and something we disagree about more often than not when discussing things internally. We look at camera quality, battery life, performance over time, software updates, and a ton more. It's a valuable conversation to have, and a great conversation to have with all of you, but this year I found myself asking the same question over and over again as we evaluated these phones. Is this phone really $4-600 better than the Moto G5 Plus? More often than not, the answer to that question was no. Obviously, the Law of Diminishing Returns exists for a reason, but there's no doubt in my mind what Motorola did with this $180 phone is important. In many ways, this little budget phone is the most important phone to have been released this year. Check out the full Moto G5 Plus review! More than a budget phone

Motorola's low-end phones have been exceptional for a few years now. They have a history of performing above expectations, packing batteries which frequently pass the more expensive competition, and usually have cameras that are better than anticipated. The Moto G5 Plus is the latest in that line, and brings to the table a build quality much greater than you'd expect for the price as well as the remarkably good software Motorola has been building upon since the Google days. And that's what makes this phone such a big deal. The G5 Plus doesn't look or feel like a budget phone. It's for a great fingerprint sensor, ridiculously good battery life, decent speakers, and a middle-of-the-road camera at a price you'd usually see a carrier offer as one of those old "buy this expensive phone and get this cheap thing for your kid" deals. This phone also does a great job highlighting just how small the difference is between the best of the lower end and these "flagship" phones is right now. You can buy three of these phones for the same price as the Pixel 2, and if you handed these two phones to someone who didn't know anything about phones there's a good chance it wouldn't be immediately clear to that person which phone was superior. Great news for the future