Review: Moto G Series (2021)

Motorola phoned it in this year. As usual, it refreshed its long-running Moto G series with a few new models. They're perfectly fine if you don't want to pay a lot for a phone, but you won't find a better example of complacency. The $300 Moto G Stylus, $250 Moto G Power, and $170 Moto G Play do the bare minimum necessary to meet the bar. As a result, they're already overshadowed by many competitors.

OnePlus recently debuted top-end features like 5G and a 90-Hz screen refresh rate on the $300 Nord N10. And for $350, Google's Pixel 4A has a camera that is leaps and bounds better. The sub-$200 Nokia 5.3 enjoys longer software support than Moto phones, and it can make contactless payments.

With competition so fierce, why not finally add proper water resistance (like the Moto X4 back in 2017)? Or maybe bring wireless charging to the budget market! 

The new Moto G lineup isn't bad. The G Power is actually pretty good. There are just better phones out there for $200 to $300.

We tried out all three Moto Gs, and here's a brief overview of all three phones. 

All of them come unlocked and ready to work on all three major US wireless networks. And they all have MicroSD card slots to expand storage, headphone jacks if you want to plug in, and plastic shells, making them more durable than pricier all-glass phones. None of them have near-field communication (NFC) sensors, meaning you can't pay with your phone—a shame, since it's available on several competitors in this price bucket.

• Moto G Stylus ($300): This is the largest of the lot with a 6.8-inch LCD screen, but it's also the most powerful thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 678 processor and 4 gigabytes of RAM inside. It sometimes stutters, but it's never frustratingly slow. As the name suggests, it has a built-in stylus. I don't find it all that useful—your palm needs to be raised and off the glass when jotting down notes, and that's just not comfortable. It comes with 128 GB of storage, which should be plenty.
• ★ Best—Moto G Power ($250): This is the Moto phone we recommend you buy, as it strikes a nice balance with its price. You get decent performance with the Snapdragon 662 chip powering it (and 4 GB RAM), and the 6.6-inch screen isn't as unwieldy to hold. The best part is the 5,000-mAh battery, which makes this phone last up to almost three full days. Storage is bumped down to 64 gigs, so you may end up needing to buy a MicroSD card at some point.
• Moto G Play ($170): The cheapest Moto is also the slowest. You get OK performance here with the Snapdragon 460 and 3 GB RAM, but the 5,000-mAh battery gives it a similar three-day runtime as the Moto G Power. It has the smallest screen at 6.5 inches and a paltry 32 gigabytes of storage.

All of these phones get great battery life. The new Stylus has a smaller 4,000-mAh battery capacity than the Power and Play, so you'll get around two days of juice compared to three with the other two. Still, that's more than any other cheap phone sold in the US. 

Moto's G Stylus edges out ahead with smoother operation and speedier interactions thanks to its superior processor. I expected a better chip inside though, especially since the OnePlus Nord N10 5G uses the more powerful Snapdragon 690 5G for the same price.

Motorola says the Snapdragon 662 processor inside the Moto G Power runs similarly to last year's model, but my benchmark scores actually came in slightly lower. In no way does this mean performance is poor—in fact, it can run most apps and games reasonably well. I didn't notice a drastic difference compared with the Stylus. It's just bizarre that a new phone doesn't have better performance than its predecessor.

The Moto G Play is noticeably more sluggish. It's only ideal if you use a few apps, send texts, emails, make phone calls, and don't do much else. I tried playing Alto's Odyssey, but the stutters were so frequent that my character often crashed into the dunes. Not fun. 

The Play and Power both have 720p-resolution LCD screens, and they look OK—though last year's Power had a 1080p display. They're colorful and sharp enough, but they're too dim if you're out in the sun. The Moto G Stylus has a Full HD screen, but its chunky build makes it difficult to use with one hand.

Low-light photos are often the bane of cheap phones, and that's still true here.

The G Stylus and Power share the same 48-megapixel main camera, and both have a dedicated Night mode that captures multiple photos and merges them together for a brighter shot. The results are better than the camera in last year's Moto G Stylus, but it's still far from the level of detail and quality you can get from Google's Pixel 4A. Unless it's daytime and conditions are great, nothing is incredibly sharp, and there's a ton of noise.

The Stylus has an extra 8-megapixel ultrawide lens if you want a wider field of view, but the quality is so-so. It also has a 2-megapixel macro camera (the Power has this too), but I never found much use for it. It lets you take pics incredibly close to subjects—handy if you want to photograph flowers, insects, and other small objects—but you need a lot of light to shoot anything worth sharing.

The ultra-cheap Moto G Play has a different main camera—a 13-megapixel shooter. The results are OK for the price! The daytime photos aren't drastically worse than what you get from the Stylus or Power, but you'll probably avoid the camera when light is limited. It lacks a Night mode.

Get the Moto G Power if long battery life is a top concern and you don't want to spend a lot. Its performance is mostly the same as last year's model, and its screen isn't as sharp, but the camera performs better in low light, and it lasts almost three full days on a charge.

There is a version of it for $200, but it only has 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage, so I don't recommend it. Motorola also still sells the 2020 Moto G Power. You're better off with the new one, since it will get an extra year of security updates. (Each phone gets 2 years of updates, starting from their release date.)

The Stylus and Play aren't worth your money. There are so many phones to choose from at these prices that you really should expect more. For example, this 2021 lineup comes with Android 10 installed, the operating system version from 2019. They'll only get one upgrade to Android 11, meaning they share the same update cycle as the older 2020 models, which also haven't gotten Android 11 yet.

I strongly recommend you just opt for a Pixel 4A. If you're a Moto fan, try the new Motorola One Ace 5G ($400). It shares a similar camera system as the Stylus, but it has NFC, 5G connectivity, and smoother performance, and it still manages two days of battery life. Honestly? It should've been the new Moto G Stylus.