If you’re looking for a budget-friendly phone with fast 5G connectivity, the Motorola Moto G 5g is worth checking out. It’s a decent device with some appealing features, but it’s not quite as good as the Google Pixel 5A or Samsung Galaxy A53.
The Moto G 5G is reliable, performs quickly, and has a world-class battery. But it also has some flaws that are becoming increasingly annoying, especially as time passes.
It’s affordable
The Motorola Moto G 5g is one of the best-selling devices in the company’s history. It’s an excellent value, offering plenty of features for the price.
It has a 5,000mAh battery and sub-6GHz and C-Band 5G support. It also has a USB-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
This is a solid budget phone, but it has problems. Its mediocre camera performance is a significant omission, for instance.
It’s a bit of a shame, too, that the device still doesn’t support NFC. If you need contactless payments or Nearby Share file transfers, this phone is wrong for you.
It’s fast
The Motorola Moto G 5g is one of the fastest budget phones we’ve tested, beating its price rivals in CPU and gaming benchmarks. It also offers plenty of performance and expandability, with a 5,000mAh battery that lasted 22hrs 15mins in our rundown video test.
The 6.5-inch display features a 90Hz refresh rate and a resolution of HD+. That’s not ideal, but it does offer support for HDR content, which is welcome.
It’s also one of the first affordable Moto phones to implement a 21:9 screen, a feature that is becoming increasingly popular in the higher-end market.
It also has a bunch of Motorola’s tricks built into Android, including a fast torch (which turns on when you shake the phone twice), twisting the device to open the camera app, and so on. They’re fun, but they take some getting used to.
It’s secure
The Motorola Moto G 5g is a secure smartphone with security features such as Real-Time Protection and Virus Scan. The former protects your phone from threats and adware, while the latter detects malicious apps that may steal your personal information.
The Android phablet is unlocked and includes a roomy 256GB of storage, 8GB of RAM, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chip. It also supports sub-6 and C-Band 5G networks and Verizon’s millimeter wave variety of technology.
While the Moto G Stylus 5g is a strong budget option, it’s essential to know that it only gets one major software update. That means it will eventually receive Android 13 but won’t get additional feature upgrades like Samsung and Google do.
It’s easy to use
Motorola has a reputation for making its phones easy to use, and the Moto G 5g is no exception. It has a handy power button fingerprint reader and a simple menu system.
It’s also one of the few budget-tier phones to offer a side-mounted fingerprint reader, which is incredibly fast and accurate. It doesn’t have face unlock, though, so it’s less secure than the Pixel devices.
The biggest downside is the display, which is 720p and lacks high-refresh rates. It also has a lot of haloing in dark scenes, which isn’t great for this price range.