Motorola’s recent budget phones have been held back by lackluster designs, pointless extra cameras, and underwhelming feature sets. But there seems to be hope on the horizon. The 2024 Moto G Power 5G and Moto G 5G look pretty good, at least on paper.
Both phones finally offer NFC (why it was dropped in the first place is a mystery) and come with attractive vegan leather back panels. It also includes a microSD card slot and a built-in headphone jack, useful features that most phone manufacturers abandoned years ago. G Power 5G also comes with wireless charging capability for the first time. This is a rare feature in affordable phones. Pricing starts at $199 for the Moto G 5G and $299 for the Moto G Power 5G.
The more expensive Moto G Power has a 6.7-inch 1080p LCD with a fast refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Personally, I’d go with his OLED panel with more contrast and a lower refresh rate, but for a $300 phone, I’ll take what I can get. It uses a mid-range MediaTek Dimensity 7020 chipset with 8GB of RAM and only has two rear cameras. A 50-megapixel main camera with optical image stabilization and an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera with autofocus that also functions as a macro camera. There’s no stupid low-resolution depth sensor or macro camera here. Congratulations to Motorola on that.
G Power supports wired charging up to 30W, but you’ll need to purchase a separate charger to get that speed. It supports wireless charging at up to 15W. It has a large capacity battery of 5,000mAh, but the lower priced Moto G 5G also has a battery. Interesting fact: Based on the filename of the spec sheet Motorola shared with me, the internal codename for the 5G Power is Cancun, and the Moto G looks like his Fogo. I love things in baseball.
The lower-tier Moto G 5G uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 chipset with 4GB RAM and sports a 6.6-inch 720p LCD, also with a 120Hz refresh rate. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera (and a 2-megapixel macro still hanging around), and maximum wired charging output is 18W. Like the G-Power, it is only “water resistant” and is not rated for complete dust resistance or water immersion. It’s a shame, but normal for the affordable class.
Promising changes are afoot here, but as always, a lot depends on execution. The last midrange Motorola phone I reviewed was so chock full of bloatware that I hesitated to recommend it to anyone. You don’t have to wait long to find out. The 2024 Moto G Power will go on sale from March 22nd on Cricket Wireless, followed by other carriers shortly after, with the unlocked version arriving on March 29th. The 2024 Moto G 5G will be the first to arrive at his T-Mobile starting March 21st, with other carriers to follow. You’ll have to wait a bit for the unlocked version. Arrives on May 2nd.
