Motorola has been around longer than anyone reading this. It has gone through some changes over the past decades, such as spin-offs, acquisitions, mergers, and almost everything else that can happen to a company. Today, Motorola’s incarnation of mobile phones is on the rise. In the wake of LG’s withdrawal from the smartphone world, Moto has taken market share to become the third largest OEM in the United States. It got there not with flashy flagship phones, but with cheap, niche devices that carriers like to stock in their stores.
That’s an apt description for the company’s latest phone, the Moto G Power. Yes, Motorola released the G Power less than a year ago, but this is the 2022 model. It will start showing up on some carrier lines early next year, but it should be available in almost every sales channel within a few months. When the phone arrives, you’ll be able to get one for a starting price of $200, which is slightly cheaper than the previous version. Moto bumped up the camera with a 50MP sensor and switched from Qualcomm to MediaTek on the inside. Ultimately, this is what you’d expect from a $200 Motorola phone, for better or worse.
Moto G Power (2022)
The new Moto G Power steps down to a spotty-performing MediaTek chip, and neither the 90Hz display nor the 50MP camera makes up for it.
- SOC: Mediatek Helio G37
- an offer: 6.5 inches, 720 x 1600, 90 Hz, LCD screen
- ram: 4GB
- storage: 64 GB
- battery: 5000 mAh
- Ports: USB-C and headphone jack
- Operating system: Android 11
- Front camera: 8 MP (f/2.0)
- Rear camera: 50 MP main (f/1.8), 2 MP macro (f/2.4), 2 MP depth (f/2.4)
- Dimensions: 167.2 x 76.5 x 9.4 mm
- weight: 203 grams
- Charging speed: 10W wired USB-C charger
- Intellectual property classification: IP52
- price: $200
- Micro SD card support: Up to 512 GB
- Extreme battery life
- Clean version of Android
- It still has a headphone jack
- The price will likely drop by $200 with carrier promotions
- Hardware is underpowered
- The screen is low-resolution, dark, and uneven
- It comes with outdated software and only gets one major OS update
Design, hardware and what’s in the box
Motorola has made a number of design changes for the latest G Power, but none of them are real game-changers. Moto hasn’t evolved its budget phones so much as combining different features and seemingly random hardware elements. Some Moto phones have fingerprint sensors in the power button, but this phone uses a fingerprint reader on the back. It gets the job done quickly and accurately enough, plus it’s nice to have a small cutout for the sensor because it gives you a place to rest your finger and hold the phone. The camera module is located in the upper left corner of the back, and does not protrude far. The middle lens is the new 50-megapixel camera. Matching glass covers house macro and depth sensors on both sides.
The back is made of matte plastic with a kind of swirling wave. It doesn’t look expensive, but neither does the glossy plastic masquerading as glass that Moto has used in other G-series phones. At least this way, it’s not a fingerprint magnet. The plastic is on the thin side – you can feel it a little flexy if you press hard enough, something that wasn’t on the 2021 model. There’s not much else to the outside. There’s a USB-C port on the bottom, a headphone jack on top, and the power/volume keys on the right edge.
Front and center is a new 6.5-inch LCD display with 720p resolution. It’s a bit smaller than the previous Power, but the refresh rate has been bumped up to 90Hz. This is a positive change… in theory, but the phone’s MediaTek internals work against it here. The resolution isn’t great either. A 720p screen of this size looks noticeably grainy compared to 1080p displays, and average brightness drops sharply when you look at it even slightly off-axis. The LCD’s washed-out colors certainly don’t help, nor does the backlight bleed around the edges and camera hole. It also appears that the glass lacks an oleophobic coating, or the coating it has is very poor. Either way, I find myself wiping the phone more often to try to reduce smudges.
Budget phones like the new G Power come with one thing that flagship phones don’t: a charger. You get a 10W plug and a short USB A-to-C cable with the phone. That’s all you’ll find in the box apart from the usual manuals and warranty notices, but it’s still a good idea to get a charger with your phone.
Software, performance and battery
If you’ve used any of the Motorola phones in the past three or four years, you’ll know what to expect from the G Power’s Android 11 release. It has all the basic Motorola tricks like gestures to turn on the camera and flashlight as well. As a peek display to monitor notifications (see below). Some high-end Moto phones come with additional features, some of which are new. However, this phone sticks to the core Moto feature set. That’s not to say the software is bad, Motorola’s “My UX” software is one of Android’s less visually offensive interfaces, and I like features like the widget for toggling the flashlight. The unlocked phone I’m testing doesn’t come with any bloatware, but you can bet carriers will stick a few of their own apps on this phone.
Motorola still isn’t trying to compete on update support, even on more expensive phones. However, the update guarantee here is pretty much what I would expect for a budget phone. It comes with Android 11, and will get an update to Android 12 at some point (don’t hold your breath). As for security updates, Moto will support the phone with bi-monthly patches for two years.
Fortunately, there’s not a lot of software clutter as the MediaTek Helio G37 struggles to keep up with many of my daily smartphone tasks. The 90Hz refresh rate is only useful if the phone is able to maintain high enough frame rates to benefit from it. It’s a shame that the Helio G37 chip isn’t up to the task. The phone maintains high frame rates on the home screen and in Settings, but most apps (even those on Moto itself) lag enough that you’ll rarely be able to enjoy smooth animations. There’s also some total lag when opening apps or using the Home gesture. I’m not surprised, the G37 is a step down from the Snapdragon 662 in the recent G Power. This chipset has a 4+4 CPU arrangement with A73 and A53 cores. The G37 has only eight low-power A53s, which are powered by older 12nm technology. Gaming performance is a little better than I expected. As long as you’re not trying to play Genshin Impact, G Power should be fine.
One of the main selling points of this phone, like its predecessor, is battery life. It combines a 5,000 mAh cell with modest hardware, and the results are impressive. Motorola says this phone will run for about three days per charge, and I found that to be very accurate. There were times when I wondered if something was wrong with the battery gauge because it took so long to change it. I wish the phone charged faster than 10W, but it’s rare to see anything much faster on budget phones.
Cameras
Moto is offering a reasonably big deal on the 50-megapixel camera sensor in this phone, but it’s not a huge upgrade in resolution. The 2021 G Power had a 48-megapixel primary camera, but that’s beside the point — megapixels don’t matter. Some of the best smartphone cameras available have much lower resolution, but are larger, with larger pixels and wider apertures. The 50MP sensor on the G Power won’t be a game changer.
If you have enough light, the camera can provide acceptable detail through deleted files at 12.5MP. However, the dynamic range and colors are disappointing. None of the photos I took with this phone looked like saved photos, but if you just want to take some shareable photos, it’s possible in daylight. At night, not so much. Images are muddy, exposure time increases quickly, and there is no optical stabilization. This means you’ll get a lot of blurry photos.
There are two other things on the back that look like cameras, what about them? Maybe they’ll be G Power’s saving grace? Unfortunately, no. It is another camera that has macro and depth sensors. The 2MP macro camera doesn’t take good photos (none of them do). A depth sensor might help in portrait mode, but many phones do without it. Regardless, he’s back there. I think they’re partly cosmetic considerations at this point, and the goal is to have three things that look like cameras even if only one of them is useful.
Should you buy it?
If you’re at all picky about your mobile experience, No, you shouldn’t buy the Moto G Power 2022. This phone has certain priorities in mind, and they are not mine. I have no doubt that G Power will sell in large numbers thanks to its presence in essentially every carrier sales channel. But as an unlocked phone? There are better options from Samsung and OnePlus in this price range. The G Power has a substandard display even with 90Hz refresh, and performance is okay. Even at 50MP, the camera isn’t very good either. And of course, there’s no 5G, which is increasingly common in budget phones from OnePlus and Samsung.
The good news for Motorola is that the type of person who buys sub-$200 phones from the carrier, by and large, is not the type who cares about that stuff. The Moto G Power 2022 is reliable, powerful, and lasts a long time on a charge. That’s all some people want from a phone, and G Power has it. If you just need to buy a cheap phone from your carrier, there are worse options than the Moto G Power.
Buy it if…
- You are on a limited budget and prefer to purchase from your carrier.
- You hate charging your phone.
Don’t buy it if…
- You take a lot of photos, and you want them to be good.
- You need a phone that stays fast even when stressed.
