This is a playbook Motorola has used for the rest of its Moto G phones to keep prices static, but it especially stings here with the price increase. Thankfully, performance is completely fine. I have been using this phone for nearly a month and haven’t had any issues, outside of some lag when launching the camera app. You’ll see more of its limits running graphics-heavy games—something competing phones won’t have as much trouble with—but it’s generally more than adequate.
There’s a slight bump in battery capacity to 5,200 mAh, and I can easily go two full days with light to average use. One day, when I had a very high screen-on time of nine hours, I had to recharge the phone by around 7 pm, so if you’re screen-maxxing, you’ll definitely need to top up once during the day. Overall, I’m happy with the juice. A nice perk: There’s wireless charging, so you have two ways to charge it up.
As for the 6.7-inch, 120-Hz AMOLED screen, I haven’t had a problem reading it on sunny days, but like the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, Motorola’s auto-brightness slider is very sensitive and constantly dims the screen when I don’t want it to, so that might be something you’ll get miffed by (you can always turn auto-brightness off).
Camera Blur
The camera system is where Moto G phones have always struggled, and now, in perspective with other $500 phones, the Moto G Stylus still doesn’t quite measure up. The 50-megapixel main camera—in indoor conditions with decent lighting—struggles to capture a sharp photo of my dog when there’s slight movement. (I have a lot of blurry photos.)
When he is staying very still, there’s usually another problem, like too-dark shadows or too-bright highlights. Looking at one of my pet pics, the camera tried to keep the room well-exposed, but my pup’s eyes are pitch black, and you can’t see any detail on his nose—it’s just a black void. In these kinds of high-contrast scenes, you’ll also notice colors looking a little muted, too. In good lighting, you can snap great results, though the 13-MP ultrawide still struggles with colors; the sky has an unnatural blue tinge. The selfie camera is a decent performer, though, even when I’m backlit.
