Tag Archives: Budget

Motorola Moto G Stylus Review: Play on a stylus

"The Moto G Stylus has a niche function and cannot make a profit from it."

• Attractive 6.4-inch display

• Solid battery life

• Rounded performance

• Long lasting, expensive feeling

• Heavy and thick

• Action camera is a miss

• The pen is not often useful

The smartphone arena has become a cruel battlefield. Buyers have chosen a set of preferences that don't offer much room for differentiation. Budget phones that are plagued by low prices find it particularly difficult to stand out. Motorola's two new phones, the Moto G Stylus and Moto G Power, solve this problem by going to the extreme.

While the Moto G Power is in a massive battery, the Moto G stylus that is the subject of this review adds something that you won't find anywhere else. Obviously a pen.

A pen is of course not the new sharpness. The Galaxy Note line has long positioned itself as a brand for stylus super fans. However, the Moto G stylus combines the stylus with an unusual feature – a low price. The phone costs $ 300. This gives you 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal memory (MicroSD cards with up to 512 GB can further upgrade the memory). This is the only version available.

Does the Moto G Stylus make sense or does it feel more like a gimmick? Here is the ball.

Design and display

Motorola attached great importance to its unusual design sensibility, which included the option to customize the appearance and color ex works for certain cell phones. However, you will find no evidence of this. The Moto G Stylus wants passers-by to think it's a more expensive device. It is sleek and elegant, with a glossy plastic back that gives an appropriate impression of glass.

The G stylus weighs 6.77 ounces and is 0.36 inches thick. This makes it heavier and thicker than some of its competitors. The Moto G7 Play is 0.31 inches thick and weighs only 5.3 ounces. The Samsung Galaxy A50 is only 0.3 inches thick and weighs about 5.9 ounces (its replacement, the Galaxy A51, is similar). The G Stylus is slightly lighter and thinner than the G Power, and the difference is noticeable, but the G Stylus is still a powerful device.

This adds a feeling of quality and durability that is not often found on inexpensive phones. However, weight can be a problem. I noticed it most when I lay down on my sofa or read articles in bed. After a short time, my arm began to tire and the phone felt ready to slide onto my chin as soon as I loosened my grip.

Moto G Power (from left) and G Stylus Matthew Smith / Digital Trends

The weight and volume of the phone are shared between the pen and the battery. The pen is not massive, but slides into the phone when not in use and takes up valuable space. The battery is contained in a 4,000 mAh device. This is rather large and can add weight to the phone. However, some alternatives have a battery that is at least as large or larger.

A fingerprint reader for secure login is included. It is fast and rarely cannot read a fingerprint like I am used to from similar readers on other devices. NFC is not here. That means the phone is not compatible with Google Pay.

On the front of the Moto G stylus is a 6.4-inch IPS LCD touchscreen with a resolution of 2,300 x 1,080. It is an attractive, sharp display with vivid colors. The backlight is bright enough to use the phone on a sunny day. It's better than most budget phones, but Samsung's OLED displays, available in budget options like the Samsung Galaxy A series, offer better contrast.

The screen is surrounded by relatively thin bezels. Flagship phones have sleeker frames, but frankly, I'm not convinced that the difference matters. I think most buyers will be impressed with the Moto G stylus display. It's a massive upgrade from what a budget phone could offer a few years ago and very close to what you would see on a flagship phone.

Use the pen

Motorola's 2020 lineup clearly hopes to define itself as more than a low price. With the G Stylus, the heading function is exactly in the name. The phone comes with a stylus that snaps into the body of the device.

This is a fascinating choice because very few phones offer a pen. The LG Stylo series is the only real alternative, but let's face it: have you ever heard of the LG Stylo? The LG Stylo 5, a 2019 phone that also sells for $ 300, is inferior in almost every way.

The pen suffers because it is unique. Most Android phones don't have a pen, so the Android ecosystem isn't really designed for using pens. It is rare to find an app that has really been improved by the pen.

Matthew Smith / Digital Trends

Microsoft OneNote, which I use a lot, supports it. But an app is not a killer feature. As with the Samsung Note series, Motorola tries to compensate for this with some built-in apps, but I didn't find them convincing. Why should I use Motorola’s Notes app instead of OneNote?

This is just another smartphone stylus. The pen is useful for writing a short note, but too small to be comfortable for more than a few minutes. Its awkward, thin design makes it difficult to hold and it dug into my palm.

I think the pen is a failure. After trying to incorporate it into my daily use for a few days, I gave it up, snapped it back on the phone, and mostly forgot about it. Die-hard stylus fans may not agree, but I think most people will feel the same way.

performance

The Moto G stylus has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 octa-core processor with a Qualcomm Adreno 610 GPU. It is a new chip that will be the first choice for phones that will sell between $ 200 and $ 350 in 2020.

The performance is solid. Applications are usually started in a few moments and run smoothly while they are active. The phone's 4GB RAM doesn't look particularly good on paper, but multitasking felt relatively quick. I think 4 GB of RAM go well with the processor's performance.

Here are some benchmarks:

• Geekbench 5: 311 single-core, 1,392 multi-core
• 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme (volcano): 1,046

The limits of the phone become apparent when you quickly scroll through long lists of content such as news feeds or podcasts or visit websites with intrusive elements such as pop-up video players or extensive animations. Occasional jerks and problems were obvious, but even the best phones can have problems here. I think the Moto G stylus feels less fluid than a Google Pixel 4 and roughly corresponds to last year's budget cell phones like the Samsung A50 or the Moto G7.

In truth, it's stupid to be obsessed with the performance of this phone. Modern phones that sell over $ 200 are fast enough for most people most of the time. I had no problem using the G Stylus regularly. Is a Google Pixel 4 or iPhone 11 faster? Absolutely. With the G Stylus, however, you can easily cope.

In truth, it's stupid to be obsessed with the performance of this phone.

Gaming is a mixed bag. Mobile games are often designed for a variety of hardware and most won't push the Moto G stylus hard. Call of Duty: Mobile and SimCity BuiltIt ran without problems. The most demanding games like Injustice 2 or Asphalt 9 push the phone to its limits. These games were playable, but stuttered and delivered poor frame rates. Serious mobile gamers need a more powerful device.

Battery life

As already mentioned, the Moto G Stylus has a 4,000 mAh battery. This is a large battery that goes beyond mid-range phones like the iPhone 11 and Google Pixel 4. On the other hand, many phones offer a battery that is larger or larger. An obvious example is the Moto G Power, which drops the stylus for a larger 5,000 mAh battery.

Matthew Smith / Digital Trends

Still, the G Stylus is no problem when it comes to endurance. I never ended a day with less than 30 percent, and the phone was usually used for two days before it needed to be charged. That is more than enough for most people.

However, the loading process is somewhat slow. The phone's USB-C port is the only way to charge and does not support fast charging.

Audio quality

Stereo speakers tuned by Dolby flank the phone when held horizontally. One is above the display while the other is on the bottom lip of the phone. This asymmetrical design makes audio stronger on one side than the other. It stands out, but I didn't find it too distracting.

Audio is loud and clear, although the bass is missing. The maximum volume is significantly lower than that of flagship phones, but it's enough to keep you entertained when the phone doesn't have to compete with significant ambient noise. Audiophiles should bring earphones, headphones, or a Bluetooth speaker.

Camera and video quality

Motorola made some strange choices for the G Stylus cameras.

A 48-megapixel camera (with 12-megapixel output) is coupled with a 2-megapixel macro camera and a 16-megapixel action camera (4-megapixel output) with a field of view of 117 degrees.

The 48-megapixel main camera has quad-pixel technology, in which four pixels are combined into one. For this reason, photos are output at 12 MP, exactly a quarter of the 48 MP sensors. This is said to result in better performance in low light conditions, and I think there is evidence of this here. I was surprised at how vivid and sharp photos looked with poor indoor lighting.

However, don't expect the Moto G stylus to blow your mind. The main shooter is great for an inexpensive phone and can deliver attractive results in many situations. However, photos are often lacking in the vivid color and breathtaking contrast found in the best smartphone cameras. This was obvious when I took the G Stylus outside. Photos often look flat, and the phone's automatic white balance is difficult in bright light.

The 2MP macro camera detests anything that resembles poor lighting and therefore often does not provide an image that is sharper than the standard camera. In my tests, I almost always found the main camera to be more user-friendly than the 2MP macro camera. Macro mode works very, very close to tiny objects, but how often do you take such photos? I'm not sure I will ever do that.

Macro one

Macro off

Macro one

Macro off

Then there is the action camera. In a startling decision, Motorola decided to make the Ultrawide camera available only for videos. This differs from the Moto G Power, which offers the opposite. Aside from an extremely wide perspective, the action camera is designed to take horizontal videos while holding the phone vertically.

I will be dull. Motorola made the wrong call here. This is pointless since mobile video platforms are based on vertical videos. You can shoot vertical videos with the action camera, but you must keep the phone horizontal and the ultrawide effect is largely lost. Better use the standard video camera.

The Moto G Stylus can record 1080p videos at up to 60 frames per second or 4K videos at up to 30 frames per second. It can also process slow motion videos at 120 frames per second and a resolution of 1080p and slow motion at 240 frames per second and 720p. The video quality is acceptable, but not remarkable. It shares the main camera's problems with auto white balance, and while 4K recording is supported, the image quality is often not sharp enough to really appreciate what 4K can deliver.

There is another 16 megapixel camera with quad-pixel technology on the front. It's solid for a budget phone that takes sharp photos in good lighting and usable photos in moderate to poor lighting.

software

Motorola delivers a fair-skinned version of Android 10. It's not as easy as some previous Motorola phones, but the additions and tweaks are largely unremarkable, and the overall look and feel of the phone's user interface resembles that of an Android 10 phone.

A pop-up widget provides quick access to Moto Note when the stylus is removed from the phone. The widget is easy to use, but Moto Note is extremely simple. Don't worry – the widget can be customized so you can add the notes app you want. I found it more useful after adding OneNote. Screenshots can also be taken with the widget.

A pop-up widget provides quick access to Moto Note when the stylus is removed from the phone.

The camera app is Motorola’s only misfire. It has a minimal, monochrome surface with tiny control icons at the top of the app and a record button that looks like a camera shutter. Bad camera apps are generally hardly new on budget smartphones or Android phones. Placed next to a Google Pixel 3a, the difference is day and night and not at all in favor of Motorola.

Like previous Motorola phones, the Moto G Stylus offers Moto promotions. These gesture-based shortcuts provide quick access to some common functions. Two quick chops turn the flashlight on and two quick turns of your wrist turn the camera on. I like these shortcuts. They are fun and faster than playing on the touchscreen.

Our opinion

The Moto G Stylus makes a game of chance that doesn't pay off in full. The pen is not a killer feature and appears to increase the size of the phone. Most people want a thinner, lighter device.

Is there a better alternative?

Most buyers will want to consider the Samsung Galaxy A51 or maybe even a Moto G7 device. These phones are widely available, have a slim frame, and are sold at similar prices (or less). However, the Moto G7 is an older device and does not currently have Android 10 in the U.S.

Here is my professional tip. Just wait. April is early in the release schedule for smartphones. The release of Google Pixel 4a and iPhone SE 2020 is planned for soon. It's unclear whether they're offered at competitive prices with the Moto G stylus, but they could lower prices for other devices, including the still desirable Google Pixel 3a and 3a XL.

How long it will take?

The G Stylus is not waterproof, but is made of plastic and should therefore do a little better in the event of a fall than a glass phone. However, it is by no means a "hard" phone.

Budget Android phones have a short lifespan because they don't get the latest Android updates quickly or at all. It is promised that the Moto G stylus will be received with an operating system upgrade and frequent security updates. Better support would be excellent, but this is typical of an Android phone in this price range.

Should you buy one?

No. The Moto G Stylus is ideal for stylus fans, but too heavy and thick to recommend to most people.

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