Motorola Moto G Play | 2024 | Unlocked | Made for US 4/64GB | 50MP Camera | Sapphire Blue

I will start off by saying I have no interest in $1000+ cell phones - to me they are disposable devices that get replaced every few years. That said, this is the perfect phone for my purposes. The coverage (carrier dependent), audio, display quality and speed are perfect for my needs. I use the this as - wait for it - a phone - as well for texting and taking some pictures, mapping directions, etc.This is my 4th or 5th Motorola phone, and I have always been happy with the value proposition. Even through my former carrier the Motorola phones have always had much less bloatware than, say Samsung (ugh) which loads up their phones with all kinds of nonsense. When you buy it unlocked it comes with even less bloatware, and you can delete or disable most of it.It is much faster than my old phone, which one would expect, with 8MB of RAM, and 128MB of internal storage. There are several things I like about this phone, a couple being that it still has a headphone jack, and also it will take a micro SD card for additional storage. Both of these features are found on very few phones these days. There are 2 features that are unique to Motorola on the phones I have had, including this one, that are REALLY convenient. You can open the camera app just by twisting your wrist, and you can turn on the flashlight by a chopping motion - no screen to wake up or app to start up - brilliant really.Also, the battery life (5000ma) is phenomenal. I can use it all day, leave it overnight, and it will still have plenty of charge the next day. I really only charge it every other day. I will note that I turn off as many background processes as I can, don't watch movies on the phone (really?), and in general use it as a tool, not a brain-sucking toy (editorial comment :-). If you want a well functioning device and don't want to spend huge dollars this phone may be right for you.

The G Power 5G 2024 continues the reputation of the G series of being bang for buck and reliable. This is a 4th Moto G phone to add to our household, all working like new since 2022. I need phones for communication and a road warrior tool. Faster speed always helps.Over a week, its a solid performer out of the box, and lives up to the advertised tech spec. No bugs or glitches. I'll touch items not mentioned in other reviews, and address some criticisms.The 2024 its a substantial upgrade from prior Power Models and SoC is faster than the 2025. Geekbench score shows its speed and its easily noticeable in use. If you prefer OLED screens, the Stylus 2024 is equally well made and slightly better hardware, for $70+ more, or more IP proofing, the 2025 is $120 more.Its faster CPU, 120 refresh rate, more RAM, and 5G are power hungry, you'd expect runtime to shorten, as it has the same 5Ah battery of the series. Luckily, Android 15 has better power management which are implemented well and options to save even more. With these, battery life is as good or better than my 4G only phones without sacrificing performance. Its a key reason I didn't mind a 5G phone now, as early 5G phones suffered this issue.The 2024 has a battery wear saver by limiting charging to 80% SoC which I previously emulated using aftermarket apps. It fast charges faster than my prior Moto phones which uses Turbo Power.I migrated my prior phone with the phone's built in tool, connect both with the supplied USB-C cable and it "cloned" the phone automatically. It copied everything, including desktops and Android configurations, such as fingerprints, Moto Actions and Camera settings which didn't happen on my last upgrade in 2022. I did have to re-log chat apps and configure non-gmail email.After the phone finished initialization, it installed all prior firmware updates up to Feb 2025. It was over 6, and took 6+ hours but the phone could be use while it updated. LCD is close to and as clear as the stylus pOLED 2024 in dpi, so images are as sharp, but pOLED is much brighter and has greater dynamic range, particularly viewed in sunlight. Its dual SIM and easily switched to either, allowing full customization to each SIM, one SIM card and another eSIM. Wifi is still 802.11ac, 300Mbps, similar to the 2022 Stylus, tested with Ookla. Its USB-C jacked but 2.0 speed. Wifi Calling works on both SIMs. I put a 256GB microSD, formatted and transferred all the photos in the phone carried over by the migration to the card. The camera works well, but I haven't compared its quality to better phones. It has great stereo sound, bluetooth connectivity, and plays 4K videos perfectly. I do not play games, use NFC, or wireless charging, so did not test its capability here.In sum, I'd easily buy this phone again and give its successor, priority.

I purchased this to replace a 3-4 year old Samsung S21 Ultra because Samsung throttled back updates, perhaps to force sales of the S 25? This Motorola looked pretty good on paper, coming with a lot of RAM, ram boost and over 100 G of internal storage as well as a SD card slot and wireless charging. The cameras offered more MP than my S21 Ultra, plus some AI. What's not to like? Problems set in when I moved all the apps and data to the 5G. Some of the apps advised that they needed to be upgraded to run properly on Android 15. Other apps malfunctioned. The 500 GB SD card frequently vanished, requiring a restart of the phone to find it again. You can't install apps to the SD card, only photos, videos, music, docs. I used a dual pane file manager to attempt to move videos and music to the SD card manually only to be advised that this was not allowed. I suspect that the file manager isn't compatible with Android 15 or the phone doesn't like the SD card? And when I asked Amazon music to download purchased music to the SD card, repeatedly, it didn't happen. No error message, just not there. The cameras are OK under strong lighting conditions. The very best thing about this device is the "radio." By this I'm speaking of the circuits that communicate with cell towers. Our family has a home out in the woods. The last phone I owned which worked reliably there was a a "bag phone" in my car. This phone is world unlocked, may work on frequencies other phones don't, but voice, data work in this local where daylight has to be piped in. That made it worth the low price of admission. I suspect that app updates and firmware updates will make this phone far less of a hassle. As is, it's certainly worth the price.