Motorola’s new $300 phone is great as long as you don’t need these 3 features

While Motorola’s premium smartphone line is not as ambitious as it once was, the company’s budget line of Moto G handsets has kept its foothold strong in the U.S. market. Naturally, the new $300 Moto G Power follows a proven formula of a big-screen phone (6.5 inches) with a big battery (5,000mAh), two aspects that matter most to mid-range customers.

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Compared to its predecessor, the display now ramps up to a smoother 120Hz (previously 90Hz), base storage has been upgraded to 128GB (from 64GB), and the new MediaTek Dimensity 930 processor gives Motorola enough power to stick a “5G” label behind the product’s name. Just don’t expect mmWave speeds; the Moto only supports sub-6GHz 5G, which is a minor step above 4G LTE.

As for the rest of the device specs, Motorola has equipped the Moto G Power with 4GB of RAM, a triple camera setup that’s highlighted by a 50-megapixel main lens, MicroSD card expansion of up to 1TB of memory, Bluetooth 5.3, and a headphone jack. All of this is the standard affair for a $300 phone, and customers should find the utility more than practical for everyday use.

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What you won’t see Motorola highlighting are these three things: the lack of NFC, the mere 15W charging rate (or 10W if you use the included adapter), and its software update policy. With the Moto G Power, Motorola continues to offer only one year of operating system upgrades and two years of security patches. That’s dismal compared to its closest competitor, Samsung, which offers up to five years of software stability. 

But these details may not matter to some people. Perhaps you’ve experienced throttling from software updates or don’t use contactless payments, or are patient enough to wait the full two hours for the phone to top up. But, these are three key tradeoffs to note before you say hello to the latest Moto.

Motorola says the new Moto G Power (2023) will be available unlocked across major retailers like Amazon and Best Buy starting April 13. The device will also be available at Metro by T-Mobile, Spectrum, and Xfinity in the coming months.