Moto G Stylus 5G Review: A Good $500 Phone That Could Use More Software Support

Speaker 1: There are two different versions of the Moto G stylist this year. Both of them have the stylist. Both of them have a 50 megapixel main camera, but only this one has 5g. Let's see what else sets them apart. Speaker 1: It's bound to get a bit fusing the $500 motog stylist 5g is the amped up bigger brother of Motorola's mid-range phone lineup. While the $300 [00:00:30] motog stylists is the budget friendly option. Let's start with the 5g edition. First, this is a phone that's fighting the same league as Samsung's $450 galaxy a 53. And to a lesser extent Apple's $429 iPhone se with Samsung's note line now replaced by the $1,200 galaxy S 22 ultra. It could also be angling to be a less expensive galaxy note replacement. Like the note. This is also a big phone, uh, with its 6.8 inch screen. It's [00:01:00] a little bit bigger than the per Promax iPhones and the pixel six pro uh, it's roughly the same size of the galaxy S 22 ultra. It's also taller than the 6.5 inch galaxy a 53. The screen also supports a 120 Hertz refresh rate, which means smoother scrolling and animations, which has been great to see in these cheaper phones, because that used to be exclusive to $7 plus phones. Speaker 1: I normally really like larger phones, but when I text in this phone so much of the top half of the phone just shuts out [00:01:30] with the stylist. I can alleviate that a bit by gripping the middle and using handwriting recognition to type, but I find that I lose some speed and accuracy compared to normal texting, pulling out the stylist brings up options for take notes, snapping a screenshot that you could then annotate. And probably the most common use will be highlighting or circling something in a photo to send to someone. Motorola is also including live message, which is a feature they made that lets you make an animated drawing and then send it in a text. All of these features are nice, [00:02:00] but it's hard for me to imagine making use of the stylist on the basis on occasions where you really do need to sign a digital document. Speaker 1: It's now pretty easy to get that done with a service like DocuSign or Microsoft office or Google docs. But if you really want a phone, that's optimized for stylists. I mean it's either this or spring for the $1,200 galaxy S 22 ultra other perks of the Moto G styles. 5g include a headphone Jack, which is absolutely rare for phones in this price range, [00:02:30] a fingerprint sensor along the right side of the phone, a micro SD card slot for storage expansion and unlike the cheaper Moje stylist, it has NFC for contactless payments using Google pay. The phone includes a charging brick, which is rare in this price range lately. It's only a us B a brick with a us B a to us C cable. And it's one you probably already have from an earlier Android phone. The adapters also limited to charge at [00:03:00] 10 Watts. Speaker 1: Motorola told me you can get a different power adapter, but the phone itself will still cap at a 15 wat charging speed. This isn't a terrible charging speed. And the phone's big 5,000 milliamp per hour battery should last you over a day of use. But the galaxy a 53 does charge at 25 Watts. Even though you have to buy that adapter separately. The biggest improvement that Motorola is bringing is the camera with image stabilization. That means the camera itself [00:03:30] can help adjust for any shakiness you might have when holding the phone and ideally will help smooth out photos to avoid blurriness. I took the camera to a park and even in the chaos of that place, all my photos came out clear. And in focus, even when Mel my friend's dog got particularly aggressive with the football, I was still able to get a lot of shots of him as he shook the football away from all the other dogs accompanying that 50 megapixel camera on the back are an eight megapixel ultra [00:04:00] and a two megapixel depth sensor camera on the front is a 16 megapixel selfie camera. Speaker 1: I was also happy to see a night mode included in the camera settings, which helped bring out the details of a Korean barbecue meal I had at an indoor restaurant. So that $300 Moto G stylist I mentioned at the top of this video actually does have the same rear cameras as this $500 version, but without the onboard image stabilization. And it also has a 6.8 inch display other than 5g support and that image [00:04:30] stabilization, what separates the two are the CPU and the software support. The cheaper phone runs on a less efficient media tech processor while the more expensive runs on a Qualcomm snap, 6 95 chip the 4g only stylist phone ships with Android 11 and is only promised to be updated once to Android 12, the 5g stylist phone ships with Android 12, but has also only promised one update to Android 13. Motorola does plan to provide security updates for [00:05:00] three years for both phone. Speaker 1: So neither should have any security vulnerabilities after its one major software update this however pales to Samsung's commitment to four years of security updates, which stretched all the way down to its galaxy iPhones. That started under $200. Motorola said at a press event for the new phone that customers who buy the Moto G and tend to wanna keep their phones stable and avoid having new features pop in outta nowhere, which I can understand, but it's also important for a [00:05:30] phone to last, as long as it can and be protected against security threats regardless of its price. The Moto G styles 5g fits right in with what we're seeing right now in the midrange space. And if you really want on a built-in stylist, it's probably the best way to get one without spending $1,200. But if you don't really need the stylist and you don't need to buy a new phone right now, I'd consider waiting for more details to arrive on the $400 Moto G 5g that was announced alongside this stylist [00:06:00] 5g and for Google IO to see what could be arriving in the pixel line by then, hopefully you can make a decision based on what every major phone company is offering this year in that 400 to $500 price range for more details on the Moto G stylist five O G you can check out my written review@cnet.com. Speaker 1: And if you want more guides and review videos like these, be sure to like, and subscribe to CNET YouTube channel.