The 2024 version of Motorola’s Moto G Stylus 5G is here, and it packs some meaningful upgrades over its predecessor, making it a better mid-range phone of 2024. But as usual, the most vital selling point is the built-in stylus, which Motorola has made even more responsive this year.
The good news is that this generation has a new camera that performs surprisingly well compared to the Moto G most vitellus; if you choose the new G Stylus, you’ll get the best battery life on the market today and other notable benefits.
Should you buy the Moto G Stylus 5G (2024)?
The Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) is unique compared to other Moto G launches this year. It has an excellent design, a high-quality OLED display, a solid, promisingly decent primary camera, fantastic battery life, and good charging options. I’m getting all this for $400, probably a lot less.
Pros:
- Stylus included makes it a good phone for notes
- Large and bright display
- Stylish vegan leather back
- Fast charging
- Excellent battery life
Cons:
- Ordinary camera
- Limited Android updates
Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) Review
Design
The 2024 generation Moto G Stylus 5G has a complete design overhaul. The back panel is no longer plastic, featuring a softer vegan leather (silicone) surface that is naturally less prone to slipping in your hand or pocket. The frame is still plastic, so it doesn’t feel as premium overall.
The camera island appears to be a bed cover with vegan leather contouring the edges and gently placed on top. This is the same approach and look we saw on Motorola’s premium Edge 50 series launched earlier this year. The island is also more significant than the previous generation, allowing it to accommodate larger lenses for the primary and ultra-wide cameras.
In terms of size, the new Moto G Stylus 5G is significantly thinner and lighter than its predecessor, with a circumference of 8.3mm and a weight of 190g compared to the 2023 G Stylus’s 9.2mm and 202g. However, we can safely say that with this change, the 2024 G Stylus 5G feels more comfortable in the hand.
Of course, I do not use a stylus very well, but I tried using one. Editing photos in Lightroom Mobile and taking notes all day were probably the two use cases that made me think about owning a stylus phone. What I had here seemed perfect for my needs, but I don’t think it’s enough for other creative tasks because it’s not the most accurate.
Motorola has reduced the latency of the built-in stylus, making it more responsive and enjoyable to use. The stylus menu has also been improved and appears when you drag the stylus off the phone. This is a valuable shortcut that will save you some time.
Unfortunately, the unboxing experience doesn’t come with the same treatment as Motorola’s premium Edge phones, which smell nice when you open the box. You only need the phone and a USB-C cable with the Moto G Stylus 5G (2024). Of course, a SIM tool is also provided.
Display
The Moto G Stylus 5G display was already pretty good, especially with its 120Hz refresh rate. That said, it lacked contrast and color. Fortunately, Motorola added an OLED panel this time, replacing the previous LCD panel.
The new display looks much better, as you would expect when switching to OLED. I enjoyed watching videos and Netflix shows while commuting to work. I was also surprised to see how noticeable the 2024 G Stylus display was outdoors. Therefore, a suggestion was made to Motorola to increase the brightness level.
The bezels are mostly uniform, with the bottom bezel being slightly thicker. It doesn’t have the sleek premium look of a high-end phone, but at this point, all the bezels are thin enough to be unobtrusive, at least by my standards.
Camera
Moto G phones aren’t known for their excellent photography capabilities. The best-case scenario is that the onboard camera can capture enough photos to share with friends and family. To make this happen, the Moto G Stylus 5G uses a 50MP primary sensor that supports 2x zoom with a crop for close-ups. A 13MP ultra-wide camera that can also be used as a macro lens completes the rear camera array.
While discussing strengths, let’s look at the Moto G Stylus’ macro mode, which gives a pretty striking close-up of a rose. Seeing the focus accurately was impressive, especially considering it was a very windy day and the flowers swayed in the wind. I expected a lot of blurriness, but the close-ups were rich in detail and crystal clear.
Performance
Motorola has decided to offer the 2024 G Stylus 5G with the same Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset featured in the 2023 model. This is a way to keep the price the same as last year so we can see a few other upgrades on the spec sheet.
Despite its rather old, low-end chipset, the 2024 Moto G Stylus was quite decent in day-to-day use. It handled mobile gaming well, although I had to tone it down on some settings. More taxing applications like Lightroom Mobile inShot and CapCut were also available.
The good news is that lag was occasional and did not occur while using the system’s stylus feature. This is what makes this phone stand out anyway.
You now get 8GB of RAM instead of the previous 6 GB. However, the storage situation remains the same with 256GB of internal storage and the option to increase that storage via microSD card (up to 2TB).
Battery life
To test the Motorola Moto G Stylus’ 5,000 mAh battery, we set the display to maximum brightness and played an HD video from YouTube over Wi-Fi. In this scenario, the phone lasted up to 22 hours, and there were significant improvements over the previous model, which managed 13.
The Moto G Stylus supports 30W fast wired charging and 15W wireless charging, but it needs to provide its charger. For comparison, the Pixel 8a offers wired and wireless charging speeds of 18W and 7.5W, respectively.
Software
The Moto G Stylus 5G 2024 runs Android 14 out of the box with a few aesthetic changes that make the software feel slightly lighter and less like a Pixel. This includes a redesigned Quick Settings panel. It has a new look with a more compact view, an excellent transparent background (One UI), a slightly redesigned settings menu, and an expanded sidebar that lets you quickly add more apps—access, fingerprint sensor animation, etc.
Everything will still look familiar and excellent; a new coat of paint is applied to some areas to give Motorola’s software more personality.
Unfortunately, even though AI accesses technology, you won’t find much in the way of AI here. This may be due to Chipipse’s limited capabilities. Still, you get access to the new Gemini app (even though the Motorola Razr Plus doesn’t have it). Motorola has a new AI Wallpaper feature that creates wallpaper from a photo on your computer gallery.
Aside from that, you get all the same Motorola features you’d expect like famous gestures to open the camera or turn on the flashlight.
The phone also supports Ready For Updates with Smart Connect. This allows you to connect your phone to a PC or an external display to do exciting things like mirroring your phone’s display, creating a new instance of your phone on a second display, moving files between devices, and sharing peripherals like mouse and keyboard, between PCs, tablets, and mobile phones.
This is a convenient feature for power users who are always on the go and need an easy way to move items from their phones to their computers and vice versa.
Fortunately, there isn’t much bloatware to be found, but the phone does have the dreaded Glance lock screen that makes its presence known. You can opt out of this feature when setting up your phone, but it will occasionally pop up with a notification letting you know the feature exists and encouraging you to turn it on. Nice try, Moto.
Of course, the downside to the name Moto G is, once again, that Motorola has made no effort to provide significant updates to this phone. The company promises one OS upgrade (to Android 15, which will undoubtedly arrive later this year) and three years of security updates.
Moto G Stylus 5G 2024 Other Specs
The Moto G Stylus supports sub-6GHz 5G (insignificant C-band) on all major carriers in the US but does not support the ultrafast mmWave spectrum, which is available in some regions. It is available both unlocked and through your carrier. For comparison, the Pixel 8a supports all forms of 5G.
You can use an eSIM with the Moto G stylus, but I opted for a physical T-Mobile SIM card. That carrier doesn’t offer comprehensive coverage in my area, so the phone only managed down to 30.1 Mbps and up to 1.22 Mbps.
The Moto G Stylus supports Wi-Fi 5, not the newer Wi-Fi 6E or seven protocols. When connected to a Wi-Fi 6 router, speeds were 131Mbps down and 9.32Mbps up.
When we brought the phone to the network’s edge, the Moto G Stylus recorded a decrease of 128 Mbps and an increase of 8.16 Mbps.
The call quality is good. The phone does an excellent job of minimizing background noise, including wind and rain. In our testing, the earpiece reached 76.5dB, and the speaker maxed out at 990.5 dB. This level is loud enough for callers to be heard in almost any environment; thanks to Dolby Atmos support, the phone boosted some of the low frequencies on our bass test track,
Although the speakers didn’t exactly pulse with sound, I could hear a good portion of the song’s opening bass line. The speaker gets loud enough to fill a small room, but for a better audio experience, you’ll need to connect wired headphones via the 3.5mm headphone jack or wireless headphones via Bluetooth 5.1.
Moto g stylus 5g 2024 Price
The 2024 Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G offers a brighter display and longer-lasting battery than its predecessor for just $399.99, and the built-in stylus is still its main selling point.
Conclusion
The Moto G stylus is the best in the Moto G series. You’ll get your money’s worth with features like a 120Hz display, stylish design, and long battery life. The 2024 model’s brighter display addresses one of the biggest complaints about the previous version and the stylus.
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