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Motorola plans to charge a stylus to its smartphone lineup in 2022. To be clear, the company already had a Moto G lineup that includes a stylus, however, the Lenovo-owned company recently launched the Motorola Edge Plus that includes a virtual stylus. And, a week ago, you can purchase the $80 Folio Stylus accessory required to take advantage of this feature, assuming it’s available.
In February 2022, Motorola also updated the base Moto G Stylus model, followed by the announcement of the Moto G Stylus 5G in late April. Connectivity, improved demonstration and increased performance.
I tried the Moto G Stylus 5G and found it to be a capable phone that delivers on all its promises. It’s a better choice than the previous Galaxy Note or Galaxy S22 Ultra, but, unsurprisingly, it’s not a 1:1 replacement.
The design of the Moto G Stylus 5G ticks many boxes that you would normally find on a flagship phone’s spec sheet. It has a 6. 8-inch FHD display with a 120Hz refresh rate that aids smooth scrolling and ensures on-screen typing is crisp. In the middle of the top of the screen is a cutout for the 16-megapixel front camera. Along the right edge of the phone are the volume rocker and fingerprint sensor built into the sleep/wake button. You simply put your finger on the sensor and unlock the phone.
The left edge of the phone is bare, for the SIM card tray and MicroSD card combined. You can charge up to 1TB of additional storage on the phone via microSD card holder; however, it will come with a pre-installed 256GB card.
On the back of the phone is a 3. 5mm headphone jack and a USB-C port that is used to move data to and from your computer, as well as to rate the phone. The rear is also where the built-in silo for the stylus is located. Press the maximum sensitive stylus to remove it, then slide it into position for easy storage.
On the back of the phone is the network of rear cameras that includes 3 cameras in total. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera that also doubles as a macro camera, and a 2-megapixel intensity sensor. The lenses are stacked vertically on the left side of the case, which has a common arrangement among Android device manufacturers.
The overall design of the Moto G Stylus 5G is nothing new or innovative. In fact, it looks a lot like the Motorola Edge Plus, with only a few changes. I found the phone thicker than expected, which can complicate it a bit. to maintain its height and narrowness.
There are two color options. I have the Steel Blue version, but there’s also a Seafoam Green option.
Inside the Moto G Stylus 5G is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695 processor that provides mmWave and Sub6 5G connectivity. Other connectivity features come with 802. 11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5. 1. All of this is forced through a 5000mAh battery which, according to Motorola, is enough to force two full days of use. There’s a total of 512GB of storage in the style I tested; 256 GB comes from the internal memory, the remaining 256 GB from the microSD card. The G Stylus 5G has 8GB of memory.
Overall, the functionality was decent. It doesn’t feel as fast and responsive when multitasking and switching between apps or bets like a flagship phone like the Galaxy S22 Ultra or Pixel 6 Pro, but it’s as expected.
As I did in my most recent smartphone reviews, I ran Geekbench five on the Moto G Stylus five G to get an idea of how well it works compared to other phones. The result was a score of 672 for single-core functionality and 1,927 -core functionality. Compare that to Motorola Edge Plus and Pixel 6 Pro, which got 1,198 for single-core functionality and 3,714 for multi-core functionality and 963 and 2,607, respectively.
The battery life has been excellent. I couldn’t have two full days using the G Stylus 5G, but it’s imaginable to spend a full day and fine the next without any problems. Battery life, in addition to the stylus, are two of the G Stylus 5G’s main strengths.
But where the G Stylus 5G shines is with its stylus stand. Motorola has spent a lot of time organizing the software experience to charge the price on the phone every time the stylus is used, recreating some of the Samsung magic that has made the Galaxy Note line so popular. For example, when you remove the stylus while the phone is locked, you can start taking notes right away; one of my maximum characteristics used.
A small yetton hovers over the screen when you remove the stylus from the silo, giving you functions to do things like take a note, annotate a screenshot, create a GIF, or even launch an app. It all sounds a lot like Samsung, but with Motorola’s arguably funnier technique and icons. Writing or drawing with the stylus is sleek and responsive, thanks to the screen’s fast refresh rate.
The functionality of the camera is decent, but not great. The photos I took with him were overexposed or the colors were undersaturated. It’s not awful, and for a camera on a $500 phone (currently on sale for $449), you’d be perfectly satisfied with it, but don’t be fooled by the directory of 50-megapixel spec sheets and think you’ll have a camera that’s on par with the more productive phones from Samsung or Apple.
The Moto G Stylus 5G is a phone if you’re looking for a device with stylus support, which also has a decent, not very good camera setup, and exceptional battery life. But if you don’t want a virtual stylus built into your phone, you’d better wait for Google’s Pixel 6a or one of those budget phones.