Moto G Power 5G review: a $300 phone that gets the job done

The design for the Moto G Power 5G is pretty standard for most smartphones while being surprisingly light. All in all, its dimensions are 163.06 x 74.8 x 8.45mm and it weighs only 185g. The size and weight are excellent, making the G Power 5G easy to quickly slip into a bag or small pockets.

It features a completely flat 6.5-inch display with a relatively thick bezel at the top and bottom and an in-display front-facing selfie camera. On its rear, the G Power has a raised camera island that features its two cameras, a depth sensor, and a flashlight. In the center of the back of the phone is the Motorola logo printed into the plastic.

All of the main buttons of the Moto G Power 5G are relegated to the right side. The volume up and down buttons are right next to one another and relatively small, making it sometimes difficult to know without looking if you’re pressing the proper button. Obviously, that’s a small complaint, but it can be a little irritating when trying to adjust the music volume if your phone is in your pocket as you do housework or are otherwise busy. The lock button is directly below the volume buttons, but it has a double function as a lock button and a fingerprint sensor.

In short, the fingerprint sensor is something of a mixed bag. I had some difficulties with it after first setting it up where the sensor wouldn’t read my finger until I went into the settings and rescanned it. After getting that sorted out, the scanner was working about 80% of the time, but it presented a new issue. Any time I pick up the phone, my pointer finger naturally rests on the lock button, which causes it to automatically unlock. While that’s not a bad feature when I want the phone to unlock, it results in frustration when I’m just trying to glance at the time or a notification or if I’m trying to access any of the other lock-screen features. Because of the fact that the scanner also doubles as the lock button, there are situations where locking the phone with my pointer finger doesn’t work since the phone locks when the button is pressed — but then instantly reads my fingerprint and unlocks itself.

While I do appreciate the phone for having a fingerprint scanner in the first place, especially given its price, the lock button scanner felt like more of a hassle than it was worth. It’s not exactly a deal breaker since you can simply turn off the scanning feature, but it left me a little disappointed with the overall usability of the phone in conjunction with the scanner.

On the rear side, the Moto G Power 5G has a USB-C port that supports 15-watt charging. To the charging port’s right is its stereo speaker setup and to its left is a 3.5mm headphone jack. While I’ve completely shifted my headphone usage to wireless devices (which the phone supports with its Bluetooth 5.3 connection), the fact that the G Power has a headphone jack was welcome in case my wireless headphones were left uncharged and I needed to use a pair of wired earbuds.

As mentioned above, the Moto G Power 5G features a 6.5-inch Full HD LCD display with a relatively thick bezel at the top and bottom. While OLED screens offer deeper colors and darker blacks that LCD displays simply can’t match, the Moto G Power still brings something to the table in terms of overall smoothness thanks to its 120Hz refresh rate. While the colors aren’t as crisp as those found in similarly priced devices that sport OLED screens, the high refresh rate is able to keep the screen feeling responsive and quick most of the time. As far as resolution goes, the smartphone runs at 2400 x 1080p and sports 405ppi (pixels per inch), giving images a crisp overall look.

While the bezel is noticeably thick toward the bottom end of the phone, I never found it to be much of an issue. Screen and bezel size are just one of those trade-offs that come with using more budget-friendly devices, and I don’t think that the Moto G Power 5G’s bezel was egregious since it never got in the way of function or the overall feel of the screen. Because the bezel is thin on the sides of the phone, it doesn’t feel like it impedes too much on the display.

As far as the screen goes, there’s not much to complain about other than the fact that it’s not OLED. A 6.5-inch display with a refresh rate of 120Hz on a phone as modestly priced as this  makes it something of a steal — as long as you’re willing to put up with the washed-out blacks of an LCD screen.

There are three cameras total on the Moto G Power 5G: a 50MP main camera and 2MP macro camera on the phone’s rear, plus a 16MP front-facing selfie camera built into the display. As far as cameras go on a $300 smartphone, I was pretty surprised with how well they perform. There are some obvious limitations to them, such as their struggle to capture precise details on objects at a medium distance, but all in all, the three lenses do enough to be considered solid by anyone picking up the G Power.

Like most smartphone cameras, the three lenses on the Moto G Power 5G work best when in optimal, natural light. If you’re taking photos outside during the day or in other well-lit environments, then the phone will be able to capture memories with ease and accuracy. If you’re relying on it to take quality photos of distant objects, however, regardless of how well-lit they are, you’ll likely be disappointed, as the zoom will result in grainy photos. That’s because there’s no telephoto zoom — just digital zoom.

The selfie camera takes excellent front-facing photos, but I would stay away from the built-in portrait mode that the phone offers, as it tends to bump up the contrast on the subject, creating some harsh lines that result in a subpar photo. I didn’t find much need for the portrait mode, however, given how solid the selfie camera is without it.

The macro lens offers some solid hyper-detailed photos, but I never found myself using it all that much. The use case for taking photos of extremely small items seems, in my opinion, to be pretty slim, and I would have preferred a telephoto lens for better long-distance photography.

The Moto G Power 5G sports a 5,000mAh battery, which keeps it going throughout the day without needing to stop at a charger. I’d say that I fall right in the middle when it comes to heavy and light phone users and I never had any issues with running out of battery midday when using the G Power. But I wouldn’t go on a weekend trip with the G Power without a charger as its battery life usually started to hit the 20% mark as I was beginning to wind down for bed.

The phone supports 15W USB-C charging, which, while not the fastest on the market, still allows it to get juiced up from 0 to 100% in about 90 minutes as long as you’re using the proper charging brick and outlet. If you’re using the phone for more battery-intensive activities like playing games, watching streaming content, or using Google Maps, your mileage with the battery life will likely be much less than anyone casually using the phone for texting and social media breaks throughout the day. That said, the Moto G Power 5G is still pretty reliable when it comes to holding a charge.

Unfortunately, the phone doesn’t support wireless charging. which is slightly inconvenient for me as I a wireless charging pad on their nightstand. But since most charging pads connect to USB-C ports, there wasn’t much of an adjustment to make. A 10W charger is included in the box with the phone itself, but if you’re looking for the fastest, most optimal charge, then I’d recommend investing in a 15W charging brick since the phone supports it.

There are two variants of the Moto G Power 5G: one with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage and another with 6GB RAM and 256GB of internal storage. The only one I’ve been able to find listings for is the 6GB RAM/256GB storage version. It can be bought directly from Motorola for $300 or through most other electronics retailers like Amazon and Best Buy for the same price.

According to Motorola, the 4GB RAM/128GB storage version is not sold by Motorola, but by its carrier partners, which also the price for it. In my preliminary research, I wasn’t able to find any carriers offering the G Power with 4GB RAM or 128GB storage, so if you’re looking to pick one up, you may need to go with the larger storage capacity variant. At the end of the day, it’ll likely only save you around $50, which might not be a great trade-off for a slower experience.

There’s a lot to like about the Moto G Power 5G, but it’s also a letdown in a lot of crucial places. With the lock button/fingerprint scanner, I ran into numerous usability issues where simple things that would have only taken a second (such as checking the time) ended up being 15-second diversions. The cameras are great, especially for the price, but opening the camera app can cause a stutter that takes a few seconds to sort out as the Dimensity 930 processor tries to find its footing. And again, a phone without NFC in 2023 is just ridiculous.