While entry-level Android handsets don’t always get the flagship treatment when it comes to their official announcements and commercial rollouts, that’s more or less what seems to have happened with the Moto G Play (2024) stateside.
Unveiled around three weeks ago, the budget-friendly 6.5-incher is up for grabs at last from Motorola’s official US e-store, with its availability bound to expand to retailers like Amazon and Best Buy and perhaps even a carrier or two before long.
For the time being, you need to pay $149.99 for an unlocked and unsubsidized 4G LTE-only device with a more refined design and a number of improved specifications compared to the Moto G Play (2023). That’s a great deal however you look at it, and one could even argue this is now the absolute best budget phone out there, undercutting the likes of Samsung’s recently released Galaxy A15 5G, the slightly older OnePlus Nord N200, and Motorola’s own Moto G 5G (2023).
While you’re definitely not dealing with a screamer here, that Snapdragon 680 processor under the hood of this newest Moto G Play generation is certainly not bad for the sub-$200 price bracket. The same goes for the reasonably smooth but disappointingly low-res 90Hz HD+ LCD screen, as well as the single 50MP rear-facing camera that’s taken the place of the 16 + 2 + 2MP imaging setup on the back of last year’s G Play edition.
Your 150 bucks will also buy you a respectable combination of 64 gigs of internal storage space and 4GB RAM, as well as a hefty 5,000mAh battery impressively squeezed into a decently lightweight and thin body made entirely from plastic and equipped with reasonably fast 15W charging support.
The Moto G Play (2024) is available in just one (decidedly attractive) Sapphire Blue colorway, and at least for the time being, it runs Android 13 on the software side of things, which might be its single biggest weakness, especially when you also consider Motorola‘s notoriously sluggish (and few) OS updates.
