Motorola Moto G Play (2024) Review: Outclassed By Its Predecessors, But Still A Winner
- Very inexpensive
- Acceptable display performance for the price
- Camera is decent in perfect lighting conditions
- Performance can be a bit sluggish
- Questionable update policy
- Lots of bloatware
- Photos becomes muddy in less-than-optimal conditions
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Over the past decade, smartphones have come a long way in ensuring that there is a device for everyone at any given price point. Gone are the days when you needed to buy a top-tier device like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra for acceptable performance and a feature set worthy of the asking price.
Nowadays, midrange devices like the Motorola Edge (2023) do more than enough to satisfy most smartphone needs. Then there are budget devices like the Motorola Moto G 5G (2023), which attempt to satisfy the most basic smartphone needs for less than $200. It's important to note, at this point, that the Moto G Play (2024) does not have 5G connectivity — you'll only be able to reach 4G speeds, as it does not have the hardware to connect to 5G networks.
Have smartphones matured to the point that these budget devices offer an enjoyable experience? Motorola has been a major player at the ultra-budget level for a few years — with their latest device, the Moto G Play (2024), the company attempts to deliver a usable experience at a budget price. Can a device as little as $150 do enough to justify its existence, or is it simply better to save your money and get something a bit better?
Motorola sent a Moto G Play (2024) for this review.
Design
For the price, the latest Moto G Play has a basic but worthy overall design. At 163.8 x 75 x 8.3mm, it's a bit tall, but not unwieldy. Thanks to its plastic construction, it also manages to remain relatively light at only 185g. It comes in a single color, Sapphire Blue, which is quite pleasing to the eye.
The front is dominated by its display, and a hole-punch camera can be found at the top. The bezels are a bit thick, and not at all uniform. The side bezels aren't too bad, but there is a bit more at the top, and the bottom of the device has an especially large chin.
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The right side of the device houses the volume buttons and the power button, which pulls double duty as a fingerprint sensor. The left side has a combination SIM and microSD slot, allowing for expandable storage. The top has a headphone jack, and a USB-C port and a speaker can be found at the bottom.
The back houses a single camera system and not much else — outside of the Motorola logo. It looks like there are two lenses on the back, but the bottom one only houses a flash.
One thing to note is that this device is quite slippery. If you don't hold this device tightly, it can easily slip out of your hand. This is especially true if you tend to keep it on rounded surfaces, like a couch armrest. It had to be saved from hitting the ground on a couple of occasions.
The Moto G Play features a water-repellent design. While it would have been nice to see a full IP rating, at the price, it's nice that it can survive light splashes of water.
Display
Motorola equipped the Moto G Play with a 6.5-inch, 90Hz, IPS LCD panel that's protected by Gorilla Glass 3. With a resolution of 1600 x 720, it has a pixel density of roughly 270 ppi.
Thanks to its 720p resolution, the panel itself was clear and easy on the eyes. For a 90Hz panel, I expected a much smoother and fluid experience. Instead, I was greeted with ever-present lag that negated the 90Hz refresh rate. The colors were also a bit washed out, which resulted in a very mediocre experience overall.
Despite its low brightness rating, it was usable in direct sunlight. Motorola says that the Moto G Play is rated for 500 nits of brightness, which seems a bit low, but I never struggled to see it when outdoors. The panel was more than bright enough to use under direct light indoors.
The display isn't bad by any means, especially at this price point. It's not a flagship-caliber display, but that shouldn't be expected at this price. It's large, clear, and does a respectable job of providing an enjoyable experience.
Performance
Outfitted with a Snapdragon 680 processor and 4GB of RAM, the Moto G Play often struggled when doing something as simple as navigating its various menus and folders. Clicking on just about anything could result in a second or two wait before it opened and slowdowns were a frequent occurrence.
Doing anything intensive on this device, like gaming, is going to be a hit-or-miss experience. I loaded "Asphalt 9," "Grid Autosport," and "Call of Duty" to see just what this device was capable of and the results were a bit of a mixed bag.
Games like "Asphalt 9" and "Call of Duty" happily ran at low graphics settings. "Asphalt 9" looked particularly bad, with lots of aliasing issues and jagged edges. "Call of Duty" ran the best of the three and provided a decent overall experience.
Despite the warning that I was using an unsupported device, "Grid Autosport" also worked — with one big caveat. Normally steering is done by tilting your device left and right. Tilting did nothing, leaving me unable to steer the car. This was easily rectified by heading into the settings menu and changing the steering input to an onscreen wheel, but it was a disappointment nonetheless. Once the steering issue was out of the way, the game ran decently enough.
Much like scrolling through the menus, these games were all slow to load. This is likely due to the 64GB of UFS 2.2 storage, but waiting for things to happen on screen was a constant with this device. 64GB is a bit low for any smartphone in 2024, but luckily it can be expanded up to 1TB using a microSD card.
The Moto G Play has stereo speakers and they were just alright. There was ample volume, but it became increasingly muddy as the volume rose.
Software and Battery
Running on Android 13, Motorola uses a near-stock version of Android. As a fan of stock Android, navigating the Motorola UI was a pleasurable experience. Motorola also includes a couple of useful apps that could be beneficial for some users.
Motorola gives you "Family Space", an app designed to create a safe space for your kids. You can set time limits, control access to apps, and create profiles for each user. The "Moto Secure" app is the go-to spot to manage on-device privacy and security. It allows you to easily create secure folders and manage app permissions.
There is a bit of bloatware on this device. Apps like "TikTok," "Facebook," and even "Snapchat" are all preinstalled. They can be easily uninstalled, and there were about 12 of these apps.
Software updates are another area of concern for the Moto G Play. Motorola has not been great about updating its devices. The device is currently on a security patch that was pushed out on December 1, 2023. If you are lucky, it'll receive bi-monthly security updates, but I wouldn't count on many Android OS updates. It may see Android 14 one day, but you should purchase the device with the understanding that it may forever be on Android 13.
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The battery was quite good on the Moto G Play. The 5,000mAh battery easily lasted me multiple days between charges. It can also be charged at up to 15W via USB-C. Motorola doesn't include a charging brick with the G Play, so your charging speed may vary.
Camera
The camera on the Moto G Play performed as expected for such an inexpensive device. With a 50MP f/1.8 main lens, the G Play was able to get some decent-looking shots when in perfect conditions.
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The photo of this little library was taken near noon on a sunny day. Overall the image isn't bad and would be usable for social media. The colors of the image were accurate, but the Moto G Play does tend to oversharpen images.
Steve Smith/SlashGear
This picture of the park bench was taken as the sun faded over the horizon. Although the bench looks a bit overprocessed, the lighting was still good and the G Play did a decent job of reproducing accurate colors and a usable final image.
Steve Smith/SlashGear
Above you'll see another photo captured as the sun faded in the background. The steeple and the power lines are oversharpened. As the sun faded away, images began to look muddy and the colors started to look pastel-like.
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The Moto G Play (2024) has a maximum digital zoom of 5x. This is the same image as above with a 5x digital zoom applied.
Steve Smith/SlashGear
Decent closeup images were possible but are a bit difficult to get. The image would often be blurred in the wrong spot or the camera focused on the wrong subject entirely.
Steve Smith/SlashGear
Taking photos without good lighting results in a muddy mess. The picture looks grainy, and it wasn't able to accurately reproduce colors.
Final Verdict
My time with the Motorola Moto G Play (2024) was a bit of a mixed experience. For a $150 device, the design was quite pleasing to the eye, the display was decent, and it offered fantastic battery life.
The overall performance was all over the place. The device can handle the basics, and from my gaming tests, it can do a bit more. It just doesn't do it smoothly. The constant lag caused the device to feel a bit jittery and it was a jarring experience overall.
The Moto G Play (2024) is quite the upgrade from the Moto G Play (2023) edition. It has a much-improved processor, double the internal storage, and an extra GB of RAM. The Moto G Play (2024) even gives more expensive devices like the Moto G Stylus a run for its money.
Motorola is aiming this device at the ultra-budget shopper or as a first-time smartphone for young kids. The issue is that there is some competition at this price point, and if you can get a device on sale, there are better alternatives for a little more money.
At the time of writing, the far superior Moto G Stylus 5G (2023) is on sale for $250. The extra $100 gives you a far more usable experience with a much stronger processor, a better display, more RAM, and significantly more onboard storage. Or you can find the Moto G Stylus (2023) (without the 5G) for $129.
If your budget doesn't allow it, or you want a new device as inexpensive as possible without digging through phones released last year, then the Moto G Play (2024) is a solid choice. This phone is not perfect — it can stutter a bit — but it gets the job done.
The Moto G Play (2024) can be purchased directly from Motorola or an Authorized retailer such as Amazon.