Moto G Power | 2021 | 3-Day battery | Unlocked | Made for US by Motorola | 4/64GB | 48MP Camera | Gray

8 reviews for Moto G Power | 2021 | 3-Day battery | Unlocked | Made for US by Motorola | 4/64GB | 48MP Camera | Gray

1. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Rey’s José – October 16, 2022

   Superó nuestras expectativas y no tuvimos ningún problema para activar el chip de nuestra operadora, ni para activar las aplicaciones que necesitamos.
   Excelente relación calidad > precio.
   Muy buen dispositivo. A mi esposita le encantó.

2. 

   Rated 1 out of 5

   Luis Fernando López Méndez – November 11, 2022

   Muy mala compra, viene bloqueado por Boost mobile y nunca que pude ponerle mi cheap Telcel.

3. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Yang – November 14, 2022

   So far everything seems to be working OK, so i’m happy with it.

4. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Erick Escárcega Rodríguez – November 27, 2022

   Me llegó un día antes de lo que me habían dicho y llego perfecto, el celular está hermoso la verdad me encantó! Lo recomiendo mucho

5. 

   Rated 1 out of 5

   Wilber – November 30, 2022

   lo compre para usarlo con chip telcel, pero no me funciono tube que llevarlo a que lo desbloquearan

6. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   Jefferey Bowman – December 7, 2022

   UPDATE: 8/26/2022 at the end. Not great.

   Bought this for my Dad who needed to upgrade from his old Galaxy S7 Edge (also a security risk as it’s no longer updated…yikes) and this was the most affordable option for him at that point in time that wasn’t refurbished, used, or overpriced for what you’re getting. (Man, there are a LOT of those.)

   Pros:
   -Battery life. (When you hear “all day battery” they ain’t kiddin’. Motorolla (really Lenovo) gives you a big, beefy battery with this thing.)

   -USB-C. (Yay! No more having to futz around with Micro-USB.)

   -Fingerprint reader and face unlock.

   -Android 11! (I really don’t like 12 and have missed 11.)

   -They actually give you a charger! (Take *that*, Apple!)

   Cons:
   -Performance isn’t where it needs to be. (4GB of RAM sounds reasonable for Android, but it’s kinda pushing it. The older 600 series Snapdragon is long in the tooth and showing its age, so it’s not exactly a speed demon, itself.)

   -64GB of storage isn’t exactly going to win any awards. (And much like any storage device with an operating system, the fuller it gets, the slower it runs. Use the Micro SD slot, people!)

   -Only 10w charging. (So no matter what brick you throw at it, it’ll TurboCharge (their branding) but it won’t be like a Google Pixel series phone, which is lightning fast by comparison.)

   -720p display. (Don’t take that 1600 to heart, because you’re not getting that. I’m not sure why they chose this display or this particular size, but it’s a rough 720p as in it’s barely there, but there nonetheless.)

   -Camera notch IN the display. (Not a cut-out, not at the top of the bezel, no. Smack-dab right in the screen (much like the Pixel 4/4a, onward.)

   -Screen is polarized. (If you wear certain sunglasses, you can’t rotate this to landscape mode as you won’t be able to see the screen. It’s LCD and probably akin to a Nintendo Gameboy Color, but much better quality.)

   Overall thoughts:
   I can see why people had problems getting their Verizon service to work with this phone. I got it to work with a simple SIM swap but the texting was a pain as their texting services are now secured and this didn’t secure them right out of the box. (I forget the setting, but it’s in the Hamburger Bar settings menu, it’s per user and not overall. It’s a pain to work with, but it does work.) Phone calls and everything else (including E-911) work well, after finagling. So does Wifi calling. It’s just a needless pain to set up, really.

   The performance is okay, good even, if you let the AI in the phone follow what you do. (Sounds like a security risk, but it’s actually a caching mechanism allowing the phone to know what you use the most and giving it priority over everything else.) Kinda like how you can use Optane memory in an Intel-based computer to speed up a HDD akin to using a Hybrid drive. (In its current form/update, the phone reminds me of a Pixel 2 in overall power.)

   The screen could be better. You can see the individual pixels and the lines/rows they’re in and they’re so noticeable that you can actually be taken out of the moment with what you’re watching/seeing when it happens. It is capable of displaying 1440p and 4k signals, still at 720p, but usually devices with smaller resolution screens get stuck at 480p or 720p signals and make the best of it while this can successfully take in those signals and at least cleans up the picture and makes it look like proper HD, even though it’s at the low end of it. Buffering isn’t nearly as bad because it’s driving a 720p display, so movies and shows will load slightly faster because of it. (Within in reason. Some apps drag like they’re being operated by snails until the stream fully loads. Ugh.)

   The lack of stereo speakers is a real pain. (I miss my Pixel for that alone.)

   I traded my Dad my phone (Pixel 4a) for his (this one) because I can use it better (this is a MASSIVE phone) and the Pixel works better for him. This is capable enough for most people and it’s quite usable. The hotspot feature works (you have to have a subscription with your carrier to use it), it works with Android Auto (very sluggish start up time…bleh), and for A/V stuff, it works well enough.

   For the price? Solid phone. Especially when you consider it’s brand new and not used or refurbished. That said, if you’re fine with used/refurbished and want something with more power in the same price range, I recommend a Pixel 4a or 5/5a. Both will still be supported with updates through 2023 (possibly 2024) and have a solid feature set, whereas this will be using Android 11 for the foreseeable future (but with security updates!) and if you want Android 13 and beyond, you’ll need a better/newer phone.

   I’m honestly more or less happy with it, the price was good for what you’re getting (brand new), and it’s a sturdy beast with a massive battery (by comparison). Recommended.

   UPDATE: Changing my final thought to mildly recommended. The phone still works, but the AI garbage is nothing but a sales pitch. The phone somehow seems to go slower, with some new feature or task you give it. The AI is supposed to be helping it learn which apps you use the most and adjusts itself accordingly. Well, the AI decided “I’m going to use the slowest lane possible. We’ll get there in 2 hours, instead of 30 minutes. Enjoy the ride!” and boy, oh boy, does it crawl.

   It’s gotten to the point where using Android Auto is just almost completely impossible. Button presses/taps can take upwards of 30-60 seconds to register! (That’s insane when you’re supposed to be using it as a GPS!) YouTube music lost most of my songs and refused to play them, asking me to redownload them (and it never did), so there would be entire skip spots during any journey. (I had to pull over once to figure out what the heck was going on.)

   Voice commands are sluggish, reaction times are the equivalent of a newbie going up against Tyson in his prime. You take the swing, but nothing happens until after you needed it many seconds ago.

   Even outside of Android Auto, it’s sluggish. Loading Chrome can be a nightmare, given the page you’re checking out. *sigh*

   Part of the problem is the storage. Much like on a computer, eMMC (which is what a phone uses) can slow down once it’s too full, and all storage drives (regardless of the type) all have a recommendation of keeping things at, or below, 50% of the storage. Well, that’s impossible on this phone because nothing will install to the SD card and the Motorola bloatware takes up a good chunk of your available space. You can max out the storage on this thing in no time flat.

   It’s a great starter phone, it’s fine if you’re needing one in a pinch and can’t afford more (believe me, I get it, I’ve been there more times than I can count.), but it’s not going to be your #1 daily driver in the long run. Not unless you’re fine with Motorola apps, chrome, some texting, and maybe some YouTube. Forget Android Auto, forget gaming, and forget packing a bunch of apps on here. It’s clearly just a phone in a pretty Android wrapper.

7. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   A. Gordon – December 18, 2022

   I initially bought this phone for a friend that said her phone died. Then she said she didn’t want it and ordered herself an S22. So I figured I’d keep the phone for myself, and I’m glad I did.

   My everyday mobile phone is the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. But the swines that designed the thing, followed Apple over the cliff and took out the 3.5 mm Headphone Jack, did away with removable storage, and put the fingerprint reader in the middle of the screen. This phone, being a budget phone, choose to not jump on the bandwagon of taking away features and charging you more money.

   I use this phone as my primary media player. It takes good enough pictures and videos, everything works as expected. I put a 128 GB SD card with all my favorite movies. And with Bluetooth and the 3.5mm jack, I get the best of both worlds. I can receive calls with the Google Voice app, but again, corporate swings, took away the ability to make WIFI calls using the google voice app.

   It has the same size battery as the S22 Ultra, so on standby, it can go for up to a week without needing to charge. And since there’s WIFI just about everywhere these days, I use this phone about as much as my S22.

   I could go on and on about why you should buy this phone, but you should be aware of two points. Its a budget phone, so speed is not its thing. Also, some popular apps, for some reason, doesn’t work on it. The most notable is the Facebook Messaging app. It loads but is unresponsive. That aside, great budget phone. Strong buy recommendation.

   Update. All i had to do was update the Facebook messenger app and it started working again.

8. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   A Customer – December 21, 2022

   I will start with the 2 worst, most functionally-deficient things. I ended up returning it because of the first defect. Maybe they will patch it?

   1. The status bar is all messed up. This phone has the camera cutout as a little dot on the left, so that space can’t be used. But it ALSO prohibits icons in a center area as if it had a medium-sized notch there, which it doesn’t. This leaves space in the status area for no more than FOUR notification icons before it does a little dot thing as if you are overflowing. Did they forget to change the software from a previous model which had a giant notch there? It makes this phone unusable for me. I need a status bar with room for a bunch of stuff I have going on constantly. I need to see download and message statuses for multiple things. My current phone, a Blu XL4, has an option to ignore the top sliver of the display with the garbage “notch” so I have a full-width status bar. Motorola does not, AND they messed up the default. There is no way to use this phone if you need more than 4 icons visible.

   2. There is no screenshot icon in the pull-down menu. I need to take a lot of screenshots, and the power/volume combo is both annoying to use and wears out the buttons. Motorola’s new method requires you to tap-and-hold with 3 fingers on the screen. The problem with that is it activates buttons/links/etc on a lot of pages. So you will need to download some shady 3rd-party app with adds or whatever if you want to add a screenshot function. It also has a (not)”helpful” menu which pops up every time you do a screen shot, which gets in the way.

   3. I don’t use split-screen much, but if you do… you can’t long-press the recent app icons to do this. Motorola’s idea is to swipe from the center of the left edge of the screen (oh how clever, cut the screen in half!). Problem: THAT GESTURE IS ALREADY USED BY ALMOST EVERY APP to access menus. Did the genius who removed the long-press method to replace it with side-swipe not know this?

   Now some less-important details…

   One good thing: it does have double-tap to wake the display. This should be standard. It saves wear on the power button and is sometimes more convenient depending on how you are using the phone.

   You can’t turn off a mystery feature which wakes the display in response to the slightest wiggle or movement.

   You can’t turn of a wallpaper animation which stretches your wallpaper and displays it in a distorted form, and then shrinks it to normal temporarily when you touch menus. Your wallpaper will spend most of its time blurred.

   The fingerprint sensor can’t lock the display. You must click the button. I don’t know why. I had 2 other Motorola phones which would let you lock them by touching the sensor. Another way Motorola really wants you to click the power button constantly. The reason I prefer not to have the power button used for everything is because the only phone I had break in the past several years was a Moto E4, and the power button stopped working.

   About that camera… it’s pretty good, but FYI it doesn’t give you 48MP pictures (you kind of knew it wouldn’t). They use a 48MP sensor and you end up with 12MP pictures. The idea is to reduce noise by averaging groups of 4 pixels. It works somewhat, and I like the pictures, but calling it a 48mp camera makes it sound much better than it is.