Motorola Moto G (2025) Review: The practical choice

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The Moto G 2025 is a budget smartphone that embraces its limitations while delivering just enough to make it a compelling option for the right buyer. At this price, sacrifices are always inevitable, but the big question is whether those sacrifices align with your priorities. I’ve used the new Moto G (2025) to find out if it’s worth buying, or if you should spend a little more to get a phone that’s a lot better.

Moto G 2025: specs

Moto G 2025: design

At first glance, the Moto G 2025 doesn’t scream “budget phone” and that’s a huge selling point. It’s tall, strikingly slender, and light all the while lacking any sort of hollowness inside the body. A distinct feature is the Forest Gray vegan leather backing that adds a touch of sophistication while also providing a better-than-normal grip. That backing adds an elegant feel to the uniquely gentle sloping of the signature camera bump.

The plastic mid-frame has a two-toned look with metallic paint covering half of the frame while the shinier plastic surround meets up with the glass display on the front. Even though it’s not built with premium materials, the design so convincingly mimics premium build quality that I almost mistook the frame for aluminum, enhancing the overall impression of a more expensive device.

The sturdy power button doubles as a fingerprint scanner and works reliably, though its placement on the side led me to unintentionally unlock the device frequently while handling the phone. In contrast, the volume rocker above it feels mushy and lacks the power button’s refined feedback, a subtle difference that reminded me of the device’s budget nature. On the left side, you’ll find a single card slot for SIM and microSD cards, while the bottom houses a USB-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There are two stereo speakers featuring Dolby Atmos support, and I must admit to being impressed by the loudness, clarity, and spatial depth while playing YouTube videos and music in the room.

Moto G 2025: display

The Moto G 2025 sports a 6.7-inch LCD HD+ display with a resolution of 1604×720 (263ppi) and while this resolution might seem modest by today’s standards, the screen looks sharp enough for everyday use. The 120Hz refresh rate, a feature once reserved for more premium devices, goes a long way in helping this display look its best in daily use, however occasional performance issues likely attributed to the underpowered SoC and minimal RAM seemed to shatter the smoothness at times. As for uniformity, the bezels are a bit uneven and offset but that didn’t bother me as much as I consider that to be an acceptable tradeoff for devices of this caliber.

Protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3, the display should hold up well against scratches but is by no means shatterproof if dropped. At 1000 nits peak brightness, the Moto G 2025 was bright enough for most of the rainy days where I live but was sometimes a challenge in bright sunlight.

Moto G 2025: performance

Under the hood, the Moto G 2025 features MediaTek’s Dimensity 6300 chipset from nearly one year ago, built on a 6nm process, and paired with just 4GB of RAM. While this processor is respectable for low-to-mid-range devices, the limited RAM resulted in inconsistencies in performance.

Everyday tasks like unlocking the phone or launching apps sometimes felt sluggish, while transitions from the lock screen to the home screen and app switching often felt stuttery and jittery. It wasn’t a constant annoyance but cropped up enough times to know it wasn’t a fluke. Surprisingly, gaming performance was decent in my time playing PUBG at its highest resolution setting. Still, these moments of smooth operation felt inconsistent with the unpredictable performance in daily use.

Comparing the Moto G 2025 to the similarly priced Samsung Galaxy A35 and the slightly more expensive Nothing CMF Phone 1, some of the device’s performance shortcomings come into view a lot clearer. Unfortunately, the device won’t run the top 3DMark test we often like to include.

As a workaround, the phone includes Motorola’s RAM Boost feature, which can allocate an additional 8GB of internal storage as virtual RAM to improve multitasking. It’s set by default to dynamically determine how much RAM to throw at certain processes, but I found that setting this to its maximum 8GB setting helped improve performance somewhat. I wouldn’t say that the RAM Boost feature solves all of the Moto G 2025’s performance hiccups, but it did make a noticeable improvement.

Moto G 2025: camera

The Moto G 2025 comes equipped with a 50MP main sensor (f/1.8 aperture), that bins down to 12.5MP images by default, and quality is mixed. On one hand, snapping pictures in bright, sunny environments can produce some solid output, especially for a phone of this caliber. On the other hand, dynamic range is severely lacking and can sometimes result in dark, mushy shadows that reveal very little consistency in detail.

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The secondary camera is a disappointing 2MP macro lens that feels like it was added more for the spec sheet than for quality images. I could sometimes get what looked like a decent close-up if only I had more megapixels to work with.

On the front, there’s a 16MP selfie camera that performs admirably for its class. Portrait shots are decent with only minor edge-detection issues around hair or other fine details.

Aside from image quality, my bigger complaint is with performance issues that extend to the camera app itself. Shutter lag is common, with photos sometimes snapping one to two seconds after tapping the button resulting in blurred motion from fast-moving subjects. Night Vision mode exacerbates this delay further and requires steady hands to avoid blurry results, though I was able to get some usable images by being very patient and still. Consistency issues plagued my experience with the camera system.

Moto G 2025: software

The Moto G 2025 ships with Android 15 and keeps modifications minimal compared to stock Android—a plus for purists like myself. Hello UI sticks pretty close to vanilla, with some modifications that have become staples to the Moto experience. It’s been a while since I had the chance to enjoy Motorola’s intuitive and direct Chop action to activate the flashlight. Hidden functionality like tapping and holding three fingers on the screen to take a screenshot made me feel like a true Moto insider. However, there’s some pre-installed bloatware that can thankfully be removed as needed.

Hello UI offers a light suite of UI personalization tools including Themes, Fonts, and Icon Shapes. Motorola’s default font choice has a tight kerning that makes the text difficult to read in some areas of the experience, including the app drawer. I’m sure my aging eyes are at least partially to blame for that, but thankfully, having the ability to tweak these settings gave me instant relief.

Motorola promises two years of software updates and three years of security patches, which is an improvement over last year’s model. Competitors like Samsung’s Galaxy A15 offer four years of OS updates and five years of security patches by comparison. Though Motorola is moving in the right direction, buyers should still expect to have to replace the phone three years down the line to stay safe.

Moto G 2025: battery and charging

Battery anxiety is one thing that I never felt with the Moto G 2025. Its large 5000mAh battery easily lasts through a full day of heavy use or even two days with moderate usage. This is, of course, little surprise as it’s coupled with an efficient processor and modest display resolution. Charging speeds are also respectable at 30W wired charging—slightly faster than some flagship devices like my trusty Google’s Pixel 9 Pro—and Motorola included the charger in the box for my review unit, though only certain carriers will offer that extra accessory.

I found that 30 minutes of charge brought the phone up from empty to about 50% of the battery. With one hour and 15 minutes, I could go from dead to full which is impressive for a lower-tier device like this one. The Moto G 2025 is an excellent choice for anyone who hates worrying about battery life.

Moto G 2025: pricing and availability

The Moto G is currently available for $199.99 on the Motorola website. Motorola also released the Moto G Power 2025, a step up from this variant that includes 15W wireless charging, IP68 and IP69 water resistance, and a slightly larger display.

Moto G 2025: my verdict

Ultimately, the Moto G 2025 delivers what you’d expect from a $200 smartphone. It isn’t trying to compete with flagship devices or even mid-range options. It’s designed for those who need an affordable device without frills or high expectations. For those who value design and battery life above all else, this could be an excellent choice at an unbeatable price.

But if smooth performance or great cameras are non-negotiable for you, it might be worth spending more on something a bit higher up the chain. The nothing Nothing CMF Phone 1 ($239)  features an improved Mediatek Dimensity 7300 processor, 8GB of RAM, an AMOLED display, and a 50-megapixel camera. Alternatively, the Google Pixel 7a (under $300) offers Google’s Tensor G2 chip, an exceptional camera system, and guaranteed software updates until 2028, despite being almost two years old.

As long as you are aware of its limitations and how they align with your priorities going in, the Moto G 2025 should serve its purpose.