Motorola announces the new Moto G Play (2023)
Motorola has come out to announce its new affordable Moto G Play phone just in time for the holiday season, albeit it won't be available for purchase until January 12, 2023. The new Moto G Play will be available unlocked in the US at Best Buy, Amazon, and Motorola with a truly budget-friendly price of $169.99. It will also be sold in Canada at Motorola's website.
What's new with the Motorola Moto G Play (2023)
Well, let's start with display, which remains the same size and resolution as the previous generation of the Moto G Play, with one difference being that it now supports a 90Hz refresh rate — a nice addition indeed.
On the back side, the camera array has also received an upgrade, as the main camera is now 16MP with an aperture of f/1.22 and pixel size of 1.0µm. There are also a 2MP macro and 2MP depth cameras, making it a set of three in total. However, given the phone's price range and what we are used to seeing from Motorola with its budget handsets, it would be safe to assume that the images are not anything impressive. At best, the main camera might deliver some usable shots, but we will let you know once we get to review the phone itself.
One major good side to these affordable Motorola phones, on the other hand, have been their massive batteries. Unsurprisingly, the Moto G Play is getting a 5,000mAh-sized one inside, which should offer some great battery life. Motorola even claims it can last you up to three days on a single charge. Unfortunately, though, the charging speed is quite disappointing maxing out at 10W, which given the big size of the battery means it would take quite a bit of time to top it up.
Another downside that is frankly hard to brush off is the lack of NFC. There is no reason for a phone to not have NFC, especially in 2023. Many people use this feature daily, to pay via their phone. It makes much more sense to maybe drop the IP52 water-repellent certification, which the new Moto G Play has, and include NFC connectivity instead.
As for what actually makes the phone tick, the 2023 version of the Moto G Play comes with a MediaTek Helio G37 processor, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 512GB via a microSD card. Suffice to say, this phone won't be able to do much more than some we browsing, texting, and making calls. Some out there might also consider the lack of support for 5G connectivity a setback, but the truth is that 5G is yet to make a difference that would eclipse 4G connectivity, so not much of a loss on that front.
Probably the biggest upgrade over the predecessor is the design of the Moto G Play (2023), which is now much more modern-looking and clean. It might be a super-budget phone, but at least it looks decent and respectable, albeit still from plastic.
All's to say, the 2023 edition of the Moto G Play is shaping up as a hard phone to recommend, but we will have to wait until we get to throw it through its paces and see if it is any good in real life. Stay tuned for our upcoming review if you are interested in buying one for yourself.
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