Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G (2024)

Good battery life but slow charging times. The fingerprint scanner placement and functionality are both not good. I can't recommend it because it is annoying. The camera is not too bad but shutter lag makes me miss the shot I want every time.

Wanted to try a stylus. I buy my phones out right so while everybody sports a brand new Galaxy mostly subsidized by their carrier, $1500 or $1,300 is a lot for me to drop down for a cell phone. On top of that my pixel 7, while it has its own flaws, didn't have to be replaced and in the grand scheme of things is a good phone. Shopped new Galaxy Ultras and used notes all the way back to the Note 8. A 5-year-old used Note would cost me $100 more than this phone at the $250 sale price.

The build quality is actually pretty good. The back is a high quality plastic and it feels good in hand. It's boxy but not sharp which I like. The camera can take good pictures as long as everything is set up for you like good lighting and a still object. Like every budget camera once things aren't ideal it struggles. At $250 it's fine.

The screen is great. The fact that you can get 120 hertz OLED at this price point is amazing. My eyes actually feel less strained at the end of the day.

Battery is great coming from the pixel 7. I could wipe the pixel 7 out by 3:00 or 4:00 while this thing isn't even in the red by bedtime. On heavy days I might have to boost it once in my car on a turbocharger but it's not something I think about. Excellent battery life.

The stylus is entry level I would say. It's not pressure sensitive and the tip is this weird metal mesh. It's responsive and built okay. I like the little clicky top like a real pen. It stores inside the phone securely with a satisfying click so you know it's not going to pop out. As soon as you push it in to eject the stylus the note taking app launches right away even when the phone is locked. Pretty good.

The speakers are cell phone speakers. I don't even know how to rate these as every single phone speaker I've ever heard is terrible.

Perks. This is where this phone shines. It has a great in screen fingerprint reader, a headphone jack, dual sim and wireless charging which is huge for me. And external storage. I didn't even know people still made phones with that. I will say though that even with developer options on I'm having a hard time getting that SD card to hold anything but pictures. I haven't looked into it much though yet.

I only buy pixels because of the bloat these manufacturers have to always add in. Motorola used to be the best at this but even they have started to get a little sloppy. Once I stripped everything out performance was better but it has a lot of hiccups. Weird bugs and just straight up freezes. I'll be running along in Chrome and then a page just won't load. Sometimes the keyboard won't come up or won't go away. Theres other bugs too. It once wouldn't boot at all after I drained the battery. I had to go into recovery bootloader to get it to start. Software experience doesn't match the phone specs. All in all though at $250 it's worth it. Not sure about $400.

It has horrible reception compared to a Google Pixel 6a from 2022. The Motorola Note app bugs out and removes saved content. The Boost preloaded apps use precious data to install games to your phone without your knowledge until they are already fully installed. The camera has three times the megapixels of a Sony based camera from a Pixel and other similar devices from the 12 MP generation of smart devices but the clarity is blocky and oversaturated in a bad way.

Just an abysmal phone, really. However if your carrier threw it at you for the price of joining their service with no extra tax. Screw it. It's a good beater phone. I've dropped this thing several times LOOKING for an excuse to replace it but NOPE. The one phone I hate is still bouncing back into my hand...