The Moto G Stylus And Moto G 5G Give You A Wild Amount For Under $300 Apiece

Motorola is expanding its Moto G family in North America with two new affordable devices that punch well above their price tags. Those would be the 2023 refreshes of the Moto G Stylus and Moto G 5G.

Each will ship with some of the purest Android 13 installations you can ask for, but Motorola spiced the software up with other fun attractions. Particularly, Moto Note and Live Message make a return on the Moto G Sylus, the latter allowing you to scribble and make animations to share directly with friends. Moto also emphasizes family safety and security with Family Space, ThinkShield, and Moto Secure.

Both devices will be available in the U.S. and Canada. The Moto G Stylus arrives first on May 5 for $199.99. If this is the one you're after, you can only purchase an unlocked model through retailers Best Buy and Amazon, in addition to Motorola itself. Cricket, Straight Talk, and Walmart will offer it "in the coming months," says Motorola.

The unlocked Moto G 5G ($249.99) will also be available at the aforementioned retailers, but it won't arrive until May 25. This one will have much wider availability if you prefer buying through carriers. You'll be able to find it at T-Mobile, Metro, AT&T, Boost, Cricket, Google Fi, US Cellular, and Consumer Cellular. Canadians will be able to purchase it through Motorola in addition to select carriers and retailers shortly after.

Creative types will be drawn to the Moto G Stylus, named so for the built-in digital pen that allows you to draw, annotate, and write with precision. Compared to the previous model, there are some differences you'll want to be aware of. The starkest is its slightly smaller display at 6.5 inches, a .3-inch reduction.

The Moto G Stylus still has a 90Hz display and offers plenty of surface area for a modern smartphone. That alone would be an easy pill to swallow, but it doesn't come without a more painful resolution downgrade: it's now equivalent to 720p, a bummer considering the Dolby Atmos stereo speakers heighten its fidelity as a multimedia device.

Internal changes include the octa-core MediaTek G85 chipset (last year's used the G88, though there's little discernible difference between the two) and 4GB of RAM (down from 6GB). You can choose between 64GB or 128GB of internal storage, which is expandable up to 1TB using a microSD card.

For cameras, there's a 50MP "Quad Pixel" main sensor on the rear with an upgraded f/1.8 aperture that should offer a substantial improvement in low-light potential compared to the f/1.9 sensor previously used. A 2MP camera flanks it for macro photography, and you'll get an 8MP up front for selfies.

Motorola decided on one major exclusion: the Moto G Stylus doesn't have a 5G radio, which is the likeliest inhibitor for widespread carrier ability.

The Moto G 5G loses the fun stylus, but as the name teases, it packs those 5G radios needed to take full advantage of the latest network speed upgrades. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 480+ and its embedded 5G radios facilitate that connection. That chipset also supports dual 2x2 Wi-Fi 6 antennas a la carte, though it's unclear whether Motorola adopted those capabilities for the Moto G 5G.

And though the screen size and resolution remain the same compared to yesteryear's model (6.5-inch, 720p equivalent), it'll offer that refresh rate sweet spot of 120Hz, on par with flagship offerings from the likes of Apple and Samsung.

Like the G Stylus, it also picks up those Dolby Atmos stereo speakers, and it has a similar camera configuration that adds a 2MP macro camera alongside the main sensor. The latter is 48MP here, and it gains the Quad Pixel treatment (it stacks four large pixels in one sensor) that Motorola claims will deliver four times better low-light performance. Both also pack a 5,000mAh battery that goes up to two days and charges fast over USB-C.