Moto G Stylus (2023) Review: An Affordable Entry Point For A New Phone With A Stylus

Affordable Android phones are not exactly few and far between, so it's the minute details in feature and quality that set one apart from the other. If you want all the bells and whistles that the best Androids have to offer, there are a number of lower-end Android phones you will want to skirt around. But that doesn't necessarily make the affordable options bad choices, especially if it's a short-term, non-bank-breaking device that best suits your needs. If all you need is a phone to make and take calls, there are plenty of devices that should do the trick quite well.

The 2023 version of the Moto G Stylus is such a phone that brings basic function, a bit of style, and a more forgiving price tag together. Motorola smartphones released in the last few years have by and large received positive reviews — the brand makes a solid midrange line of devices. The Moto G Stylus keeps its features mostly basic — but it has a stylus hidden inside it. Motorola provided a Moto G Stylus for the purpose of this review. 

On the Moto G Stylus 2023, you get a 6.5-inch screen with a 720p display and 90Hz refresh rate. There is a large camera island with two lenses in the upper-left corner. There is one baseline configuration for this phone, the specs of which include 64 GB of storage and a modest 4 GB of RAM. If your storage needs are greater, the microSD slot can expand the storage to 1 TB. 

Under the hood is a MediaTek Helio G85, a three-year-old but still modestly competent processor. The 2023 G Stylus comes out of the box running Android 13 — with Motorola promising to provide an upgrade to Android 14 and security patch updates through the end of 2025. As other brands are extending their support range beyond 3 years, a 2-year promise in 2023 really feels like it abbreviates the longevity of the phone. This is true especially when taking into consideration the lack of 5G compatibility, a feature that is commonplace on smartphones in the same price range. 

That 50-megapixel camera puts some serious work in, even on a $200 phone. Some may find the camera array at the back of this phone lacking — especially if they've come from a much higher-priced device. While basic well-lit photos can be captured with an acceptable level of quality, the Moto G Stylus camera isn't particularly good. The quality of images captured with the macro lens stained an otherwise mostly problem-free photography testing experience. Macro photos, like the flower photo pictured here, lack a lot of depth and are disappointingly fuzzy. 

S.G. Howe/SlashGear

Otherwise, the secondary lens does create a nice bokeh that transitions smoothly from the subject in focus. I've seen some phone cameras perform notably poorly in this regard, so the Moto G Stylus does deserve props as a portrait camera — but mostly only when you've got the light of the great outdoors to help the camera sensor out, even with the front-facing camera. When moving indoors for photos, noise increases sharply and the photos take on an unmistakably basic phone-capture quality. 

S.G. Howe/SlashGear

The Moto G Stylus' camera was tested in a variety of other mediums — landscape and food photography — and the performance was decent, with impressively rich colors and sharpness even at infinite focus. It's not going to compete with your much higher-priced model smartphones, but it's certainly better than expected at this price.

The Moto G's stylus is light, sleek, and precise. When it's ejected from its housing, the stylus automatically calls up its note-taking app. You'll be hard-pressed to find many phones this affordable with an integrated stylus, so while the stylus isn't something that most people expect in a smartphone that's priced this low, this Moto G Stylus deserves commendation for including this feature in a device of this sort (as it has for the past several years in earlier models). Of course, there's some compromise demanded for the feature. 

If you can get yourself in the habit of using the stylus, it's a useful tool to have. When the phone detects the stylus is in use, a handy menu of various utilities including notes, screenshot markups, and Google's note-taking app Google Keep is summoned, along with the blank space for handwriting. Using the stylus for writing notes proves to be a bit impractical if you're writing more than a full sentence.

The 5,000mAh battery should support the phone through two days of use, per Motorola's claims. The test device was put through some standard cellphone use — voice calls, messaging, browsing social media — and was sitting at a cool 54% at the end of the second day. But as soon as video calls and streaming apps like Netflix were introduced, the second two-day battery test period saw the battery sputter out before lunch of the second day. 

Adjusting the setting to keep the refresh rate at maximum helped the display quality in scrolling, streaming, and gaming some, albeit marginally. Some stuttering and lag did start up in gaming after this setting was switched on.

Call quality was clear and consistent on both ends, but music and video audio performance in the stereo speakers underperformed. At louder volumes, minute music details were blown out and the audio took on a tinny quality. 

You also win some and lose in other features. There's no NFC capability, so don't plan on using any form of contactless payment. I did appreciate the headphone jack, but the phone doesn't come with a charging block, either. 

The fingerprint is the power/wakeup button on the right-hand side of the phone. While the placement of the fingerprint scanner has been proven in the past to be a winner, the speed at which the scanner works has always been a caveat. This sensor was so aggravatingly slow that it was never faster to scan a finger than it was to enter the passcode. 

Are you a disciplined notetaker that doesn't see much value in mobile gaming, video streaming, powerful phone photography, or modern 5G connection? Shaving off so many critical features in lieu of a stylus makes this phone a tough sell for quite a few consumers, but the feature will appeal to a niche few. On the other hand, if you're a busy professional that wants a workhorse phone which will last five years, the Moto G Stylus' short support schedule again takes this phone out of the running for you.

The Moto G Stylus 2023 is a good phone, and certainly provides a little beefing up to last winter's release, the Moto G Play, which offers a weaker processor and less RAM. For all the testing I put the phone through, it ran as expected. I didn't feel hindered when trying to execute any one task or application. So while the Moto G Stylus is a perfectly fine phone in the short-term, keep an eye on the short-term update schedule, lack of 5G connectivity, and less-than-perfect set of cameras. 

The Moto G Stylus (2023) can be purchased from Amazon for approximately $200 unlocked.