The new Moto G Stylus 5G and Moto G 5G get booted out of the ‘budget phone’ category. Is the cost of 5G to blame?
Motorola announced two new 5G phones today for folks who don’t want to spend $700 on their smartphone. But it looks like the cost of 5G is pricing the new Moto G 5G and Moto G Stylus 5G out of some buyers’ budgets. The 2022 Moto G Stylus 5G has a 6.8-inch,120Hz screen, a big 5,000mAh battery, and a 50MP main camera. It runs Android 12 on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chipset. Its flagship feature, of course, is its stylus. The Stylus model’s pen is now unique in phones under $1,000. With LG Mobile out of business, if you want to draw on your screen with a built-in stylus and don’t have great credit or deep pockets, you’re going to be getting a G Stylus. Motorola’s styli aren’t active like Samsung’s; there’s no real pressure sensitivity or tilt detection. But as we note in our G Stylus 5G review, the software does try for palm rejection, and the experience is as good as you’re going to get on a less expensive phone. Other specs here include: between 4GB and 8GB of RAM; 128GB or 256GB of storage; and a MicroSD card slot; wide-angle, macro and depth cameras; a 16MP front-facing shooter; an actual 3.5 mm headphone jack, but no wireless charging or IP waterproofing rating. All of this comes at a painful $100 bump up from last year’s Moto G Stylus 5G. The formerly $399.99 phone is now $499.99. Motorola says 95% of all G Stylus owners use their stylus, in the slot to the right here. Part of that bump may come from what Motorola calls «the requirements of channel partners» (read: carriers) to pack the fast, but expensive millimeter-wave technology into this phone. The new Moto G Stylus 5G will be the first G-series phone to support millimeter wave. There’s a special Verizon model of the phone, though, and that may be the only one with mmWave active.
