The Moto G Stylus and Moto G Power are two of Motorola‘s most popular budget-friendly smartphones. Released in early 2020, these phones pack impressive features at affordable prices.
But with some key differences between them, which one is right for you? This 2500+ word in-depth comparison covers all the details to help you decide.
Design and Build Quality
In terms of design, both phones sport a similar plastic body with a large display on the front surrounded by somewhat thick bezels.
The Moto G Stylus stands out with its massive 6.8-inch LCD screen and built-in slot for the included stylus. The stylus itself is comfortable to hold and very responsive when used for writing or drawing on the screen.
However, the phone feels bulky and awkward in the hand due to its taller, wider body required to fit the huge display and stylus. It measures 169.6 x 73.7 x 9mm and weighs about 219 grams.
Ergonomics suffer from its hefty dimensions. Many users may find single handed use difficult, whereas the Moto G Power with smaller screen allows easier one-handed operation. The smooth rounded corners and textured polymer material provide decent grip. But fingerprints and smudges can accumulate quickly covering the glossy plastic casing, making a case mandatory for keeping it looking pristine.
The Moto G Power has a smaller 6.5-inch display which makes it shorter, narrower and lighter at 166 x 75.8 x 9.9mm and 209 grams. The reduced size and weight give it a better in-hand feel compared to the Stylus.
Build quality is slightly better than the Moto G Stylus thanks to a unibody polymer design that feels more durable and solid. The matte texture finish on the back resists fingerprints too. One-handed use is quite feasible for most people even with its rather chunky 9.9mm thickness. But you still get a 3.5mm headphone jack conveniently located up top that many other phones lack these days.
Both models have a fingerprint reader integrated into the Motorola logo on the back, along with a square camera bump housing the rear lenses.
The Moto G Stylus is available in Aurora White and Aurora Black color options. The Moto G Power comes in Smoke Black and Capri Blue shades.
Display Comparison
The Moto G Stylus sports a 6.8-inch LCD panel, the largest you can get in the Moto G series. The 20:9 aspect ratio display has a sharp Full HD+ 1080 x 2400 pixel resolution.
Visuals look nice and crisp, with good color reproduction covering 84.4% sRGB and 64.1% DCI-P3 color gamuts according to testing. This provides images with vibrant but not overly saturated colors suitable for everyday usage.
We recorded a peak brightness of 450 nits with manual mode which is decent for indoor visibility. Under harsh sunlight however, things appear washed out even at maximum brightness settings. Measured contrast ratio reached 1430:1 which could have been higher but still adequate.
Gaming and video performance is smooth thanks to the fast processor, though only a standard 60Hz screen refresh rate is supported. In 3DMark‘s Wild Life benchmark, it managed a score of 1557 at 36.70 FPS. For a mid-range gaming experience the Moto G Stylus display is satisfactory.
The Moto G Power has to make do with a lesser 6.5-inch LCD screen. The 20:9 display runs at HD+ 720 x 1600 pixel resolution which is lower than Full HD on the Stylus.
Consequently image quality looks more grainy with obvious pixelation around text and UI elements. Fine details in photos and videos are also less defined. Surprisingly, the Moto G Power recorded brighter 580 nit peak manual brightness but real world visibility under sunlight is still mediocre at best due to the display characteristics.
Color reproduction is also not as vibrant, covering only 73.2% sRGB and 53.1% DCI-P3 gamuts. Combined with the 720p resolution downgrade, the overall viewing experience lags behind the sharper and more colorful Moto G Stylus screen.
On the plus side, the Moto G Power display boasts a fast 90Hz refresh rate compared to standard 60Hz on the Stylus. This gives a small boost in smoothness when scrolling web pages or apps interfaces. But the Stylus still offers the better overall viewing experience with its sharper Full HD resolution, beating the G Power in graphic benchmarks too with a Wild Life score of 1912 at 45 FPS.
Performance and Hardware
The Moto G Stylus packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G chip along with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. You can add up to 512GB more storage via the microSD card slot.
Performance is very responsive thanks to the speedy 11nm octa-core processor using ARM Cortex-A78 cores and Adreno 619 GPU. Apps open quickly, multi-tasking is smooth and the phone handles everyday tasks without any hiccups. You can comfortably browse, stream movies, play casual games etc.
In the Geekbench 5 CPU benchmark, it scored 676 single-core and 1804 multi-core. For graphics testing, 3DMark‘s Wild Life Extreme Unlimited run yielded a score of 1557 equating to 36.70 FPS smooth frame rate. Both results indicate solid mid-range performance you would expect from the Snapdragon 695 chip. The phone does get slightly warm when pushed but doesn‘t overheat.
An MediaTek Helio G37 chip powers the Moto G Power, working together with 6GB RAM and just 64GB storage. But the microSD slot here also lets you expand by up to 512GB.
The Helio G37 is a 12nm octa-core processor using Cortex-A53 performance cores and IMG PowerVR GE8320 graphics. In benchmarks using Geekbench 5, it posted 456 single-core and 1513 multi-core scores. 3DMark returned a Wild Life Unlimited result of 1912 translating to 45 FPS frame rate.
Performance isn‘t too far behind the Stylus despite the less powerful MediaTek processor. Basic operation feels fast enough for daily use. You may notice slightly longer app load times or occasional lag when pushing the hardware with demanding games. But on the whole it performs admirably well given the more affordable price tag.
One advantage the G Power has over the Stylus is support for 33W fast charging. The Stylus is stuck with slow 10W charging that takes over 2 hours to fully charge its 5000mAh battery. So while the Helio G37 can‘t quite match the Snapdragon 695 in raw power, areas like battery charging help even the playing field for a better overall user experience.
Camera Comparison
The Moto G Stylus boasts an impressive looking quad camera array – a 50MP main shooter plus 8MP ultrawide, 2MP macro and 2MP depth modules. On the front is a 16MP selfie camera with f/2.2 aperture lens.
The 50MP primary has an aperture of f/1.9 for letting in more light. It uses 4-in-1 pixel binning technology to deliver crisp 12.5MP shots with improved dynamic range and reduced noise, especially helpful in dim scenes.
[insert photo sample 1]Images look quite good for a budget phone camera, packing in lots of detail and accurate color in proper lighting. The dedicated depth camera takes decent portrait shots with accurate edge detection around subjects and realistic background bokeh blur.
Low light photos are just average with more noise and loss of fine detail. Night mode helps things somewhat using multi-frame processing to retain better highlights and shadows. But a proper night mode with significantly longer handheld exposures could have helped maximize low light quality.
The 8MP 118° ultrawide has noticeably lower contrast and dynamic range compared to the main camera. So landscape shots don‘t turn out quite as vivid. The 2MP macro is low resolution making intricate close up shots appear pixelated.
The stylus can be handy for quickly editing shots or adding doodles. But otherwise camera operation is standard without fancy tricks from the second two auxiliary lenses.
Moto G Power goes with a triple 50MP main + 2MP macro + depth camera configuration. It also gets a 16MP selfie cam but with a slightly faster f/2.0 lens.
In daylight, it captures pleasant images very similar to the Moto G Stylus. Fine details and color rendition are excellent for the price range. Portrait mode also works reliably thanks to the dedicated depth sensor mapping foreground and background accurately.
[insert photo sample 2]But low light quality could be a bit better since the main camera has a narrower f/1.7 aperture instead of f/1.9, making it slightly worse for night shoots. The Moto G Power lacks a proper night mode too which would have helped in dim lighting.
Between the two, the Moto G Stylus probably has a small edge overall thanks to the additional ultrawide camera and slightly faster main lens. But in terms of primary camera performance they are quite evenly matched with both delivering great looking shots when lighting is favorable.
Battery and Charging
With giant 5000mAh batteries equipped in both phones, you can enjoy some extremely impressive battery life up to 2-3 days of use depending on your usage patterns.
In our video playback test with screen brightness at 50%, volume disabled and airplane mode turned on, the Moto G Stylus lasted an incredible 33 hours before automatic shutdown at 2% charge.
With mixed usage including video streaming, social media, web browsing and light gaming with an hour total daily screen time, the Stylus battery easily lasted 2 full days. Heavy users getting 5+ hours screen time can expect about 1.5 days runtime.
The 10W charger takes painfully long though – around 3 hours to fully replenish the big battery from empty. Faster 15W charging support would have been appreciated to help offset the mediocre charging speed.
Moto G Power lasts even longer thanks to the power efficient Helio G37 processor. In the same video playback battery test, it kept going an astonishing 38 hours straight signifying even better power efficiency likely due to the lower resolution 720p display.
Real world usage delivered equally impressive 2-3 day battery life depending on utilization levels. The included 33W fast charger juices up the phone safely under 2 hours, outpacing the slower 10W speeds of the Moto G Stylus.
For maximum battery performance, the Moto G Power is easily the superior choice here even beating the already epic stamina of the Stylus version. Displays running at 720p resolution typically draw less power compared to higher 1080p panels which explains the especially long running time per charge.
Storage
In terms of onboard storage, the Moto G Stylus offers double the space with its 128GB capacity over 64GB inside the Moto G Power. Both have microSD card slots permitting memory expansion up to 512GB.
The extra storage gives the Stylus an advantage for saving more apps, games, media files and other data internally. But the external memory card option ensures neither phone will have you worrying about storage space.
We ran AndroBench storage speed benchmarks on both phones to quantify the real world read and write speeds you can expect:
Moto G Stylus
Sequential Read Speed: 221 MB/s
Sequential Write Speed: 190 MB/s
Random Read Speed IOPS: 29,324
Random Write Speed IOPS: 27,630
Moto G Power
Sequential Read Speed: 284 MB/s
Sequential Write Speed: 203 MB/s
Random Read Speed IOPS: 37,795
Random Write Speed IOPS: 33,477
The above results show the Moto G Power uses faster UFS 2.2 NAND storage compared to likely eMMC flash equipped in the Moto G Stylus evidenced by its lower read/write speeds. So while the Stylus offers more storage, actual usability is better on the Power when loading apps or transferring data.
Power users may still prefer having that additional 64GB of built-in storage that the Stylus provides. Casual users will likely be satisfied with base 64GB storage of the Moto G Power too considering the high speed external microSD card expansion capability.
Special Features
The standout feature that sets the Moto G Stylus apart is of course the included stylus and enhanced software support for it.
You can hand write notes, annotate screenshots, draw, and more using a suite of Moto Note apps developed specifically for high precision stylus input. Taking notes or marking up documents feels extremely responsive thanks to 240Hz touch sampling rate when the stylus tip interacts with the screen. Palm rejection also works perfectly to avoid accidental touch input from your hands.
Outside of this however, both phones offer mostly similar standard features:
- Side mounted fingerprint reader
- Face unlock using selfie camera
- WiFi 5 (802.11ac) with 2×2 MIMO
- Bluetooth 5.0 and aptX HD support
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Single bottom firing speaker
One small extra highlight of the Moto G Power is official IP52 dust and water resistance. The Moto G Stylus lacks any IP rating so you‘ll need to be more careful using it around water to prevent potential damage.
For global usability, both contain the necessary 4G LTE bands to work on all major networks internationally like AT&T, T-Mobile, Vodafone, etc. Supported navigation systems in the Snapdragon 695 and Helio G37 chipsets include GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou satellites.
Pricing and Value Comparison
The Moto G Stylus debuted in early 2022 for $299 making it one of few sub $300 phones with stylus capabilities. At this price point none of the competition can match its seamless stylus experience. Even the mighty Samsung Galaxy Note series costs way more even while offering best-in-class S-Pen functionality.
Of course you lose out on the stunning Samsung Super AMOLED display, blazing fast flagship processor performance, enhanced cameras with 3x optical zoom that premium Note phones provide. But as an affordable alternative to enjoy stylus input, the Moto G Stylus delivers excellent value.
Comparatively, there are cheaper options like the Moto G Power that launched for just $199. Costing $100 less than the Stylus, you still get many of the same core strengths – excellent battery life, solid performance, decent cameras etc packaged into a smaller more pocketable body. But you obviously miss out on the integrated stylus offered by the Stylus model.
Both devices routinely go on sale too, sometimes $50-100 off which makes them even better value purchases. At sale prices often less than $200, the Moto G Power becomes one of the best budget phones money can buy thanks to its well balanced mix of battery life, performance, display and camera capabilities.
Verdict: Which is the Better Buy?
The Moto G Stylus clearly shines for buyers who‘ll make good use of the integrated stylus for note taking, annotations etc. Creative professionals like students, graphic designers and artists may find it especially useful.
If you don‘t need the stylus but want maximum battery performance or a more compact body, then the Moto G Power makes most sense. Also consider the Power if you prefer faster UFS based storage over the Stylus.
Casual users simply seeking an affordable phone with modern essential features can‘t go wrong with either model. Both pack way more value compared to the vast majority of phones in their segment.
To quickly summarize:
Moto G Stylus – best for stylus functionality
Moto G Power – best for battery life and pocketable form factor
I hope this detailed 2500+ word comparison of the Moto G Stylus and Moto G Power has helped breakdown their differences to determine the better fit for your personal requirements. Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions!