I Made the $400 Moto G Stylus My Travel and Work Go-To. It Handles So Much

CNET's key takeaways

• The $400 Moto G Stylus is the top end of Motorola's value-oriented phone series.
• It has Motorola's Photo Enhancement Engine, which assists with making photos pop in a variety of well-lit and dark environments.
• Its 68-watt fast charging is faster than what we see with most phones, charging from 0% to 74% in 30 minutes.
  
• If you aren't already using a stylus regularly, the Moto G Stylus won't make you a convert.
  
• The Moto G Stylus is hurt by a short two-year software and three-year security update timeline.
  

From midspring through summer, Motorola's $400 Moto G Stylus has become one of the most flexible phones I've used, whether I'm traveling or working. Despite being part of Motorola's Moto G series, which focuses on budget-minded phones, it nails every task I expect from phones that are more expensive, including perks pricier devices lack.

On my trip to Ottawa, I used the stylus to Circle to Search and identify portraits of former prime ministers as I toured Canada's Parliament. I found it particularly useful when I didn't want to raise my hand and reveal to my tour guide how little I knew about Canadian politics as a New Yorker. I took it to concerts and bars, where it brightened up my otherwise dimly lit beer and poutine. I found the phone's 50-megapixel main camera to be so good (for the price) that I even used it to cover other events for work. I really didn't find much use for the stylus apart from the occasional help with circling to search. But Motorola does have a variety of apps for handwriting, drawing and cropping images that can take advantage of it, as well as a Sketch to Image generator. 

Those functional uses pair up nicely with several hardware perks, like the phone's 256GB of storage, 8GB of memory, fast 68W wired charging speeds and a Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 processor that's fast enough to capably run most apps and games.

I'm not crazy about Motorola's limited policy of two years of major software updates and three years of security updates for the Moto G line. By comparison, the $400 Samsung Galaxy A36 gets six years of each. Yet if you want a stylus-equipped phone but don't need the high-end camera, screen or processor found on the $1,300 Galaxy S25 Ultra, the Moto G Stylus could legitimately meet all your needs.

The Moto G Stylus is ideal for my work and travel

My favorite aspect of the Moto G Stylus has been its camera, specifically because the phone has Motorola's Photo Enhancement Engine that boosts the exposure for images taken in dim and dark lighting. This came in handy for all the food photos I constantly take, largely using the 50-megapixel wide-angle camera that's paired up with a 13-megapixel ultrawide-angle camera. In well-lit environments, a poutine photo I took in Canada and a photo I shot of two slices of pie at Joe's Pizza in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, both pop with a punchy contrast, showing off the glisten of oil atop both styles of food.

The Stylus struggles in darker environments, but it does an admirable job of reducing image noise. One of the first photos I took with the Stylus was of a beer at a dark Manhattan bar. The phone focuses on the drink and captures some of the detail of the flower behind it. The lights in the far background show off the lens' natural bokeh.

I also relied on the Moto G Stylus for CNET product photography and even some videos. For my recent story on the Rubik's Pulse Cube, the Stylus' photo of the cube shows off the cube's individual dimples. The photo doesn't "smudge the lighting" despite being taken in CNET's dark TV lab.

The Moto G Stylus can also capture video at 4K resolution and 30 frames per second, which I used for my part of an iOS wishlist video (skip to the 1:36 mark). Video clips don't have as much detail as photos, but the audio captures my voice with good clarity.

Watch this: iOS 19 Changes Apple Needs to Make

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Photos taken with the 32-megapixel front-facing camera are also nice, but the camera struggles more under mixed lighting. For instance, this shot I took at an Ottawa brewery caught the texture of my face, strands of my hair, and bubbles in the foam on my beer.

But this photo with my friend Charles, taken at a basement-level arcade bar, is noticeably smudgy from the noise reduction, and details like my hair are lost.

Though the Moto G Stylus isn't a powerhouse phone, it acts like one in many ways. Its support for 68W fast charging recharged the phone's empty battery to 74% in my 30-minute wired charging test. For comparison, the Galaxy A36 recharged its battery to only 33% in the same test. 

The Stylus, however, doesn't have the Moto AI suite seen on the Motorola Edge and Razr, but it does include Motorola's Sketch to Image to have AI transform a scribbled drawing into illustrated clip art. The Stylus won't be the device for someone hoping to take a deeper dive into on-device AI over the coming years, but with these features still being in early days, it's enough to get by, since other AI services can be accessed through other apps installed from the Play Store.

In my benchmark testing, the Stylus was quite comparable with the $700 Motorola Razr in the computationally based Geekbench 6 test, but it was less powerful in the more graphically intensive 3DMark Wild Life Extreme benchmark. In real-world terms, I had no issues with most tasks, like making calls, reading websites, texting, streaming YouTube videos and light multitasking. Games would load fine, but I'd keep their graphics turned to low or medium settings.

Apps and games look quite good on the phone's 6.7-inch OLED running at a 2,712-by-1,220 resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate. The display also supports HDR video, which meant I could play YouTube or watch TV shows at 1,080p resolution with plenty of color. 

My Moto G Stylus review unit is a darker, Gibraltar Blue color. But Motorola also sells it in a more vibrant Surf the Web blue. I wish another shade was available, for instance last year's Stylus came in scarlet and caramel editions. But aside from the lack of color options, the Stylus does have a leatherlike back that gives it a bit of grip, and its IP68 body makes it safe to use in water. The inclusion of a roomy 256GB of storage with the option to expand up to 1TB with a microSD card should make it quite possible to load it up with plenty of photos, videos, tunes and apps.

Motorola Moto G Stylus (2025) $400 at Motorola

Moto G Stylus specs

• 6.7-inch pOLED display, 2,712x1,220 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate
• 3,000-nit peak brightness display
• 5,000-mAh battery
  
• 68W fast charging, 15W wireless charging
  
• Vegan leather body
  
• IP68 resistance rating
  
• Cameras: 50-megapixel wide-angle, 13-megapixel ultrawide, 32-megapixel front-facing
  
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 processor
  
• Video capture: Up to 4K resolution at 30 frames per second, 1,080p resolution at 60fps
  
• Moto AI's Photo Enhancement Engine
  

CNET's buying advice on the Moto G Stylus

The Moto G Stylus is an excellent alternative to the only other widely available stylus-equipped phone on the market, the way-more-expensive, $1,300 Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. If you want a functional phone that can take expressive photos, has a nice screen and can recharge fast, the Stylus is also a terrific option for its $400 price. It'll perform great in many situations, and despite being a lower-cost phone, it even has a limited number of AI features.

However, it's important to compare the Stylus against Samsung's $400 Galaxy A36. My CNET colleague Abrar Al-Heeti found that the A36 also took punchy photos and features 45W charging, which is still fast, albeit slightly slower than what you get with the Stylus. The Galaxy A36 also comes in a playful iridescent lavender color, includes access to Google's Circle Search and has a much longer software and security support period of six years. Samsung doesn't include the broader Galaxy AI suite on the A36, but specific features, like the Object Eraser for photos, are available.

But even though the Stylus has half the software-support period, it offers double the storage of the A36 at $400 (a 256GB model of the A36 is $475); a brighter, 3,000-nit peak brightness display (compared with the A36's 1,900-nit peak brightness); and a slightly higher water and dust resistance rating, at IP68 versus the A36's IP67.

The best way to decide whether to buy will likely be related to how long you plan to hold onto your next phone. If you want the most specs for your $400, the Moto G Stylus offers a bit more in most categories. However, if you don't mind a few cutbacks, the Galaxy A36 is more likely to be usable until it's well and truly broken, thanks to that software and security support timeline.

Watch this: Motorola's New 2025 Razr Line Gets a High-End $1,300 Ultra Phone

04:22

How we test phones

Every phone tested by CNET's reviews team was actually used in the real world. We test a phone's features, play games and take photos. We examine the display to see if it's bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and build to see how it is to hold and whether it has an IP-rating for water resistance. We push the processor's performance to the extremes using standardized benchmark tools like GeekBench and 3DMark, along with our own anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution videos and playing graphically intense games at high refresh rates.

All the cameras are tested in a variety of conditions, from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We try out special features like night mode and portrait mode and compare our findings against similarly priced competing phones. We also check out the battery life by using it daily as well as running a series of battery drain tests.

We take into account additional features like support for 5G, satellite connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus support, fast charging speeds and foldable displays, among others that can be useful. We balance all this against the price to give you the verdict on whether a particular phone, whatever price it is, actually represents good value. Though these tests may not always be reflected in CNET's initial review, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.