Moto G 2025 review: So much better than I expected

Much of Motorola's success over the past few years has been because of its budget-friendly lineup. The company saw substantial success in 2024, growing its market share by 20%, while Samsung and Apple both lost market share, and that's mainly due to the company having a Razr-sharp focus on what it does best.

Enter the Moto G 2025, the unassuming $200 phone that's surprisingly competent. Last year's Moto G 5G 2024 was a pretty terrible phone, even for the low price, but Motorola has turned things around and addressed nearly every complaint I had without raising the price for this year's model. It's a success story few could hope for in an era of high inflation and tariff wars.

Moto G 2025: Price, availability, and specs

The Moto G 2025 is available universally unlocked at Amazon, Best Buy, and Motorola.com as of January 30, 2025. The phone retails for $199.99 and comes with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

A swath of U.S. carriers will also offer the phone in the coming months, including T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, AT&T, Cricket, Straight Talk, Total Wireless, Walmart for Verizon, Boost Mobile, XFinity Mobile, Consumer Cellular, Google Fi Wireless, Spectrum, UScellular, and Optimum Mobile.

Motorola will release the Moto G 2025 in Canada on May 2 at Motorola.ca and select carriers.

Moto G 2025: What I like

Unlike last year's phone, the Moto G 2025 surprised me at nearly every turn. I love holding this phone because of the vegan leather back, and the design feels lighter than it actually is. It's also a tad larger than last year's Moto G 5G model, which might irritate a few people.

The 120Hz LCD screen has been notably improved over last year's model and now features an excellent sunlight mode that automatically kicks in whenever it detects extra-bright light. This makes it incredibly easy to see outside, which was a glaring weak point last year.

The LCD screen is also super eye-friendly. It uses full DC dimming with no PWM at any brightness level, no dithering, and no other nonsense. Not everyone loves the way an LCD screen looks when compared to an OLED but there's no denying they're friendlier on the eyes, especially for anyone sensitive to flicker.

Moto G 2025 PWM and dithering tests - YouTube

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Performance, especially in games, is surprisingly excellent. I played Minecraft with my son several times using this phone and was impressed with how much better it ran the game than the Nintendo Switch could. Other titles like Asphalt Legends Unite run super well, too, making this a surprisingly good mobile gaming machine.

Battery life is truly excellent and will always bring you through a full 24 hours of use. Many users will find that two or three-day battery life is achievable, and fully charging will take just over an hour with one of our favorite chargers.

The Moto G 2025 offers microSD card support for expandable storage as well as a 3.5mm jack for wired headphone usage. The IP52 support is better than last year's offering, but the real improvement is the Gorilla Glass 3 on the front, which should help protect it long-term much better than the previous glass Motorola used.

As with any Motorola phone, you'll quickly fall in love with the Moto G 2025's quick gestures and actions. Double-chop the phone to toggle the flashlight, double-twist it to launch the camera, double-tap on the back to launch a custom app, and more. These are small things but they add up to big convenience and quickly turn into muscle memory.

The rest of Motorola's Hello UI (on top of Android 15) is also very fantastic, incorporating some of the best parts of AOSP and other skins under one roof. In many situations, Motorola gives you a choice to customize between various UI paradigms, including splitting the notification shade and quick toggles, lots of home screen customization options, and a surprising amount of lock screen customization, too.

Motorola is also offering 2 OS updates and 3 years of bimonthly security updates for the Moto G 2025, making it one of the best-supported budget phones available.

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The camera has significantly improved quality over last year's Moto G 5G 2024, delivering the best camera experience I've seen on any budget-friendly Motorola phone.

Everything from dynamic range, fine details, noise in low light, and white balance have been substantially improved over last year's phone. Again, this is all without a price increase and along with other hardware improvements. Motorola really did a bang-up job here.

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Aside from general quality improvements, Motorola has also notably improved the capture speed from the Moto G 2025's camera compared to previous Motorola phones in this line. Most photos are taken instantly with little to no delay, whereas last year's model sometimes took a full second or two after pressing the shutter button before you'd even hear the capture noise.

Likewise, low-light shots are taken much faster this time around, usually taking a second or two to capture a long-exposure shot, while the Moto G 5G 2024 might take five whole seconds to capture the same scene. Motorola's camera software can now be considered truly great and does an excellent job of using AI to understand the scene and automatically select the best picture after a capture.

Moto G 2025: What I don't like

The first time you do just about anything on the phone feels sluggish. Whether it's launching an app, starting the camera, or even just pulling down the notification shade, there's a level of lag that happens the first time around. This gives the initial impression of an extremely sluggish phone but, thankfully, it's not an impression that lasts over time.

Last year, the Moto G 5G 2024 was sluggish all the time, a problem that was further aggravated by the RAM Boost feature Motorola created to help devices with low quantities of RAM. This year, I can happily report that RAM Booster works much better, likely in part due to the switch from Qualcomm to MediaTek. Qualcomm makes great high-end chips but struggles to make a decent low-end one while MediaTek has been the star of this category for years.

Now, don't get me wrong. You're going to need to have a little more patience with a $200 phone than you will with something twice its price. Apps will take a little longer to open than those phones, but they're usually fine once they're up and running.

Motorola's refreshed Hello UX continues to be an excellent experience, but I still hate the multitasking UI. It still uses the very inefficient AOSP-style design found on Pixel phones and is simply one of the worst ways to quickly switch between apps you'll find anywhere. I'm hoping Motorola will tweak this in the future and offer customers the option for something better. The company offers several different UI tweaks, including a denser Quick Toggles UI if you want it, and you really should tweak this ancient design next.

Aside from this, it's difficult to nitpick any other negatives. IP52 is only splash-resistant, so you shouldn't bring your Moto G in the pool. The phone charges fairly quickly with a 30W charger, and while you'll need to buy one separately, it's a small price to pay for keeping the phone's price low.

Lastly, I'd love to see Motorola ditch the macro camera in favor of an ultrawide camera. I'm not sure how many people use macro mode on a regular basis, but I'd wager an ultrawide camera would be more popular.

Moto G 2025: Competition

As inflation continues to rise, the number of $200 phones has dwindled down to just a handful. We've already awarded the Moto G 2025 the best phone under $200, so anything else here is going to be worse for one reason or another.

The CMF Phone 1 remains my favorite phone in the under $300 price class but that means you have to pay $80 or more to get this upgrade. It's got a better display, faster processor, better cameras, and a unique, customizable build that you're sure to love, but it only works on T-Mobile in the United States. Internationally, it's a much better buy and my go-to recommendation for budget-tier phones.

The Moto G Power 2025 offers better water and dust resistance, double the RAM, and a slightly bigger screen. These aren't minor upgrades, especially the IP68/IP69 rating which makes it one of the few elite phones to hold such a potent ingress protection rating. It's $299, though, so 50% more than the Moto G 2025.

The Samsung Galaxy A15 5G stays in the $200 range and offers a vibrant AMOLED screen, but it's not suitable for folks sensitive to PWM dimming. It's also got a lower refresh rate than the Moto G 2025's screen, has a slower processor, and the cameras aren't as good as Motorola's, but Samsung will update this phone until Android 18 is available, plus extra security updates on top of that.

Moto G 2025: Should you buy it?

Motorola has successfully turned things around and made the best $200 phone you can buy today. Its price flies in the face of inflation and delivers upgrades over last year's pretty awful model, all while keeping the price the same. Everything from the cameras to overall device performance, display quality and brightness, and even a longer software update promise to make this the phone to get at this price range.