Not everyone needs fancy cameras or a million gigs of RAM. If all you need is a phone for calls and messages that's not a feature phone, this big Prime Day discount from Motorola may just be the ticket. The unlocked Moto G Play (2023) is getting a 41% price drop to $94.95 on Prime Day, the only catch is that the offer is exclusive to Prime members.
You can typically find the G Play (2023) for around $165 to $170 on Amazon, but this puts it just under $100. The lowest we've seen it this year was $97.99, so it's still a pretty good discount. This isn't one of the best cheap Android phones for sure, and we didn't give it a glowing review either. But if all you'll be doing is making phone calls and using basic messaging apps, it's definitely better than your many of the other phones under $100.
✅Recommended if: You can't spend more than $100; you want good battery life; you don't want to be seen using a feature phone.
❌Skip this deal if: You want to do anything more than make calls or send messages; you need a decent camera; you care about future software updates.
There are some amazing Prime Day phone deals this year with massive discounts, and this Motorola deal is definitely one of them. Before you pull the trigger though, you should know that the Moto G Play (2023) isn't one of Motorola's finest moments. In fact, even as far as budget smartphones go, the overall usage experience of the G Play (2023) is quite underwhelming. You can blame the processor or the measely 3GB of RAM, but we found the overall system performance to be sluggish. It's definitely not a phone you buy for multitasking or even playing games.
Even though the battery is large and lasts for over a day, charging it is painfully slow as it's only 10W. The 16MP rear camera is the only useful one out of the three on the back, and the quality is quite poor. It also has just one promised update, to Android 13.
Like I said before, if you're only going to be using this for making calls, messaging, and maybe using basic apps like WhatsApp or Gmail, then grabbing this under $100 makes sense. For anything more, I'd recommed taking a look at our best phones under $200 list, and finding a deal on one of those. You might also want to check out the 2024 Moto G Play, which comes with more RAM, better chipset and main camera, and a lower price of under $150. It still doesn't have 5G, but it should be more usable for doing smartphone things.
