Moto G Stylus 5G would be a great $400 phone if it got more than one update

Ben Schoon | May 30 2023 - 6:00 am PT

A few weeks after its more affordable sibling debuted, Motorola is launching the Moto G Stylus 5G (2023), a $400 Android phone that would be rather compelling if not for a key flaw.

The Moto G Stylus 5G (2023) keeps up the same tradition Motorola has had going for the past few years now. An affordable smartphone that offers mid-range specs, a big screen, and an embedded stylus for writing on the display on the go. This year’s refresh brings new specs to the device and reduces the price.

Where the 2022 iteration of the Moto G Stylus 5G ran $499, this year’s model is $399.

For that price, you’ll be getting a 6.6-inch, 120Hz display at 1080p. The phone also runs on top of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 processor paired with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage, depending on the variant you pick up, and there’s microSD expansion here too. The phone also packs a 3.5 mm headphone jack and USB-C for charging its 5,000 mAh battery at up to 20 W, and unlike the cheaper Moto G Stylus (2023), this one has NFC.

The phone also packs a 50 MP rear camera backed up by a 16MP sensor used for ultrawide shots and macro shots. There’s also a 16MP selfie camera up front.

And, of course, the signature feature here remains the stylus, which is embedded into the phone. Motorola says the input latency is improved over the prior generation and that there are new features, including handwriting recognition for math, a new lasso tool for drawing, “Live Message,” and OCR for pulling text from pictures or documents.

Out of the box, the Moto G Stylus 5G (2023) is running Android 13, with Motorola’s usual light skin and useful features. But, unfortunately, the phone will only be eligible for a single Android update, “whenever” it arrives, as a Motorola executive told the media. But the phone will get three years of security updates. Still, when Samsung is shipping phones with twice the support for half the cost, and Google’s Pixel 7a brings three years of updates and five years of security updates for just $100 more, this is a hard pill to swallow.

The Moto G Stylus 5G (2023) launches June 13 for $399 and will be sold unlocked at Best Buy, Amazon and Motorola.com. The phone will also be sold through Metro by T-Mobile, Spectrum Mobile, and Xfinity Mobile “in the coming months.”