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Low light photography is very hit and miss, despite the presence of a night mode in the camera settings. Noise creeps in and a lot of detail gets lost, but at the same time we were able to get photos that were just about usable at night – and considering this is one of the cheapest phones around at the moment, that's not bad going at all. If low light shots really matter to you, you're going to have to spend a bit more cash. This phone is miles better than the Nokia 3.4 we reviewed recently, bringing up the performance to a level we’re happy with. And you get more for your cash here than from a Samsung Galaxy A21s. As is normal at this price point, there's no IP rating for water and dust protection – though the phone is marketed as 'water repellent' – and your color options are the gray-ish Metallic Sage (like our review model) and a more striking Electric Violet. Display The first thing you’ll notice about the Moto G9 Plus is that it lives up to the ‘Plus’ part of its name. At 6.81in across the diagonal and with a depth of 9.7mm, you certainly know that all 223g of it is in your hand at any given time. Some will find that kind of heft reassuring – others, probably a bit much. In day to day use, that means you’re getting a phone that feels perfectly snappy and should be absolutely fine for most people’s needs. But it also means that it’s keeping pace with phones that cost a bit more, while giving it a little boost on the rest of the Moto G9 family.
This is not a brilliant sensor. It offers poorer detail and dynamic range than the rival Sony IMX586, used in a bunch of higher-end phones. Finally, the Moto G9 Play can only record video at up to 1080p (Full HD) resolution at 30fps. There’s no option to record at 60fps or higher resolutions but the footage is fully stabilised at least. Motorola Moto G9 Play review: Verdict A PC Mark battery benchmark score of 25hr 44min is around double that of rivals like the Poco X3 NFC. It’s not far off three times better than the likes of the Realme 7. There’s also a 16MP selfie camera, as before, which turns out pretty sharp results as these things go.
Low in cost, high on value
We do like the custom home screen widget that Motorola provides though, which gives you the time and an at-a-glance weather forecast (it can also tell you when the next rain shower is coming, which is really handy). Motorola has mercifully ditched the glossy fingerprint-magnet design of the Moto G8 Power. Indeed, the Moto G9 Power might be even less concerned with turning heads than its predecessor. All of the Moto G9 Power’s quirks and foibles exist to facilitate one thing: a flipping huge battery. Its large size is also a big benefit for almost all games and apps. Can you do better for the same cost? Yes. Xiaomi sells several phones for similar money with higher resolution displays. The Xiaomi Redmi 9 and Redmi Note 9 have 1080p screens, as does the Realme 6. For the stat nerds out there, the Moto G9 Play’s bonus cameras use f/2.4 OmniVision OV02B sensors. And the main one is a 48MP f/1.7 Samsung GM1, used in a great many cheap phones including the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 and TCL 10L.
The Moto G9 Power, however, at least offers something a bit different. The clue is in the name, of course, since the Moto G9 Power has the biggest battery of any Motorola phone to date, promising up to 60 hours of use on a single charge. If it’s as long-lasting as Motorola claims, then we might have another contender for the battery life crown on our hands. Motorola Moto G9 Power: Everything you need to know Motorola Moto G9 Power release date: When can you buy one? One area in which the Moto G9 Power’s camera is notably inferior to the Moto G8 Power’s is with video capture. Thanks to the use of the Snapdragon 662, it can only manage 1080p/30fps video capture, whereas its predecessor could hit 4K/30fps and 1080p/60fps. Software – Typically clean Android experience from MotorolaIn design terms, Motorola has mixed up the formula again, most notably when it comes to the rear camera placement. Now situated in a neat square in the top-centre portion of the phone, the three cameras and LED flash module are spaced evenly apart in a 2×2 grid, with a sensibly-placed circular fingerprint reader – with the Motorola “M” logo etched onto it – sitting just underneath. Motorola makes sparing, judicious tweaks here and there, many of which are accumulated in the classy Moto app. Here you can learn about Moto Gesture, which lets you do things like activate the torch with two chop motions, or twist twice to open the camera app. It’s pretty much the same price as the Moto G8these days, however, and when you take into account the added extras this represents exceptional value for money. At 6000 mAh, this is Motorola’s biggest battery ever, and certainly the biggest I’ve ever seen in a phone. The Moto G8 Power, by contrast, weighed in with a relatively wimpy 5000 mAh cell. All of this, together with that fuzzy display and a single speaker, means that the Moto G9 Power really isn’t well suited to gaming. It’ll run PUBG no higher than Balanced/Medium frame rate, which is just one notch off the lowest rung. It doesn’t look good.
As is the norm, there are power and volume buttons down the right-hand side of the handset as you look at it, and Motorola has also added a Google Assistant button to the left-hand side – it's a feature we like, because it makes the digital assistant app a lot easier to launch when you can't yell out "hey Google" with your voice. In good lighting, details are sharp and colors are well balanced, and we were impressed with the ability of the HDR processing to keep darker and lighter areas of each shot visible. Shutter speed is a little on the slow side, but whether it was close up shots or scenery pictures, the G9 Power's rear camera produced the goods most of the time. This is the same chipset used by the slightly cheaper Moto G9 Play, which we reviewed in September 2020 and there are no surprises when it comes to final benchmarking figures. My conclusions are the same too: performance is rather good for the price but don’t expect it to blow your mind.The Moto G9 Play also has a water repellent ‘nano’ coating under its rear shell. This doesn’t mean you should start dunking the phone in water, but it does mean it is better prepared for the elements than a lot of cheap phones. Display While both the cheaper Moto G9 phones have 720p screens, the Moto G9 Plus gets the Full HD+ treatment, with a resolution of 1,080 x 2,400. That, combined with the massive 6.8in screen, gives you around 386 pixels per inch.
In true night time conditions, however, Night Vision isn’t much cop. Sure, it brightens things up significantly, but everything looks blurry and indistinct, like the phone is unable to compensate for natural hand movements. Which, given that there’s no OIS, is probably the case. Even when you do manage to keep your hands nice and still, a huge amount of noise invades night time scenes.Where you should set high expectations, however, is the Moto G9 Power’s stamina. Fitted with a gigantic 6,000mAh battery, the biggest in a Moto yet, the G9 Power is quoted as being able to last up to 60 hours on a single charge. We recommend using Night Vision for any indoor shots of non-moving subjects, as it more or less fixes the dull and dingy appearance you’d otherwise get. You don't get 5G with the Moto G9 Power, we should point out. That's not uncommon at this end of the market, and at the moment it's not a huge problem – 5G has yet to find its way to large swathes of the world. If you're looking for a smartphone that's fully future-proofed, however, it's something to bear in mind. Battery life The Moto G9 Play uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 chipset with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. That’s a good amount of storage, enough RAM to keep the Android 10 software happy, and a solid entry-level CPU. Of course not everyone needs the raw power of top-end flagships – in fact it's probably fair to say that the majority don't – and during our time with the Moto G9 Power we didn't notice any real slowdowns. From photo editing to podcast playing, the smartphone was responsive and fast enough to provide a polished user experience.
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