Which Motorola Phone Should You Buy?

Which Motorola Phone Should You Buy?(wired.com)

26 points by GershwinA 1 year ago | 28 comments

wobfan 1 year ago |

I cannot ever buy any Motorola phones anymore because I legitimately fear they will not fit into my pocket anymore. This is a rant, but I am so sad. Motorolas were my go-to Android phones in times of the G4. But now, every new phone is >6.6". And I don't get it. I mean, I know, most manufacturers are going a similar (but IMO not this aggressive) route. But why? I already have a laptop. I want a mobile phone. And I want to use one hand to use it. And it should fit into my pocket. I just am so confused about this development. Rant over.

amunozo 1 year ago | |

Even if here we forget about it, most people use mainly or only their phone. Young people nowadays are not even proficient with PCs or laptops anymore. I want a small phone too. My SO has an iPhone 11 mini and the size is amazing, but there are no Android phones with a similar size.

aruggirello 1 year ago | |

Google Pixel 4 or 5 was (and still is!!!) peak Android, it seems. It's becoming more and more difficult to get your hands on a refurbished one, though.

The only other brand still producing reasonably sized phones is Samsung - but modern Samsung phones are drowning in bloatware, and rooting them is unnecessarily complicated.

handsizedbk 1 year ago | |

Because that's what the market wants. Even mighty Apple was forced to switch to big phones despite huge resistance on its part.

aboardRat4 1 year ago | |

I ordered a bespoke leather holster, and never looked back.

dingnuts 1 year ago | | |

yeah but you have to be at least forty to get a license for a cell phone belt holster

yread 1 year ago | |

Get a used s24, keep it for 6 years for equal or lower TCO

duffyjp 1 year ago |

I have their "best traditional" entry, the Edge 2024. I really like it.

It's the karate chop flashlight that keeps me on Moto for my Android.

One thing not mentioned is that this phone has a desktop mode they call "Ready For". I can plug it into my monitor via USB-C and you get a full ChromeOS looking desktop. I have a USB-C monitor with Mouse/Keyboard plugged in and that all worked. I also tried it on a regular TV with a USB-C -> HDMI cable and a XBox controller paired to the phone.

more-coffee 1 year ago | |

"karate chop flashlight" love this description! That's exactly why I've stayed with Motorola after my G5 just got too slow. I'm now on a Moto G Pro from 09/2020, it's getting fairly slow but all in all it gets the job done.

jajko 1 year ago | |

Samsung has this too (they call it Samsung Dex IIRC), very neat out-of-the-box I've discovered by accident. Plugged my phone for charging into colleague's monitor's usbc cable and there it was as you describe.

Given we have absolutely brutal internet blocking at work when half of even technical sites are blocked, I could suddenly browse whole internet on a desktop, not breaking any policies. Just one nitpick - it wasn't native resolution (3840x1600 is maybe too high), wasn't sure if this could be changed.

rchaud 1 year ago | | |

There're some on Reddit claiming they have gotten DeX to output 4K using specific USB-C hubs [0]. I have a Moto Desktop enabled phone as well, and it supports 1920 x 1080 max. Using it on a 21:9 monitor stretches the image. It's fine on regular lapdocks, TVs and monitors though.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/SamsungDex/comments/f7vrit/dex_reso...

JanMa 1 year ago |

I bought my first Motorola phone in 2013 and am a happy user ever since. I usually buy the current Moto G model for less than 200€ and get a solid 3-4 years of use of it. Of course you can't expect the performance of these phones to be comparable to high end models, but for my use case they are perfectly fine. Also if you drop a sub 200€ smartphone, you don't get a mini heart attack like when you drop a 1000€ iPhone :-)

Glyptodon 1 year ago |

I went through two Motorola phones in a row before my current phone and they were both good for the money. I just hated how quickly they stopped getting security updates. Have some 1+ model now and it's probably also going to stop getting security updates before I have a problem with the hardware. I do miss the movement sensor way of opening the camera and turning on the flashlight from Motorola models.

saltcured 1 year ago | |

Yeah, we had a few Motos in my immediate family (Razr-i, G4P, G7P, G Power, G Fast), but I became disenchanted with the software updates. We still have a couple of these around for low security use, e.g. as a mini tablet/reader with no significant apps nor primary accounts signed in.

Because of the software policies, we switched to Google Pixel (5a, 6a, 8a so far) for our actual devices used with mobile service and real accounts. The 5a was traded in to get a discount on the 8a right when its 3 year cycle was over. Now with the 6a having 5 years and the 8a having 7 years of updates, we might finally have a device that fails before its software is abandoned.

dash2 1 year ago |

In the Philippines Infinix and Tecno are dominant brands. They're super cheap and have good gaming performance. That company rules Africa for the same reason. Dunno if Americans can get them behind the Great Tariffwall?

toast0 1 year ago | |

We don't need formal tarrifs to deny us cool phones. Different frequency band plans are just as effective.

I'm sure we can get those phones, but if they can't effectively use our networks, they're not worth the effort to obtain.

wishfish 1 year ago |

I'm considering one. Bought a Pixel 9 XL recently for GrapheneOS. Screen was lovely but murdered my eyes. Apparently, Pixels have the worst PWM out of all the flagships. Had bad luck too with the 16 Pros.

Motorola has some decent quality IPS screens in the G series of phones. I'm considering it since IPS won't have PWM issues. Bootloader is unlocked but there's no GrapheneOS support. Does look like some ROMs support it though. Any recommendations for something as close to Graphene as I could get on it?

theandrewbailey 1 year ago |

I'm still using my Moto X4 from 2017 thanks to LineageOS. I recommended Moto G7 phones for my mom and brother. They've moved on and I've reflashed them with LineageOS. But while I was doing so, I was disappointed that there's not support for more recent Motos in Lineage.

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#motorola

metalman 1 year ago |

everybody around me is holding phones where the tax on theiers, was more than the purchase price on my hinky wall mart purchased, motorola. The motorolas have a plastic case, that seams to provide drop protection on a very good level, so nice slim, big screen, does all the things, $90can with a rebate. It plays nice with a linux lap top. camera is not great is the one thing that would push me to another phone, but not at the cost of feature bloat and a more fragile phone, requiring a case.....physical bloat sure wish that it was possible to buy components and build a "phone" , as there is nothing availible anywhere at any price, that would do the "simple" things I would put it to

hulitu 1 year ago |

> This Razr+ exclusively uses Motorola's new Photo Enhancement Engine, which the company says uses artificial intelligence to produce better images.

So one reason not to buy one. Else you get a picture of your child with 3 hands instead of 2.

stavros 1 year ago | |

Doesn't it get tiring to try and find the word "AI" in otherwise unrelated articles and then go to the effort of posting about how it'll give you extra hands?

Like, what's the usefulness of this comment? "I don't like this trivial minor detail about the phone, nobody should buy one!"

az09mugen 1 year ago | | |

What's wrong with the fact of wanting exactly what you see on the screen and not the image but with some ai-produced artifacts ? It's not a "trivial minor detail" if you get accustomed to poor quality of photo due to non-existing details. Technology over time should improve in quality, and if not, it means people are trying make money over your ignorance with cheap-and-low-quality-yet-almost-good-looking new product. Please don't let that kind of manufacturer/seller win.

Having said that, it might probably be some kind of DLSS/FSR just for the photo.

account-5 1 year ago |

I've been using Nokia phones for the last 5 years. They're cheap, and come with no bloat. Used to do Motorola though.

puttycat 1 year ago | |

Which models?

doctor_radium 1 year ago |

I am currently using a stock, no frills 2023 Moto G 5G and surprisingly, I can turn off Play Services.