Moto G Power (2025) Review: Once a legend, now...?
Moto G Power (2025) Intro
Motorola remains a popular name among budget phones, but rivals now offer more features and it's hard to stand out. We hoped that the new Moto G Power (2025) would improve on the weaknesses of its predecessor, but unfortunately, Moto is taking things slow and it really starts to show with this latest edition of the G Power.
While the device gets a slight specs bump with a newer processor and comes with a sufficient 8 GB of RAM, it sticks with a dated LCD screen, which doesn't look nearly as good as the vibrant OLED screens on rivals like the Galaxy A2X series from Samsung.
Additionally, Motorola only promises one software OS update, a big disappointment considering that Samsung's budget phones are getting four years of OS updates.
So... are there any saving graces for the Moto G Power 2025? Or should you skip it altogether?
On our PhoneArena rating, the Moto G Power gets a mediocre score that places it behind the competition. It is not the slowest in its class and the design is pretty, but the lack of OLED screen and much improvement show up in the score chart too.
Table of Contents:
Moto G Power (2025) Specs
Let's start with an overview of the Moto G Power (2025) specs:
| Moto G Power (2025) | Moto G Power 5G (2024) |
|---|---|
| Size and Weight 166.6 x 77.1 x 8.7 mm 208 g | Size and Weight 167.2 x 76.4 x 8.5 mm 201 g |
| Display 6.8-inch LCD 1080p 120 Hz | Display 6.7-inch LCD 1080p 120 Hz |
| Processor MediaTek Dimensity 6300 (6 nm) | Processor MediaTek Dimensity 7020 (6 nm) |
| Software Android 15 | Software Android 14 |
| Cameras 50 MP main, f/1.9 8 MP ultra-wide, f/2.2 16 MP front | Cameras 50 MP main, f/1.8 8 MP ultra-wide, f/2.2 16 MP front |
| Battery Size 5,000 mAh | Battery Size 5,000 mAh |
| Charging Speeds 30 W wired 15 W wireless | Charging Speeds 30 W wired 15 W wireless |
| Prices 8/128 GB for $300 | Prices 8/128 GB for $300 |
Moto G Power (2025) Design and Display
We like the soft touch of the vegan leather back
The new Moto G Power has grown a bit in size and now has a 6.8-inch screen, up from 6.7 inches on the previous model.
But it's still a relatively thick phone. We do like the design, though, and the vegan leather is a nice change from all the me-too glass phones out there.
You also have a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom, which other companies are dropping, so the Motorola is one of few to still have that.
There is not much included in the box — you've got the phone, a USB-C cable and the usual SIM tool and manuals. Notably, there is no charger, so you need to purchase one separately (if you don't already have a charger lying around).
Our biggest gripe with the G Power 2025 is the screen. It's very disappointing to see an LCD screen on a 2025 phone, even if it's a budget one.
LCD screens don't have the beautiful colors or contrast of OLED, and most rivals these days have already switched to OLED, so Motorola is stubbornly lagging behind.
Well, at least the screen gets decently bright hitting around 1,000 nits of brightness. There are more reflections than we like, though, so using it outdoors is a bit of a mixed bag.
We are also a bit let down by its minimum brightness. It can only drop to 2.5 nits at night, which is a bit too bright if you use your phone in bed.
In terms of biometrics, the power button on the side of a phone does double duty as a fingerprint reader. It's quite decent, so we have had no big issues with its performance. Some people, however, might prefer to have their fingerprint reader in the screen as is typical these days.
Moto G Power (2025) Camera
Dual rear camera with very few improvements
The new Moto G Power has a 50 MP main camera and an 8 MP secondary, ultra-wide camera, which is just like the setup we had on the 2024 edition.
While we had no big hopes for a third camera, it would have been nice to see a 12 MP ultra-wide camera. As it is right now, you don't get much detail with the 8 MP ultra-wide snapper, and as you will see in the photos below, there are issues with oversharpening, resulting in artifacts like halos around individual objects in photos.
On our PhoneArena Camera Score, the G Power got 124 points for photo quality and 109 points for video.
This places it noticeably behind phones like the Galaxy A25 5G, which costs the same, but was released last year. Scores are lower for the main, ultra-wide and selfie cameras, with the main reason being sub-par detail.
The zoom quality on the Motorola, however, is a bit better.
Moto G Power (2025) Camera Photo Samples
In our sample photos, you can see that photos look passable during the day, but not particularly exciting.
Video Quality
The Moto G Power 2025 can only record 1080p video and with many limitations.
Once you start recording with the main camera, you cannot switch to the ultra-wide, and vice versa, if you start recording with the ultra-wide, you cannot zoom in to the main camera.
Detail is way below average, but at least video stabilization is decent.
You have up to 6X digital zoom and the quality is actually not that bad while zooming, so at least that's something.
Moto G Power (2025) Performance & Benchmarks
Barely faster than before
Possibly the biggest issue with most budget phones is their slow processor and how it slows down the whole experience.
The new Moto G Power relies on the MediaTek Dimensity 6300, which is not much faster than its predecessor, so that is still very much the case — you have dropped frames and stutter a bit more often than we'd like. This is a common criticism for phones at this price point, so the G Power is not unusual, but other phones usually make up with better cameras or something else, and that does not seem to be the case with this one.
The base model of the G Power (2025) has 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, which is a good amount.
Moto G Power (2025) Software
The Moto G Power (2025) arrives with Android 15 in a clean form with very few customizations on top.
You do have the familiar Moto gestures and a few custom widgets, but not much more. Many people like this simplicity, but just don't look for any fancy additions.
Disappointingly, Motorola only commits to 1 year of software updates for the G Power (2025). So given that the phone arrives with Android 15, it will only get Android 16 and no other future Android releases. It will get security updates for three years, though, so at least that's something.
It was also frustrating to see ads in the stock weather app. Of course, you can download a third party app and use that, but this just seems like such a cheap trick.
Moto G Power (2025) Battery
The "Power" series from Motorola used to stand for outstanding battery life, but these days, it's just a popular name left from the past as the G Power (2025) has the same 5,000 mAh battery size as most of its peers. In fact, rivals like the Redmi Note 14 series often have bigger batteries.
Still, the Motorola phone performs decently well on our in-house battery tests. In the lightest web browsing test it lasted a bit more than 14 hours, which is below the average mark.
But for streaming YouTube videos, it got 9 hours, which is better than the Galaxy A25 5G.
Overall, we estimate that the G Power delivers around 6 hours and 11 minutes of screen time, which is fairly average.
PhoneArena Charging Test Results:
With 30 W wired charging speeds, the phone is a bit faster than its main rival from Samsung, but not by much and in our testing it took 1 hour and 20 minutes to fully top it up. Essentially, the speeds we measured were the same as the ones on the A25 5G, which support 25 W charging speeds.
We were also pleased to see that the G Power has wireless charging, which is not that common on budget phones.
There are no magnets on board, unfortunately, but wireless charging speeds are not too slow at 15 W.
Moto G Power (2025) Audio Quality and Haptics
You get dual speakers with a main one firing from the bottom and a helper speaker coming from the earpiece.
It gets quite loud, but because of the lack of low frequencies it's no pleasure listening to music on this phone at full volume. Overall, this is a budget loudspeaker and you can tell, but at least it gets loud.
The 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom is something we like to see, and in a recent poll 50% of our readers said they still miss it.
Haptics on the Motorola are not as tight and pleasant as on higher-end phones, but again, that is expected.
Should you buy it?
As we've seen throughout this review, the Motorola G Power (2025) does not quite live up to the legendary "G Power" name.
It has lost its DNA of great battery life (it's decent, but not great) and it has not gained anything in return as it uses a dated LCD screen and its processor is actually a bit slower than rivals.
We like the design and the clean software, but Motorola has placed ads in core apps like the Weather app and is promising just one year of software updates.
We don't like to be harsh towards gadgets, but the G Power (2025) is that case where it's hard to justify its full $300 price. The Galaxy A25 5G and the upcoming Galaxy A26 5G are both better options with faster performance, better cameras and much better screens. The Nothing Phone 3a is another worthy alternative, if you can find it where you live.
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