Best cheap Motorola phones in 2025
Motorola has been making cell phones since they were big, bulky affairs that needed to be installed in cars and briefcases. Its analog flip phones were ubiquitous in the 1990s, and it eagerly embraced the era of mainstream smartphones in the new millennium, with its 2009 Droid playing a key role in shaping Android into the dominant force it is today.
Today, Motorola offers a broad range of devices for nearly every budget. While itsflagships and flip phonesare exciting, the company makes a much bigger mark by offeringthe best budget Android phones— a lineup that offers something for nearly everyone and makes it thethird-biggest smartphone brand in the US. It’s such a diverse selection of phones that you may have a hard time figuring out which is best for your needs, so we’ve rounded up the best picks in each category to help narrow things down.
One quick note: you’ll see quite a few 2023 models on the list below. We’ve reviewed a few of Motorola’s 2024 phones, and so far recommend the Moto G Play, Moto Edge (2024), and Moto Razr (2024), all of which you’ll find in the list below. But wedon’trecommend the 2024 editions of theMoto G 5Gor theMoto G Power 5G, neither of which lived up to our expectations when we reviewed them. Luckily, several 2023 models still represent good buys, especially now at lower prices, and may even provide good alternatives to the company’s pricier options if you’re on a budget.
Top cheap Motorola phones for any budget
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Well-balanced for the price
The Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) offers a stylus for almost $1,000 less than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. And while it doesn’t feature a Bluetooth pen, its stylus does enough to get you most of the experience at a fraction of the price. Its gorgeous AMOLED panel and premium feel make it an attractive package for $400.
The Moto G Stylus 5G for 2024 is undoubtedly improved over its predecessor, with a gorgeous display, premium feel, and outstanding battery life. While we have legitimate concerns about its software and Motorola’s lackluster support, it’s still an attractive package at $400.
The Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 can deliver smooth performance, paired perfectly with 8GB of RAM, giving the G Stylus performance that belies its $400 price tag. In addition, it features a gorgeous 6.7-inch P-OLED 1080p panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. It’s fantastic, with great viewing angles and vibrant colors.
Moto also kept some fan favorites on this year’s device, as the Stylus still includes a MicroSD card slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack, making the Moto G Stylus ideal for audiophiles who need theirwired headphones.
The Stylus features an eco-leather back, giving it a premium feel in the hand. The grippy texture makes it an attractive phone to rock without a case. Its frame is plastic, but Motorola made sure to color-match the surface to the rest of the phone — it’s a great look overall.
It’s not all positive, though, as Motorola promises onlyonemajor Android upgrade and three years of security updates. It’s a sad number in 2024, and if you’re familiar with the company’s update history, it isn’t exactly speedy.
Moto’s hardware keeps getting better, so why can’t its Android experience keep up?
All told, the Moto G Stylus 5G for 2024 is an attractive package for users looking for decent performance and a stylus without punishing their wallets.
A solid midranger — if you can get it at the right price
This year’s Motorola Edge skirts the edge of the budget phone category. However, it delivers decent value thanks to its premium build, impressive high-refresh screen, and surprisingly good camera system. While the midrange performance will get the job done, it’s a bit underwhelming for the price.
Motorola’s Edge (2024) sits in an awkward space between budget and midrange phones. Its nominal $550 price tag can be a bit hard to swallow for what it offers compared to similarly-priced competitors. However, it’s also pretty easy to find it on sale, and it’s a compelling pick at a lower price tag, especially by Motorola’s standards. The Edge (2024) offers a premium fit and finish that you won’t find on Motorola’s cheaper phones. Its throwback design still embraces the curved display, making it an excellent pick for those still into that sort of thing, while offering IP68 dust and water resistance and coming in at only 174g thanks to its eco-leather back.
What particularly tips the scales here is an excellent screen: a vibrant 6.6-inch OLED panel with a 144Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness that makes it easy to read under nearly any lighting conditions. The displays in Motorola’s 2024 phone lineup have pleasantly surprised us, but we think the Edge (2024) takes it up a notch. However, as great as the display is for gaming, the weak spot in this year’s Edge is the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chip. Although it’s more than sufficient for everyday tasks, the middling performance means you won’t find many ways to take advantage of the screen’s high refresh rate. That doesn’t mean you can’t play games on this one; we found that Genshin Impact ran smoothly as long as we kept the settings turned down, and the 8GB of RAM provides enough breathing room for gaming and multitasking.
Good phone, awful pricing
Battery performance on the Edge (2024) is about average. We didn’t have any problems getting through a typical day of use, but this is a phone that’s going to have to hit a charger every night. Thankfully, the 68W faster charging can get you back up to 80 percent in about 30 minutes, so you’ll have no problems unless you plan to spend extended periods of time away from a plug. We also quite liked the results we got from the phone’s 50MP primary sensor, which displayed good contrast and detail but still leaned a bit into oversaturation.
Bang for your buck
The Moto G 5G (2023) offers good value and is a rare sub-$200 phone to include a 120Hz panel. It also packs a massive 5,000mAh battery and a dual camera setup.
The Moto G 5G (2023) isn’t a significant upgrade over the2022 Moto G 5G model. But it improves on an already good budget phone. One of the most welcome changes is the inclusion of a 120Hz refresh rate display. It’s great to see it in a sub-$200 phone. But the screen size is still 6.5 inches with an HD resolution. While we would have appreciated the presence of a full HD screen, it isn’t surprising, given the phone’s pricing.
In other features, you get the Snapdragon 480+ processor. While it’s not an improvement over last year’s Moto G 5G, it’s a comparable processor. Unfortunately, it’s accompanied by just 4GB of RAM, and there is no 6GB RAM version, at least in the US. So, while the phone has no trouble with regular, basic tasks, it can struggle with multitasking.
The rear camera setup has been tweaked to include just two lenses, one wide-angle primary camera and the other for macro shots. And the new 48MP primary camera takes good photos in daylight. The same applies to the 8MP selfie camera, which has a wide f/2.0 aperture to capture more light in poor ambient lighting.
The battery is still a massive 5,000mAh unit, which now supports 15W fast charging. All in all, if you have a very tight budget, the Moto G 5G (2023) is good value. But if you can spend more, consider the Moto G Stylus 5G or the Moto G Power.
Decent phone, low cost
This is a shockingly good specification for an inexpensive phone. It might not have a flagship-level performance, but it’s a serviceable device. The Motorola Moto G Play (2024) is a decent uplift from the 2023 model, and amazingly, it is cheaper.
The 2023 version of the Motorola Moto G Play cost $170 and, according to ourcoverage, had 2021 specifications. The new Motorola Moto G Play (2024) boasts a substantial upgrade in its features. It now has 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM, doubling the storage capacity and adding 25% more memory. The most notable improvement, however, is the processing power, with the inclusion of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 4G, a significant upgrade from the previous MediaTek Helios G37.
The camera is upgraded from a 16MP F/1.22 primary sensor to a 50MP (f/1.8) sensor with PDAF, which uses tried-and-tested pixel binning technology to deliver more accurate colors and generally better results.
What the Moto G Play (2024) doesn’t provide is the sort of power that is ideal for gaming, but for everyday surfing and using the Google applications, it’s more than adequate. This design’s other limitation is that it is only 4G LTE with no 5G support included, and depending on where in the world you are, this might be a problem or no issue at all.
Motorola regains its footing after last year’s budget blunder
Probably the biggest strength of the new Moto G Play (2024) is that, with a modest but power-efficient SoC and 5000mAh of battery capacity, it will last most users through a full working day and until lunch the following day.
An affordable foldable that checks most of the right boxes
Motorola’s Razr (2024) has undergone a complete makeover from its 2023 predecessor, narrowing the gap with its pricier sibling and making it more compelling than ever. The 3.6-inch cover screen makes it usable without flipping it open, while a new hinge design feels smooth and snappy.
Last year’s Motorola Razr (2023) accomplished what many said couldn’t be done by creating an Android-powered clamshell flip phone price below the $1,000 mark without cutting a ridiculous number of corners. The resulting foldable was impressive, but it also came in a distant second to its more premium cousin, the Motorola Razr+. This year, the company has sought to close that gap, giving the entry-level Razr (2024) a complete makeover to add many of the best features of the higher-end model without increasing the price.
That starts with the cover screen, which grows to an expansive 3.6 inches, making it useful for more than displaying notifications and the weather. In fact, you can run any app you like on this screen without jumping through hoops. It’s bold and bright at 1,700 nits, but it also supports an always-on display mode — a first for a Motorola smartphone. The 6.9-inch display on the inside gets a similar brightness boost, although it’s limited to a 120Hz refresh rate. We found it a bit hard to see in bright sunlight, but that’s not unreasonable for a flip phone in this price range.
One big under-the-hood change in the Razr (2024) was the move to a MediaTek Dimensity 7300X chip rather than its usual Qualcomm silicon. It’s not a massive upgrade, but it’s optimized for dual screens, and we found the performance to be more than adequate for daily tasks and even modest gaming if you don’t push the settings. The MediaTek chip also has some efficiency improvements that translate into better battery life; we got through days of mixed use without ever feeling we needed to run for a charger. There’s also support for 30W wired and 15W wireless charging.
Moto’s software game can’t match its hardware
So what’s the bad news? The Motorola Razr (2024) has the same limitations typical of nearly all of Motorola’s phones: glacially slow software updates and cameras that can best be described as adequate. We found the main 50MP sensor did okay in outdoor daylight conditions, but it completely over-blew and over-brightened low-light and night shots, and it doesn’t handle backlit subjects at all well. Meanwhile, last year’s Razr (2023) didn’t get Android 14 until this summer, weeks after the Razr (2024) was on the market with Android 14 preinstalled. These are common Motorola issues that are forgivable tradeoffs in the company’s sub-$500 phones, but they’re tough to swallow at a $700 asking price. Still, if you’re in no hurry for software updates and photography isn’t a priority, the Motorola Razr (2024) delivers great bang for the buck in every other area, as long as you remember you’re paying a premium for the clamshell design.
The cheapest stylus-equipped phone around
Motorola has cut quite a few corners to make the Moto G Stylus (2023) a budget smartphone, but this one is still hard to beat if you want a stylus-equipped phone without spending a lot. The 720p display and 4GB RAM are nothing to write home about, but at least you still get a decent camera system, a 90Hz screen refresh rate, and great battery life.
If you’re on a tight budget but like the idea of having a stylus, then the non-5G version of the Moto G Stylus (2023) is worth a serious look. Although the 2022 version had slightly better specs, that one’s still stuck on Android 12. However, this year’s model ships with Android 13, and Motorola promises it will eventually get Android 14.
Although the MediaTek Helio G85 processor and 4GB of RAM inside aren’t the most impressive specs, the phone still manages to offer decent performance for everyday tasks — as long as you’re not expecting it to be a gaming powerhouse.
A solid stylus phone that costs six times less than the Galaxy S23 Ultra
On the back of the Moto G Stylus, you’ll find a 50 MP main shooter joined by a 2 MP macro lens. Around the front, you get a 6.5-inch HD+ IPS display with a 90Hz refresh rate. While the faster display is a nice bonus in this price range, it only offers a resolution of 1600 x 720. It also packs 64 GB of built-in storage, which is expandable with a Micro SD card, and you get a 5000mAh battery for all-day battery life and a fingerprint sensor built into the power button.
The Motorola Razr (2023) cuts some corners over its more expensive siblings, but it’s the most affordable flip phone you can get — at least among smartphones. The Snapdragon 7 offers decent performance for the price, and the designs are quirky and fun, although the smaller cover display and slow Android updates might give you pause.
Motorola’s 2023 Razr was the most affordable foldable on the market when it debuted at its launch price over a year ago, and now that its successor has arrived, it’s an almost unbeatable deal for someone who wants a flip phone on a budget. While the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 chip won’t win any speed competitions, it’s a capable chip that delivers ample performance for everyday use and compares favorably to other phones in this price range. The older chip is also remarkably power-efficient, allowing the Razr (2023) to deliver surprisingly good battery life; it shouldn’t have any problem getting you through a full day of typical use.
Unfortunately, that comes with a slight asterisk. Unlike Motorola’s other recent flip phones, the Razr (2023) is equipped with a paltry 1.5" cover screen that might have you flipping it open more often than strictly necessary. The cover screen is more like a glorified smartwatch — suitable for notifications and showing a clock, calendar, timer, or the weather — but to see anything useful, you’ll need to flip to the main display inside. Thankfully, Motorola hasn’t cut any corners here; the Razr (2023) is equipped with a nearly identical 6.9-inch 144Hz pOLED LTPO screen to its pricier siblings, with full HD resolution and even HDR10+ support.
It’s not the flashiest or most powerful, but this clamshell foldable is great for the space
Beyond the small cover display, the only real knocks against the Razr (2023) are slower wireless charging speeds and the slow pace of Android updates. The Razr (2023) will charge at up to 30W over a wired connection (if you supply your own adapter), but wireless charging is stuck at a mere 5W. On the software side, Motorola promises three years of Android updates, but expect to wait for those; it only got Android 14 this past summer, and we wouldn’t be surprised if Android 15 shows up on a similar timeline.
Excellent affordable Motorola phone without a stylus
The Moto G Power 5G (2023) shares many features with the Moto G Stylus 5G but in a non-stylus package. It also uses the MediaTek Dimensity 930 processor and has three rear cameras.
If you don’t care about the stylus or a wide-angle shooter, the Moto G Power 5G (2023) is a good alternative to our best overall pick: the Moto G Stylus 5G (2023). It also packs a full-HD+ screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, Android 13, 6GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a 5,000mAh battery.
While it lacks unique or exciting features, it’s reliable and affordable. Its MediaTek Dimensity 930 processor delivers a good experience in everything except graphics-intensive games. If you play a lot of them, it’s best to avoid and consider the G Stylus or something from our best budget phone recommendations.
It’s safe and reliable but is that really enough when you’re spending $300
Moreover, the phone has a triple rear camera setup that is headlined by a 50MP primary shooter and a 16MP selfie camera. The main camera can take decent photos in good lighting conditions. But like any other budget phone, it struggles in low lighting.
Affordable Motorola phones for everyone
When looking for a budget phone, you need to find one that checks all the boxes. It must be fast, take good pictures, and last all day. Of course, a budget device won’t have all the bells and whistles of a premium phone, but these phones can and will get the job done.
Motorola’s budget Moto G series has a wide range of phones, giving smartphone shoppers plenty of options. But if you want an excellent, well-rounded smartphone, the Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) is a solid pick. As the name suggests, it has 5G and a built-in stylus, plus a 120Hz display, none of which are things you’ll typically find in a sub-$400 smartphone.
However, if the stylus doesn’t impress you, the Moto Edge (2024) could be worth a look for Motorola fans as it packs many helpful goodies over Moto’s G-series phones. This includes a premium build, a gorgeous and vibrant OLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate, a more powerful processor, and fast wired and wireless charging. It’s a tough sell at its normal $550 MSRP, but like most of Motorola’s phones, it’s not hard to find it marked down to a sub-$500 price that makes it a much sweeter deal.
At the other end of the spectrum, bargain hunters will appreciate the latest successor to the original Moto G: the Moto G 5G (2023). For under $200, you still get a 120Hz display, a 5,000 mAh battery, and a capable processor. It even has a decent primary camera for its price.
Best budget Moto despite drawbacks
The Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) is far from perfect, but it offers good value in the Moto line for $400. It features a gorgeous AMOLED display not often found at this price. In addition, the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 provides snappy performance paired with 8GB of RAM. Its inclusion of old school features like an SD card slot and 3.5mm headphone jack are welcomed.
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