it's literally cheaper than some wireless buds out there, that's crazy

"At this price point, I'd prefer prehistoric premium over presently pleasantly priced" is a great closing sentence.

The problem with these old flagships is to get a new battery. It’s often that you cannot get it replaced officially, or if you can then they just charge too much.

I never understood why manufacturers decided to go with metal frames but glass back panels, making phones weigh around 200 grams, just for the sake of a more "premium look and feel" when most people will have the phone covered for protection, adding a few miligramos more and hiding the design of the phone. Plastic phones were never a problem in my mind.

It kinda feels good to see big tech tubers talk about budget phones! Thank you for showing some love for the sub $200 category. Much appreciated.

I remember when $550 was the price of a flagship!

I suffered with this phone for a month. DON'T DO IT! It's laggy beyond belief, it can't even keep up with typing out messages. After the second week of owning it apps would start randomly freezing for minutes at a time, and then after they became unfrozen I would get a notification that the app wasn't responding, so even the crash reports were laggy. I found most of the time I was interacting with my phone I was idle waiting for it to launch apps or catch-up. I would say I spent more time on my phone and got less done which is super frustrating.

As a person who loves cheaper phones with decent workhorse power Motorola has been putting it out. I have a Stylo 5G and standard Stylo, both have headphone jacks, lovely large screens and battery. The camera can leave you wanting if you are after photographer quality, but it's definitely functional for pulling out to capture some random family event. Gaming is pretty good, on the 5G I can play Xbox games from game pass (haven't tried on the regular Stylo) with little sacrifice.

Not to mention, the new phone will also have a brand new battery so that will last longer. If you buy the old phone, you will probably need to get a replacement battery for it pretty soon. That’s definitely something to take into account.

The OnePlus 7 Pro was ahead of its time and still my favourite ever phone. It's a real shame the market and companies didn't keep the popup camera going.

I have a S23 Ultra but there is a lot to be said for phones made of polycarbonate. They are so much lighter that even if you drop them them they hit the ground with far less force lowering the risk of damage. One of the things I liked about the Galaxy S2 was that it was so light it felt futuristic.

Nice to see Motorola still making decent budget options. One of my favourite phones was the G5 plus - just did basically everything I needed it to while not blowing my budget, and the gestures like shaking for torch etc were actually super useful and I have missed them since I sold it, even if my phones since have had upgrades like better cameras and a compass. Unlike this phone the g5+ was generally a good user experience though, don't remember any slowdown.

You Should try Budget Moto G52 - 160$(India)

OnePlus 7 Pro was such an amazing phone! Always loved that uninterrupted screen with the pop-up camera. Don't know why it hasn't become more mainstream.

Simply excellent perspective Marques!! Thank you for getting that most important decision in there at the end!!!! I’ll keep looking for the 2021-2022 mid-upper level phone. Which manufacturers in Android space have longer s/w upgrade support?? The key piece right with cost. Thanks again!

I have a Moto G Power from years ago for

I've learned based on a lot of people I've met in their 50s and older that buy budget phones. They primarily just want a phone that doesn't slow down and lag out and maybe a decent camera. Battery life is good, but since many of them don't use their phones too much or travel as much as they did, they last. I find more issues when they are start lagging out or being too slow and them becoming frustrated asking my Gen Z self to fix it

Here in Brazil Motorola never went out of fashion. My first smartphone was a Moto G2 and was one of the best for its price range (considering that for most flagships, like iPhones, you have to pay very high consumer taxes).

That fingerprint sensor slide to bring the notifications bar down was lit

I used to have a Motorola, and I still miss some of the features. One of the biggest things for me was fingerprint on the back and some of the software features.

So glad you recognized the environmental advantage of buying used - I feel like that is often neglected by most tech-channels 🙌

First time I hear Marques include the second hand market into the picture and talking about the environmental aspect of buying used phones. Love it! My appreciation just went way up!

I had a Moto E4 as a backup / secondary phone. Loaned it out to several people. It actually worked really great and had great battery life. Sadly many phones today don't support 5G or VoLTE so they are now worthless... That's the issue with buying used. You need to find something that will have good connectivity and hopefully some software update...

Video was great thank you for showing off specs , grateful I seen this video before I bought this phone 💪🏾

The OP 7 Pro was easily one of my favorite phone experiences. Especially the camera, it felt good to take it into manual, but the processed photos also looked very good.

100% agree with this, my mom doesn't need a crazy phone so she's always had budget phones but was never really happy with them, so when she finally needed a new one now I decided to get her a S20FE for 170$ in really good condition. No budget phone can compete with that, she's really happy with it now!

Thank you so much for giving me and my family insights on these products before we buy. Good man! 💜

I got this phone recently. It's not great, I know, but I got this for the 1080p at 60fps. It takes quality videos straight out of the box if you don't do all the crazy gaming and just need the basics. I record on a massive 256G A2 micro SD even though it's rated for 32G. In fairness, the SD card was formatted on a phone rated for 512G so maybe that helps. It's a good overseas phone because it comes unlocked and carries CDMA and GSM on a ton of bands. So ehh. It works. And they make Poetic cases that fit it!

I love the review of lower end phones! When I worked at target I was at a lose of any of the features for these phones. Everybody loves to cover the latest and greatest when in reality a lot of people just want something affordable!

So good you opened up the conversation about old premium phones being an option, because more often than not majority of people aint spending 1000 dollars on a new phone. So the option between an old flagships vs current mid rangers is always the dilemma. this goes for iphones vs iphones, to androids vs other androids, to iphones vs androids. I really think you can incorporate past flagships on your yearly rewards show. "Phones that aged well" category

Thank you for encouraging people to update their software in view of the security updates. Great review, thanks!

In that clip at the beginning in the play store I saw some frames drop on scrolling so I was guessing it was lacking on processing power. I think that of all things processing power is all in all really what you buy when you get a more premium phone. Not that this isn't a solid option for many people, but renewed/refurbished is the way to go. Android or iOS device there are some really solid deals on old flagships that are renewed or used that still work very well. They may be old flagships but more often than not they'll be more reliable and last longer than a phone like this would.

Still rocking the OnePlus 7 Pro. I still haven't found any other phone that is worth the update. Apart from some camera and charging speed improvements, I still consider it one of the best phones ever made. Way ahead of it's time

There's a nice hint of the "catch" when you quick-scroll the Play Store 😄. And yeah I agree that I would definitely want to buy a refurbished or a used flagship phone, particularly the slightly older Pixel phones.

For the last ten years I always have “an old flagship” and it’s working great for me. 50/50 android and iOS

I can not overstate how useful the moto chop light is. One of the best features ever

I used my old OnePlus 7 Pro temporarily while I was waiting to get my s22 ultra replaced last week and was incredibly surprised how absolutely well it still works. Still feels like a budget flagship phone

My big problem with older phones is battery life. I use my phones hard, and by the time I'm ready to upgrade, their battery health is generally pretty poor in comparison to where they started off. If I was to buy a used phone that had say 80% battery health, and then use it for two years, it would probably struggle to get through a day. That's why I like newer, midrange phones. They have bigger, newer batteries, and they pair that with slightly less powerful but much more efficient chipsets. Feature wise they tend to compare favourably with older flagships too.

Used to have a Moto, i have to say the shake shake to turn the flashlight on is brilliant

I love when you cover Motorola I'm such a big fan of them. Im using the Moto edge plus 2022!!

6:57 that's where you know the phone is that slow lol.

You can just install a custom ROM to fix the software update issue and if you're buying an older flagship phone it'll probably have official lineageOS support, so you'll just have to install it once and get software updates without having to install anything through recovery.

I love this phone. I got mine last week. And considering the cheap price I paid $120. I'm impressed with how quick it is and how long the battery lasts.

i love motorola android phones, they are amazing, i had one a while back and loved it. sadly because it's so low specs, it just didn't last. after like a year it just started to slow down a lot and starting to have a lot of issues.

You can get the Xiaomi 11t often on sale for $200 or less. I got it for $200 in the summer 2022. The phone is almost as fast as my s22 ultra, has a really good camera (worse than S22 ultra ofcourse, but not actually by much), it has a really fast charge (67 watt) and the screen is awesome for the price. All in all that phone is a much better value compared to the Moto G when it's on sale, which is almost weekly atm.

I still believe as a starter phone for both younger and older people this is a great option. Considering the amount of software updates coming vs an older phone this is a good option.

A cheap phone today might get two years of updates from the OEM, but a popular flagship or mid-range phone from a few years ago is still going to be getting software updates too, just not from the OEM.

Thanks for checking out low end ones. 👍

I agree with going with the cheaper older phone. Although the S21 FE is not that old yet, it was a massive upgrade for a family member who was using a painfully slow A10e.

I love the environment point you bring up, I always bring that up. There should be some kind of framework in which you can reset a phone to a certain stock setting and get basic security coverage without extra features just so that you can use it and there is much less e-waste.

Watching this on my op7 pro which I bought nearly 4 years ago. Crazy. No new phone seems to be able to compare. A little faster cheapest on newer phones isn't enough for me to upgrade for. Although the new inglass front camera is tempting.

Still rocking my 7 Pro

Yeah Motorola phones have been awesome lately, I recently got a 2021 Moto Edge 20 Pro which was about £750 at release but it was discounted to £350 in the September back to school sale. It was amazing with a fast chipset unlike this phone and it has really good build quality with glass on the back. I would recommend definitely getting the old flagship phone over a new cheap phone. As you mentioned though they do get less software updates but if you get a phone from like last year it has just about as much updates as a new budget phone. Edit: thx for the likes!

I just recently bought the Umidigi a13 pro 5g for $156. That was a flash sale. Price was like $219 I believe. It's dropped to about $175. It has the Dimensity 700, 5150 battery, and 8gb of Ram and 128gb storage. It also has a 1080p display. 2 updates when I got it to put it on the June 2022 security patch. Not one update since though, which like Marquez says, tends to be one of the main issue with these budget phones. Motorola usually updates better than this though. I think I may start going with the older mid-range or flagships after this though. Phone works pretty good for a budget phone, but it's like a 2nd or 3rd to use and could never be my daily driver. It's a good all around budget phone though.

MKBHD Still doing such a great job many years later. Praised the phone really good but also roasted it to oblivion. Now, that's some real wisdom that come with experience..kudos to MKBHD

I have the exact One plus 7T pro McLaren edition and it's simply one of the best! I've had it for three years now and it works like the first day. I remember I was blown away with the charging speed back in the day.

One things you should have mentioned with the update side of it, knock on wood, is that some older flagships have an active modding community like for the op 7 pro and custom roms that even go up to android 13 now.

1:49 - I love how you added the G behind the sim tray, hinting at the G in the phones name.

I’m going to get one. All I need is KZfaq for music, maps, chrome for browsing and messaging and calls. Big battery while I’m at work and three years of support plus android 13 eventually.

That's basically what I did. Got a pixel 3 a couple of years ago when it had just a year of OTA updates left, and I've still got it. Great phone, won't change until it gives up.

We got one of these for my mom and it is perfectly fine. One of the things you have to do is really optimize on it. Only a couple of games and not 90 Apps installed. Plus something like Simple launcher really helps.

This was a thoughtful and well written review I enjoyed it

I have the moto g power 2022 which is essentially the same exact phone. Performs well and I haven't run into a single app that it doesn't run. Very pleased with this phone. A minimalist's dream.

Excellent video. I've been a fan of Moto phones for a long time, having owned 5 of them at this point. But I've become concerned about the way they have been migrating many of their lower end phones from Snapdragon chips to Mediatek. The Moto G Pure that I have just replaced wasn't too bad though, and wasn't especially slow. But the Nokia G100 I own now is in the same general price range as this new Moto G Play that you review here, and has a Snapdragon 662, 4 gigs of ram, and 128 gigs of internal storage, and performs quite well, at least in my experience. It has it all over the Moto G Play for roughly the same price.

After a fall, Montorola is booming everywhere, good to see my childhood favorite phone rising.

Really love these videos about cheap new vs older premium. I also tend to prefer older premium

I've had a Oneplus 7pro since 2019 and it really does still hold up. The selfie camera is still impressive to people as well.

I honestly enjoy plastic phones over glass. It was annoying trying to find a mid range with the specs I wanted and plastic construction.

I agree with you. I gave my dad my old Pixel 2. And although it's from 2017 it's still a great phone with good power and takes great pictures. I recently asked if you wants a newer phone, but he said he is totally happy with it.

Great video! I think you should do more of these: comparing the Nothing phone to a 400 dollar older flagship for example... Would be interested to see that

Thank you so much sir for addressing one of my biggest dilemmas as far as getting gadgets is concerned these days!

you can also change the app icon width (number that shows up on the homescreen & app list) to a perfect 5 instead of the cringy 4 it defaults to by finding it in the settings. my old phone was a G Play (2021 model iirc) and i was able to do that. Quite nice.

This is an interesting video, especially since I would love to see more budget and midrange options reviewed. However, I think there are two important points missed. First, is yes, at the absolute rock bottom price of $169, this is a slow phone. But move up to the low-$200s, and there are some options with the much faster Dimensity 700 and 5G that feel much MUCH better. The second point in regards to new versus used phones, is that you simply don't know how an older phone was used. The battery may well be significantly degraded. If you can't afford to spend a lot of money, a new phone, even a $169 new phone will likely last a lot longer than a used phone of the same price before you start having hardware problems.

*You should do more of these budget/mid-range phone reviews.* Btw, Moto is doing fine nowadays and OnePlus, take notes on how good you were back then. Cheers 🥂

The second half of the video had me rolling 😂

I went from an S7 Edge to A52 5G to A54 5G and I have to say its been an interesting ride the 54 seems more premium than the 52 but was ~$100 less than the 52. no headphone jack sad, sticky in hand but slippery everywhere else glass back sad, metal feeling sides (idk if they are), slightly bigger bezel vs the 52, thicker/heavier than A52, bigger camera bump but only 3 vs 4 cameras, still has the SD card though good for if your phone just dies one day and you didn't back anything up, USB C to useless bee see cable like wtf do I plug the other end into since all wall chargers have usb A and the 54 didn't come with a brick? At least the 52 came with a cheaper looking charger and normal USB A to C cable. etc

I like that you keep it real, and even though you probably get these phones for free, you don't recommend everything. I respect that.

I work in mobile phone retail and we’ve been getting excellent low tier Motorola phones like this one for quite a while now. The Moto G stylus and Moto 5G are the cream of the crop when it comes to performance and durability but I’m glad they brought the G play back , it was a really popular phone.

The One Plus 7 !! I had forgotten all about it. You reminded me Marques and i went onto Ebay Canada (I live in Canada)and there NOTHING period listed. I was so exited for five minutes and then dropped like a bobshell. So dissapointed. I loved the One Plus's of that era Love your channel by the way --- couldn't live without my regular dose of "Marques"

I work for a company called OSL, we are contracted by Walmart to sell phones. Rn this phone with T-Mobile is 24 dollars in total. No catch about it. Just have to put 1 penny a month on your installment plan. You can pay up to 23.76 and get their new 50 dollar plan for one line. Then pay it off after your first bill. Or out the door where I’m at it’s just taxes so $2.23 out the door. 56 dollars a month without autopay. (Including plan) although after that first month it can be 50 dollars if you pay the 23 dollars and enroll in autopay.

You really need to make a video about used phones! The main advantage is having a faster chip, and in my opinion, a better, faster chip will make the most difference, because it won't feel slow unlike budget phones. Also significantly better for the environment

I’m loving these kind of videos! Kinda tired of “flagships” that have absolutely nothing on them just a display, charging port and body.

I'm a Motorola user & recently switched to the highest end Samsung Flagship phone & I'll tell you one thing. That Chop Chop Fast Flashlight is a must & a huge selling point. I downloaded an app on my S22 Ultra for fast flashlight but the functionally doesn't work well no matter the share sensitivety I set & something is shaking inside my phone. Probably the gyroscope.

I would go for the old phone and when the software support ends, I would switch to a alternative ROM such as LineageOS

Well done, Marques, a great breakdown of the pros and cons of both. We all fit on that curve somewhere. More like this please, it changes thinking. Good to mention the updates thing, people need to know about that...

I like how when he was listing the specs he put the most emphasis on “headphone jack”

3:33 I've been using Motorola phones for a decade and didn't realize I could do that. Lesson learned I should actually do the moto move tutorial.

I've had a few of these over the years and they're great! Includes stylus too

I had a moto and I miss the chop for flashlight so much, it was genuinely so useful

Speaking of software updates it would be really cool to see a PSA Style video from you about them! Maybe in the style of a phone changing over a couple of years because of the software updates, and of course the security patches and their importance.

I bought this exact phone last night for $69 + 911 fees, so in total $83. It's nice, it doesn't lag, it's not choppy, screen is nice, camera is nice as well. It's just a really nice budget phone but i would suggest upgrading a few of the stock apps.

I thinking "hey, pretty nice." Then you mentioned the fingerprint sensor on the back. I love those and they get hard to hind now days, it's almost a make or break for me know.

Love my used flagship phones. Could not agree with you more on that point. Along with that, I never feel like I'm missing out, just having the same experience 3+ years out of step ; ) My OnePlus 6 is finally starting to lag a little with my updated apps, but not so much that I feel like losing my headphone jack. Eventually I will, but I'm still holding out for a newer phone where they brought back the headphone jack (feel like Ford Dent trying to speak in future-past perfect tense...)

Hi, Mark. Greetings from Brazil. The reason for the camera didn't turn on when you twist it is that this particularly model (and other cheap ones from Motorola) doesn't have the gyroscopic sensor, just an acceleration sensor that makes the flashlight pop. Of course this is due to give it a cut on the price. Similar thing happens with the compass too. Some smartphone has it, others don't.

I really appreciate this review does the FM radio play back in stereo

Samsung M34 at 160$ crushes this thing

great vid. wish marques did more budget/mid ranger videos though

The phone that is honestly a very good deal that I personally choose over my Moto was a Oneplus Nord N200 5G. Got it for $179 at Metro but you can also get it for the same price at Tmobile and other places. It has a 6.5 in 1080P IPS 90hz screen, same 5000mah battery, 18W fast charging, 4gb of Ram intead of 3gb, expandable storage, and a Snapdragon 480...basically evrything that could be slighty better with the Moto is better on this device. I use a Iphone 13 Pro now but I still use my Oneplus all the time...I take it with me as a backup secondary device to read, and consume media on. That says a lot.

My personal recommendation would be to get a phone that has good custom ROM support. Even though my OnePlus 6T hasn't been supported for a year I've been running the latest Android version thanks to LineageOS and crDroid.

I would add that if you are willing to install a custom rom to a used flagship the lack of software updates would not be an issue. While not the flagship of its time, I am still using a xiaomi mi8 (a phone from 2018 with the best qualcomm chip of that time I think) with LineageOS 20 which is based on android 13, so I am still getting all the latest features and security updates with this somewhat old phone. LineageOS has in their website a fairly comprehensive list of the phones they support.