GoKawiilMotorola Moto G (2026) The Moto G (2026) is a little bit better than the Moto G Play (2026), but the bar is pretty low. While it adds a second rear camera, it doesn't benefit from an updated chipset, and it still suffers from limited durability and a poor update commitment that will probably have you researching your next phone within a year or two.
Back in the day, each of Motorola’s cheap phones had its own identity. Each one had a slightly different design, chipset, and cameras, all of which made their price points feel justified. And even though I’d review one after the next after the next, I always found something to praise for those Android users living with a pretty limited budget.
Now, though, I feel like Motorola’s strategy makes no sense. After spending time with both the $169 Moto G Play (2026) and the $199 Moto G (2026), I don’t know why anyone would pick from the very bottom of Motorola’s barrel. Although they’re some of the cheapest phones that money can buy, there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s time to reach higher, and here’s why.
Pointing Spider-Man meme? Pointing Spider-Man meme.
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
I’ve spent a generation or two praising Motorola for making its budget-friendly phones look interesting. I gave it plenty of credit when it added colorful Pantone-based vegan leathers to Moto G devices from the top of the price range down to the bottom, and I stand by that. Its cheap Android phones still look better than the glossy plastic options that have come out of Samsung in recent years.
However, there comes a point when a little bit of overlap is a bit too much, and I think we’ve hit that. More specifically, here are the dimensions and weights for Motorola’s two cheapest phones: Phone A: 167.2 x 76.4 x 8.5mm (6.58 x 3.01 x 0.33 in), 202g (7.13 oz)
Phone B: 167.2 x 76.4 x 8.5mm (6.58 x 3.01 x 0.33 in), 202g (7.13 oz) They’re… the same. In hand, they feel the same. No matter what you’re using them for, they feel the same. It doesn’t even matter which one I call the Moto G Play (2026) and which one the Moto G (2026), because you won’t know the difference until I move on to the finer points of each design — literally just the cameras. By the way, before we keep going, the pink phone in this review is the Moto G (2026) while the blue-green one is the Moto G Play (2026), just to clear that up.
Ryan Haines / Android Authority
Seriously, though, on top of the matching heights and weights, these nearly identical twins also use the same materials. Whether you opt for the super-cheap Moto G Play (2026) or the also-very-cheap Moto G (2026), you’ll get a plastic frame, a vegan leather back, and a Gorilla Glass 3 display, which is the bare minimum Motorola could offer while still attaching the Gorilla Glass name. The fingerprint sensors in the power buttons are the same, too, which I’ll call a positive because they work just as well as they always have. At least both phones have an IP52 water-resistance rating, but that’s only for light splashes of water from a vertical angle (so, rain), and it won’t protect them much overall.
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