$100 extra for no longer a lot further

The entirety’s getting costlier in recent times, and a really perfect typhoon of provide chain disruptions has hit electronics particularly onerous — from funds fashions to flagships, smartphone costs had been creeping up this yr. Living proof: Motorola’s newest Moto G Stylus. The 2026 fashion begins at $499, a $100 build up over the gorgeous darn just right 2025 version.

To your further $100, you’ll get a brand new energetic stylus, at the side of a handful of different minor enhancements. However with the similar chipset, RAM, cameras, and design language because the 2025 fashion (at the side of any other annoyances), I don’t assume the Moto G Stylus (2026) ($499.99 at Amazon) does sufficient to justify the upper price ticket.

The place remaining yr’s Moto G Stylus got here with a passive stylus, this yr’s telephone will get an energetic stylus that may do somewhat a bit of extra. It may locate power and tilt, which will have to make taking notes or sketching really feel extra herbal in comparison to the former model. The 2026 Moto G Stylus additionally options palm rejection when the usage of the stylus — a large get in comparison to its predecessor. The brand new stylus is a bit of thicker, too.

My favourite stylus function is the power to put in writing fast notes. You’ll pop the Moto G Stylus’s pen out and get started writing right away, with out opening any apps and even unlocking the telephone. It’s no longer a novel function to the G Stylus line, nevertheless it works neatly right here. The brand new palm rejection is excellent once I’m jotting down a handy guide a rough to-do, and newly added power sensitivity does make for some great sensorial comments.

You’ll configure a long-press at the stylus’s button to do a couple of issues: take a screenshot to mark up, open a brand new observe, amplify a space of the show, or open Circle to Seek.

Circle to Seek integration piqued my passion, nevertheless it feels a little bit clunky in apply. To turn on the function, you must dangle the stylus close to the display, press and dangle its button, and wait a beat for the Circle to Seek interface to look sooner than highlighting the content material you wish to have extra information about, all of which takes longer and felt much less herbal than simply activating Circle to Seek with my finger. (I finished up assigning the button to open a brand new observe.)

I used to be stunned to seek out the brand new energetic stylus can’t be used as a far flung for the Moto G Stylus’s digital camera shutter. It’s no longer a function I’d use steadily, however given the stylus’s new Bluetooth connectivity, it looks like a ignored alternative.

Past the stylus, there aren’t a ton of noteworthy upgrades right here. Moto incorporated quicker UFS 3.1 garage that are supposed to make for marginal bumps in velocity and potency (although that didn’t display up in our exams). The 2026 Moto G Stylus may be IP69 rated, that means it’s qualified to resist harsher publicity to water than the 2025 fashion used to be at IP68.

The Moto G Stylus (2026)’s show comes with a better top brightness than the 2025 fashion did, nevertheless it’s in a different way an excessively an identical (and completely ok) display: nonetheless a 6.7-inch, 1220p AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh charge. The battery may be somewhat better with a 5,200 mAh capability (up from 5,000).

Just about each and every different side of the Moto G Stylus (2026) is lifted instantly from the Moto G Stylus (2025). That’s no longer all dangerous — however for $100 extra, it’s no longer nice, both.

To begin on a favorable observe: identical as remaining yr, the brand new Moto G Stylus keeps each a microSD card slot and a three.5-millimeter headphone jack, two now-throwback options that shall be reason why sufficient for sure customers to select this telephone up. I don’t have a lot use for both at the present time, however other people with giant native media collections can use playing cards as much as a terabyte in dimension to cart round their offline tune catalogs. Great.

Exterior {hardware} is just about unchanged from the 2025 fashion, too. The telephone assists in keeping the similar glance, really feel, and general proportions, although this fashion has a ridged texture on its again plastic, the place remaining yr’s fashion had a faux-leather texture. It is available in Coal Smoke (grey, pictured during) and Lavender Mist (pink) colours.

The newest Moto G Stylus (2026) comes with the similar Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 as remaining yr’s fashion, paired with the similar 8GB of RAM. That’s no longer spectacular, whatsoever, nevertheless it’s if truth be told a reliable sufficient combo for my wishes; navigation, internet surfing, social media, or even gaming all felt advantageous in my time with the telephone.

The somewhat easy Pokémon TCG Pocket runs just about as neatly at the G Stylus because it does on my Pixel 9 Professional, or even the heavier Name of Responsibility: Cellular controlled to maintain a top body charge with respectable element. This unquestionably isn’t a gaming telephone, nevertheless it holds its personal working much less difficult titles.

In fact, this efficiency is precisely the similar as what you’d revel in with remaining yr’s Moto G Stylus, too — in our comparative benchmark check effects, you’ll be able to see the effects for each and every are similar.

Motorola’s device revel in is asymmetric. At the one hand, Moto’s implementation of Android is just about inventory, there aren’t too many preinstalled apps, and the moment-to-moment revel in of tooling across the telephone’s UI is normally just right, barring the ordinary hiccup.

However through default, there are totally too many commercials in this telephone. Along with the Google Uncover feed to the left of the house display (a hotbed for promoting itself), there’s a secondary information feed embedded within the Moto G Stylus’s app drawer — and it’s filled with commercials. Motorola’s unhelpful Gametime overlay that looks on every occasion a sport is working provides backed sport ideas. The worst commercials culprit could also be the preinstalled climate app from developer OneLouder Apps.

The 1Weather app pushes more than one notifications in keeping with day: sensational messages about herbal failures in states I don’t reside in, imprecise warnings that “giant adjustments” are within the forecast, and basic reminders to open the app simply because I haven’t shortly. Those competitive notifications aren’t commercials themselves, however they’re in provider of having eyeballs at the commercials sprinkled during 1Weather’s interface (although you do be able pay $20 in keeping with yr or $2 a month to head ad-free).

You’ll disable most of these obnoxious streams of promoting, and I in the end did. However in a telephone that prices $500, the advert revel in out of the field is unacceptable. It’d be something if no matter income Moto generates from promoting advert area during the Moto G Stylus’s device went to subsidize the telephone’s {hardware} — however as we’ve been over, the most recent fashion is just about just like the remaining one, and it prices $100 extra.

It’s transparent Moto’s commercials technique isn’t serving to to fund long-term improve for the Moto G Stylus, both. The 2026 fashion is assured best two primary Android updates (as much as Android 18) at the side of 3 years of safety patches (finishing within the spring of 2029). Once more: unacceptable.

Images at the Moto G Stylus (2026) may be a blended bag. The telephone comes with the similar cameras as remaining yr’s fashion: a 50-megapixel number one digital camera (samples within the first gallery under) and a 13-megapixel ultrawide that draws double-duty as a macro shooter (the second one gallery), plus a 32-megapixel selfie digital camera. What seems like a 3rd digital camera lens round again is it appears a mild sensor that by hook or by crook is helping the true cameras, and I will be able to’t lend a hand however really feel styling it to appear to be a digital camera itself a little bit sleazy on Moto’s phase.

Pictures from the Moto G Stylus 2026 are lovely usual for a contemporary mid-range Android telephone. You realize what to anticipate right here: with just right gentle, pictures can glance somewhat great, with punchy colours, great distinction, and just right element (supplied you don’t crop or zoom). Issues fall off out of doors of excellent prerequisites, although.

In medium gentle — I’m speaking indoors, close to home windows, on a sunny day — the Moto G Stylus struggles to seize movement. I finished up with more than one footage of my canine that have been blurrier than I’d anticipated, and multiple through which Moto’s symbol processing rendered their shifting portions as clear (e.g., the only above the place you’ll be able to see the rug thru my canine Leon’s leg). Taking footage in darker settings is a crapshoot.

Even in shiny gentle, I finished up with some footage with odd colour casts, steadily inexperienced or blue. The cameras once in a while flub on distinction, too, with strangely gentle shadows or highlights that glance blown out. There’s occasional shutter lag to take care of, and Moto’s computational images pipeline once in a while displays one body as a preview, best to land on any other body as the overall model of the photograph.

Finally, I walked away with a variety of footage from the Moto G Stylus that I really like somewhat a bit of. In case your precedence is dependable imaging, although, you’d be higher served with one thing like a Pixel 10a.

Battery existence’s been somewhat just right in my time with the Moto G Stylus 2026. Throughout an extended weekend with out a lot display time, the telephone controlled to stay trucking throughout 3 days and two nights of lighter utilization, totaling just about seven hours of energetic use over that span. I by no means did organize to faucet its 5,200 mAh cellular in one day, however judging through its longevity throughout two or extra days, it’s good to rather be expecting to get seven and even 8 hours of display on-time in one day.

Charging may be very fast. The 2026 Moto G Stylus carries ahead the former fashion’s 68-watt charging ceiling. The usage of a suitable charger (you don’t get one within the field), I noticed the telephone pass from 0% to complete rate in beneath an hour. With the telephone’s robust battery existence and fast charging, I settled right into a rhythm of plugging it in for a part our or so whilst I used to be getting able within the morning, each and every different day. I by no means felt any battery anxiousness. The telephone’s 15-watt wi-fi charging threshold isn’t as spectacular, however I believe it’s completely affordable.

The Moto G Stylus 2026 is a advantageous telephone. It’s fast sufficient, its cameras most commonly paintings once I want them to, and its battery existence by no means left me in need of.

At this level, although, that’s all desk stakes. There’s no scarcity of telephones across the G Stylus’s $500 worth level that do just about the whole thing this telephone does, steadily extra competently. Motorola’s promise of simply two Android model updates additionally lags at the back of a lot of the contest.

Google’s Pixel 10a ($499 at Amazon) is snappier, takes a lot better footage, and can obtain ongoing device improve into 2033. As of writing, you’ll be able to get a Samsung Galaxy S25 FE ($534.99 at Samsung) for no longer a lot more than the G Stylus; that telephone runs circles round this one in processing energy, and Samsung’s dedicated to stay its device up to the moment thru maximum of 2032.

Whilst it would have some connectivity quirks, the Not anything Telephone 4a Professional ($499.99 at Amazon) is any other forged select. For a similar worth because the G Stylus, the 4a Professional provides extra horsepower, longer replace improve (with Android updates into 2029 and safety updates into 2032), a extra flexible digital camera setup, and extra fascinating {hardware} design.

If Moto’s energetic stylus has you tempted and also you’re open to getting ingenious, with a little bit legwork, you’ll be able to snag a used or refurbished Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely for $600 or much less. That’s a bit of greater than the Moto G Stylus will run you, however the S24 Extremely is leagues forward of the G Stylus in maximum techniques, it’ll proceed obtain updates for years after the G Stylus’s improve ends, and it comes with an energetic stylus.

In fact, if the combo of an SD card slot, a headphone jack, and an energetic stylus meets your wishes completely, the 2026 Moto G Stylus could also be your best option. It may be an interesting select in the event you’re ready to get a just right bargain thru your provider. Once more, it’s no longer a foul telephone — however out of doors its distinctive perks, it falls in need of the bar different fashionable mid-rangers have set in some ways.

Exterior financial elements or no longer, it’s disappointing that the 2026 Moto G Stylus is just about just like the former fashion and prices $100 extra at retail. If the telephone’s unusual options are crucial to you, if you’ll be able to’t reside with out an energetic stylus, stressed out headphones, or expandable garage, you’ll more than likely just like the Moto G Stylus 2026 simply advantageous. For any person else, it’s no longer a very easy telephone to counsel within the present marketplace.