The situation in the US for this phone is a little complicated. The company unveiled its Moto G Play at CES 2021, and it seems similar to the Moto G9 Play but it isn't exactly the same. The only major irritation is that the camera software often struggles to keep pace. Sometimes there’s a noticeable shutter delay, for instance, and the viewfinder lags behind a fraction of a second when panning in low-light environments, which isn’t ideal.

Macro shots are nice enough, as this zoomed picture of a 20p coin shows, but I question how often you’ll want to take pictures of anything this small. Of course, most phone cameras can cope with bright conditions – even if this is a particularly good example – but the real test is low-light photography, where dark conditions often lead to an abundance of visual noise and pesky artifacts. As is the norm, there are power and volume buttons down the right-hand side of the handset as you look at it, and Motorola has also added a Google Assistant button to the left-hand side – it's a feature we like, because it makes the digital assistant app a lot easier to launch when you can't yell out "hey Google" with your voice. The two other display modes on offer – “Saturated” and “Boosted” – tinker with the vibrancy of certain colour tones but these are a bit too saturated and candy-coloured for my tastes. One saving grace, however, is that the Moto G9 Play’s contrast ratio is rather good, at a measured 1,999:1. Motorola Moto G9 Play review: Performance and battery life As for my own testing, the Moto G9 Power lasted an astonishing 26hrs 51mins on a single charge while playing a looped video with data connections switched off and the screen set to our standard 170cd/m ² brightness level. At the time of writing this review, only two phones have ever lasted longer in this test: the now discontinued Lenovo P2 and the pricier Galaxy M31, which was the first phone to break the 30-hour mark.

Big battery, small price

Motorola has mercifully ditched the glossy fingerprint-magnet design of the Moto G8 Power. Indeed, the Moto G9 Power might be even less concerned with turning heads than its predecessor. Color is good, just not ultra-saturated even if you use the ‘saturated’ color profile. The Moto G9 Play does not support HDR video but -whisper it -HDR is a bit pointless in phones anyway. Gaming is no problem either. Fortnite runs at an acceptable 20-30fps, only usually dropping below 20fps when falling from the dropship or taking to the skies in the plane. PUBG runs well at ‘balanced’ graphics, and you can’t use the higher-end modes anyway. This is not a brilliant sensor. It offers poorer detail and dynamic range than the rival Sony IMX586, used in a bunch of higher-end phones. Such phones have smaller batteries, of course, but also smaller, higher resolution, and higher refresh rate displays. This right here is the pay off for having such an underwhelming screen in the G9 Power.

With that out of the way, it’s time to talk about the fun stuff. The Moto G9 Play is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 processor, which is paired with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (which can be expanded up to a further 512GB via microSD). One area in which the Moto G9 Power’s camera is notably inferior to the Moto G8 Power’s is with video capture. Thanks to the use of the Snapdragon 662, it can only manage 1080p/30fps video capture, whereas its predecessor could hit 4K/30fps and 1080p/60fps. Software – Typically clean Android experience from Motorola The Moto G9 Play has a 6.5-inch 720 x 1600 LCD screen. It has no particular high-end traits, but good, cheap displays like this now get you close enough to the experience of a much more expensive mobile. As for the main camera, Motorola says its light-gathering abilities are now four times better than its predecessor. I no longer have a Moto G8 Power to directly test this claim but the sensor is a larger 1/1.97in compared with 1/2.8in and it translates into remarkably good performance. On a sunny winter afternoon in London, I was able to capture detail-rich images of local skyscrapers as well as boats whizzing down the Thames with a pleasingly neutral colour palette and well-judged exposures. The main focus is that 64MP main snapper, and the good news is it’s pretty good for the price. It turns out 16MP shots via a pixel binning technique, which uses the spare pixels to improve clarity.

Its large size is also a big benefit for almost all games and apps. Can you do better for the same cost? Yes. Xiaomi sells several phones for similar money with higher resolution displays. The Xiaomi Redmi 9 and Redmi Note 9 have 1080p screens, as does the Realme 6. Battery life is certainly above average as the chart below shows, but as you might expect it’s not quite as impressive as the phenomenal stamina of the Moto G9 Power with its extra 1,000mAh of battery capacity and lower resolution screen. It comes bundled with Motorola’s 20W TurboPower 20 fast charger, which I found was able to get from 16% to 99% in two hours. 15 minutes will generally get you a 13% increase, right up until the final stretch when the charging rate invariably slows down. Images are pixel-binned to 16MP by default, which should be enough for most people's needs (you can capture the whole 64MP resolution if you want to, through the settings). Video recording, meanwhile, tops out at 1080p and 60 frames per second, and is acceptable enough without reaching the quality of higher-end phones that can offer better color depth, video stabilization and so on.

This is the same chipset used by the slightly cheaper Moto G9 Play, which we reviewed in September. If you’re craving some sort of indication with what to expect in terms of performance, then rest assured that it should be pretty good for the price, but don’t expect it to blow your mind.

One of the best phones on a budget

It’s pretty much the same price as the Moto G8these days, however, and when you take into account the added extras this represents exceptional value for money.

Flip it over, and it’s plastic all the way, though Motorola has gone for an extremely reflective metal look, which reminds me of the dazzling sheen of the HTC U11. In our case, this was a royal blue, but it’s also available in ‘blush gold’ if you like your phones on the shiny side. The glistening surface means that the Motorola ‘M’ logo is barely visible, but there’s no hiding the curved rectangle of the camera bump in the top left-hand corner, which houses four lenses and a flash. But now, more than a week later? We don’t really notice the slightly old-school handling of fast-scrolling menus. Given the Moto G9 Play’s price we’re happy with the phone’s screen quality. This was taken with the Moto G9 Plus’ default camera settings, which captures 16.MP images via a process called pixel binning. You can turn things up to a full 64MP shot if you like, but I personally wouldn’t bother. For me the difference is marginal, other than the fact that the shots take up around three times as much internal storage space at the higher setting.The Moto G9 Play also has a water repellent ‘nano’ coating under its rear shell. This doesn’t mean you should start dunking the phone in water, but it does mean it is better prepared for the elements than a lot of cheap phones. Display