Best Motorola phones to buy in 2021

It’s getting trickier to choose a Motorola phone because so many of them are released, and so often. Sometimes you wish you could grab the company by its figurative shoulders, took it in the eye and tell it to stop for a month or two.

The Moto G series is where the action is for most phone buyers. You can get a great, long-lasting, 5G Motorola phone for around £220, and it is probably the Motorola phone to head to first.

Motorola uses a fairly simple naming convention in its latest line-up, where the number after the “G” tells you how fancy a phone is. The Moto G10 is fairly basic, while the Moto G100 is not.

However, browse around on Amazon, and you may encounter some slightly older Motorolas named after a single feature, like the Moto One Zoom and the Moto One Action. These have, you guessed it, cameras for zoom and action photos/video.

We’re going to steer clear of most of those, as Motorola phones are at their best when trying to please a wide, cost-conscious audience.

Jump to:

• How much should you spend on a Motorola phone?
• Benefits of a Motorola phone
• Motorola phone problems
• Best Motorola phones to buy
• How we test phones

How to choose a Motorola phone

How much should you spend on a Motorola phone?

The sweet spot for Motorola phones is £200-300, although the Moto G30 is a solid choice for many at £160-180.

At a slightly higher price, you get a very nice spread of features. You’ll see 5G, at least one pretty good camera and a processor that runs the Android software well and handles demanding games just fine.

There are some significantly more expensive phones, but these tend to be sold more commonly in the US than in the UK. And, to be honest, we don’t think many of you need to explore them. There’s a lot of competition for your cash if you have big money to spend.

What are the benefits of Motorola phones?

Almost all the Motorola phones we’ll cover below have excellent battery life and can be considered good value for money.

Many of them have the same 5000mAh battery capacity, greater than a lot of £1,000 phones. They will last almost two days between charges for plenty of people, more or less solving one of the longest-standing smartphone headaches.

Motorola also has a nice and simple take on Android, one with less of a potentially off-putting stylistic tilt than those of Xiaomi, Realme and even Samsung.

What are the problems with Motorola phones?

A few years ago, Motorola made a lot of phones with a real sense of style, particularly considering they didn’t cost too much. There were curved glass backs and nicely styled camera housings.

This no longer applies. Most Motorola phones have a more ‘meat and potatoes for dinner’ approach.

Sure, you’ll see nice colourful finishes, but all its phones have plastic backs, and the look is quite samey across the range - with one notable exception, the Motorola Edge. This makes the phones a little less exciting to open up and coo over on day one, but it really doesn’t matter much if you use a case anyway.

Best Motorola phones to buy at a glance

• Best for all-round value and low-cost 5G: Moto G 5G Plus, £229
• Best buy under £200: Moto G30, £159.99
• Best for gaming: Moto G100, £449
• Best choice for tight budgets: Moto G10, £130
• Best for digital note-takers: Moto G Pro, £229
• Best style pick: Motorola Edge, £344

Best Motorola phones to buy in 2021

Moto G 5G Plus

Best for all-round value and low-cost 5G

Price: £220

Pros

• Has 5G mobile internet
• Very good processor
• Plenty of display space

Cons

• A little thick
• Quite tall

Get this phone if your want the ultimate Motorola all-rounder. It has enough power to play console-style games. The 6.7-inch screen sounds massive, but it’s a 21:9 display, more tall than wide. And it has 5G, which is impressive at £220 even in 2021. The battery lasts an age. And while the cameras aren’t the very best at this price, the main camera can take nice photos, and we’re comparing the Moto G 5G Plus to 4G phones here. 5G matters, right?

Read our full Moto G 5G Plus review.

The Moto G 5G Plus is available from:

• Amazon
• Available from Carphone Warehouse |£23.00 per month and £29.99 upfront
• Vodafone | from £30 a month and £19 upfront

Moto G30

Best buy under £200

Price: £180

Pros

• Good value
• Decent battery life

Cons

• Not the brightest display
• No 5G
• Slightly slow camera

This is one of the better sub-£200 phones, regardless of brand. It doesn’t have 5G mobile internet or even a Full HD screen, but it does supply all the things we think you need to make a good phone. The screen is sharp enough and has a smooth 90Hz we rarely see at this price. The Moto G30 makes Android feel responsive enough, too, if not flawless. Its main camera can take pretty pictures in daylight. We don’t expect miracles at £160, and, sure, the Moto G 5G Plus is better in several ways. But this one is a bargain if the budget is tight.

The Moto G30 is available from:

• Amazon
• John Lewis

Moto G100

Best for gaming

Price: £449

Pros

• Stacks of gaming power

Cons

• Costs quite a bit
• Lacks a few features we’d like at ~£500

The Moto G100 is Motorola’s best gaming phone. It has more power than most expensive Android phones but costs £449 rather than a grand. Motorola actually wants you to try plugging this thing into a monitor and keyboard to use it as a makeshift PC. We don’t think it’s the series highlight for those who don’t need lots of power, though. The design and screen aren’t really much better than the much cheaper Motos, and the camera doesn’t match the cheaper Pixel 4a 5G.

The Moto G100 is available from:

• Amazon
• Very

Moto G10

Best choice for tight budgets

Price: £130

Pros

• Highly affordable
• Solid screen
• Long battery life

Cons

• Mediocre camera
• Not the fastest, slickest phone in use

If the budget is tight, you might want to consider a Moto G10. It is a chunk cheaper than the Moto G30 at £130. And while we’re tempted to say it’s best suited to the basics like WhatsApp, Netflix looks great on the screen, too, even if it is only 720p: less sharp than the higher-end Motos. However, it’s not the fastest phone around, and we were not too impressed by its cameras, warranting the step-up in spend to the Moto G30 for many.

The Moto G100 is available from:

• Amazon
• John Lewis
• Currys

Moto G Pro

Best for digital note-takers

Price: £229

Pros

• Unusual slot-in stylus

Cons

• Value is not quite as high as its siblings
• Smaller battery than the other G phones

Here is something a little different. The Moto G Pro is one of only a few phones with a slot-in stylus, a bit like a Samsung Galaxy Note. It’s a little older than some of the other recommendations here but sticks in our minds because Motorola tried something a little unusual. The pen is not ‘smart’. It can’t tell how hard you are pressing, so it is much better for note-taking than digital drawing. And the phone has a smaller battery than its siblings. We’d pick the Moto G 5G Plus over it, but we more-or-less gave up handwriting things years ago, so maybe you’ll value the stylus more.

The Moto G Pro is available from:

• Amazon
• Argos

Motorola Edge

Best style pick

Price: £344

Pros

• Costs significantly less than it once did
• A slick-looking phone

Cons

• Fancy design is undermined by plastic rear

The Edge is one of Motorola’s few ‘statement’ phones. Nowadays you can find it for £350-400, rather than the £550 it originally cost. The screen is the highlight here, as it curves around the left and right sides in a manner you only usually see in eye wateringly expensive phones. However, the pickiest among you may be less impressed when you actually pick one up, as its back is still plastic, not the glass you might have hoped for. The cameras also suit the new mid-range pricing. Its primary one is good, but don’t expect a Samsung Galaxy S21 killer.

The Moto G Pro is available from:

• Amazon
• o2 | from £25.50 a month and £30 upfront

How we test phones

Specs and product page feature lists don’t tell you the whole story of a phone. Every phone we review is used as if we own the thing.

The SIM goes in, WhatsApp messages are sent, videos streamed, and games played. This lets us see how a phone really performs and how long the battery is likely to last if you buy one. Just making a phone play a video on loop doesn’t offer the same real-world insight.

Only once we’ve got to know it well do we give a phone a score out of five. In our reviews, we also offer comparisons with some alternatives around the same price and a look at what you get if you spend just a little more. Sometimes an extra £50 is worth spending. Sometimes it isn’t.

Still unsure about which phone to choose? Check out our list of the best Huawei phones to buy in 2021 for more advice.