Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) review

Android 14, augmented by Hello UI

The Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) runs Android 14 with Motorola's in-house customizations on top, now called Hello UI ("Hello, Moto!").

The company promises 3 OS updates and 4 years of security patches (which will be delivered on a quarterly basis). Update: We have incorrectly reported on the planned software upgrades. The Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) will get just one OS upgrade (to Android 15), plus three years of bi-monthly security updates.

Motorola's software looks a lot like AOSP with some added in-house features and finishing touches.

Something as simple as a font can add a lot of personality though, and Motorola has been doing that expertly. An AI-generated wallpaper option is also offered if you're after personalization, because AI everything - Motorola calls it Style sync and the idea is to have a wallpaper tailor-made to your outfit today.

The customizations live in the usual Moto app 'hub', which has been restyled for this iteration. Things are now more neatly organized, with the categories that have a lot of entries, like Gestures, fitting things on a single page, no scrolling required.

Moto app

Speaking of, the info page for each gesture now has an even better visual explanation as to how the gesture should work.

More Moto app

Smart Connect is the new combined name for the features that involve connecting the phone to a PC, tablet, or standalone displays, be it wired or wirelessly. Streaming, mobile desktop, phone to PC, smart sharing, smart clipboard, cross control and more - all features are here under one roof.

Smart Connect

Moto Unplugged and Family Space are two features meant to restrict access to apps and features for one of two reasons - relaxing or staying focused yourself, on the one hand, or limiting a child's phone usage, on the other.

Moto Unplugged • Moto Unplugged • Family Space

Motorola made big improvements to the stylus' feature set.

When you remove the stylus from the phone, you get a floating menu with customizable options - open a new note, take a screenshot, free crop, gif maker, handwriting calculator. You can add or remove apps and settings from this menu, which is handy.

Notes • Screenshot • Free crop

Taking notes is super easy, and the screen and the stylus are nicely responsive. We also found the handwriting calculator quite handy. It supports quite advanced calculations, including integrals!

Handwriting calculator

The free crop and write from the screen is neat, too, and it will probably be one of the most used stylus functions.

There is also support for starting a note when the screen is turned off.

Performance and benchmarks

The Motorola Moto G Stylish 5G (2024) is powered by the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chip, just like the LATAM version of the Edge 50 Fusion. That chip was announced in 2022, but it started popping up in devices in Q1 of 2023. It is manufactured on an efficient and modern Samsung 4nm node.

The CPU setup has two clusters - four ARM Cortex-A78 cores, clocked at up to 2.2 GHz and another four Cortex-A55 ones, working at up to 1.8 GHz. The onboard GPU is an Adreno 710.

The Moto G Stylus 5G (2024) is available in two configurations with LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 2.2 storage - 8GB + 128GB and 8GB + 256GB (ours).

Let's jump into some benchmarks now.

The CPU performance is plenty adequate for the class, while the GPU offers average scores but promises to get the job done without many hiccups.

The compound test AnTuTu returned a solid score, too.

Finally, the sustained performance is excellent - the Moto G Stylus scored 85% of CPU and 99% of GPU stability.

The Moto G Stylus has a good chip that provides good performance for the class. The Android OS runs lag-free and nicely fluid; most games do run rather well, too. Sure, the G Stylus 5G 2024 is not a gaming phone, but it sure is no slouch either.