Moto G9 Power review

GSMArena Team, 29 January 2021.

Display

The Moto GP Power offers a large 6.8-inch IPS LCD screen with basic HD+ resolution and a 20:9 aspect ratio. The sharpness is far from ideal at 263ppi, but the phone is rather cheap, so it's not unexpected. The panel has a punch-hole cutout around the top left corner and in that whole is the selfie camera.

Moto G9 Power review

There is no information on the screen's protective glass, so we can't tell for sure where it's a Gorilla or something else.

The first thing you'll probably notice is the uneven backlight around the selfie cutout. This has always been an issue with LCD screens, especially ones of lower quality, and there is no workaround. You will get used to it, eventually, and it's only really prominent against light backgrounds.

Moto G9 Power review

The Moto G9 Power screen doesn't look that bright, and our display test confirms it. We measured a maximum brightness of 435nits in manual mode and 521nits in auto mode. It's an average result for an LCD screen, so screen legibility may not be stellar on a bright sunny day.

The black levels of the Moto G8 Power screen turned out quite good, and overall, the panel offers an excellent contrast ratio of 1680:1.

The minimum brightness at the far left of the scrubber is just 3 nits, which is a great one.

Display test 100% brightness
Black,cd/m2 White,cd/m2 Contrast ratio
Moto G9 Power 0.259 435 1680:1
Moto G9 Power (Max Auto) 0.325 521 1603:1
Motorola Moto G8 Power 0.341 500 1466:1
Motorola Moto G8 Power (Max Auto) 0.53 741 1398:1
Motorola Moto G9 Plus 0.315 427 1356:1
Motorola Moto G9 Plus (Max Auto) 0.39 522 1338:1
Motorola Moto G8 Plus 0.317 477 1505:1
Motorola Moto G8 Plus (Max Auto) 0.395 581 1471:1
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S 0.303 421 1389:1
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S (Max Auto) 0.42 575 1369:1
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T 0.337 413 1226:1
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T (Max Auto) 0.412 471 1143:1
Realme 7 0.31 457 1474:1
Realme 7 (Max Auto) 0.374 526 1406:1
Realme 7 5G 0.376 484 1287:1
Realme 7 5G (Max Auto) 0.667 571 856:1
Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC 0.354 460 1299:1
Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC (Max Auto) 0.515 631 1225:1
Poco M3 0.252 395 1567:1
Poco M3 (Max Auto) 0.277 439 1585:1
Samsung Galaxy A42 5G 0 395
Samsung Galaxy A42 5G (Max Auto) 0 570
Huawei P40 Lite 0.425 461 1085:1
Huawei P40 Lite (Max Auto) 0.501 515 1028:1

The Moto G9 Power offers three color modes - Natural, Boosted, Saturated (default). The color reproduction isn't great when you are using the default setting - we measured an average deltaE of 5.4 against sRGB targets and a maximum deviation of 8.2. There is a noticeable blue tinge here. Choosing Boosted yields similar results.

If you opt for Natural colors, the accuracy improves, and we captured an average deltaE of 2.7 against sRGB targets - a pretty great one.

Battery life

The Moto G9 Power has one of the beefiest batteries within a smartphone - a massive 6,000mAh cell. According to Motorola, it should last you about 60 hours on a single charge.

Well, we've put the G9 Power through our battery life test, and it did splendidly. The G9 Power outdid its predecessor and scored a magnificent endurance rating of 155 hours. It did splendidly in all scenarios - video, calls, web browsing and even stand-by performance.

Moto G9 Power review

We do appreciate the Moto G9 Power massive battery, but we can't but feel some of its potential has been wasted by the fact that it doesn't support reverse charging, so you can't use it as a powerbank.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating above denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Moto G9 Power for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so that our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritty. You can check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.

Charging speed

The Moto G9 Power supports 20W Turbo Charge, and a 20W adapter is included as part of the retail bundle. Don't expect a miracle, though, especially with that large battery.

Just like previous Moto G models, this G9 Power isn't charging that speedy. In fact, 20% for 30 minutes is rather sluggish.

30min charging test (from 0%)

  • Realme 7 Pro
    94%
  • Realme 7
    58%
  • Poco X3 NFC
    55%
  • Motorola Moto G9 Plus
    54%
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S
    37%
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T
    33%
  • Motorola Moto G9 Play
    31%
  • Motorola Moto G8 Power
    29%
  • Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
    27%
  • Poco M3
    25%
  • Motorola Moto G9 Power
    20%

You need about 75 minutes to hit the 50% mark, while a complete top-up takes 2 hours and 19 minutes.

Time to full charge (from 0%)

  • Realme 7 Pro
    0:37h
  • Realme 7
    1:05h
  • Motorola Moto G9 Plus
    1:15h
  • Poco X3 NFC
    1:15h
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S
    1:45h
  • Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T
    1:50h
  • Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
    2:01h
  • Motorola Moto G9 Power
    2:19h
  • Poco M3
    2:30h
  • Motorola Moto G9 Play
    2:39h

Speaker loudness and quality

The Moto G9 Power has one bottom-firing speaker, and that's quite disappointing. The Moto G8 Power had one very loud stereo speaker setup; it was one of its key features, in fact. But for reasons unknown, Motorola gave that feature the boot.

So, the one speaker on the G9 Power scored an Average mark on our speaker test. As for the quality - it's okay but not as good as on the G8 Power. While the G9 model offers some bass and okay mid-tones, it seems to completely lack in the high-frequency range.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.

Reader comments

  • Rpr
  • 21 Dec 2022
  • y6V

Bought this phone in 2021 on a flash sale for only around $100. So far, still working fine. For ordinary phone users and not heavy into gaming nor social media, this is pretty much a good reliable phone. It comes with a good storage size that's...

  • K7
  • 16 Nov 2022
  • rKi

Suddenly hanging and front camera is show the face is light red colour and back camera is new phone standard still (20th months)don't have other wise good

  • Sabina.
  • 24 Feb 2022
  • S4h

Thank U for Your warning,i was almost about to buy it for my girlfriend.It has so good opinions elsewhere else,even in main discussion here,no such problem mentioned,glad to find this,i failed previously & bought Her a phone,which was full of err...