moto g9 power ( 6.8" Max Vision HD+, Qualcomm Snapdragon, 64MP triple camera system, 6000 mAH battery, Dual SIM, 4/128GB, Android 10), Metallic Sage

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Giving you a much bigger yet much less defined canvass, resulting in a paltry 263ppi output, seems like an odd decision from Motorola. I get that the Moto G9 Power is all about prioritising battery life, but the cost to clarity is too much. 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.

To put that in perspective, the Moto G9 Power lasted four and a half hours longer than the Moto G8 Power under the same conditions and I didn’t have any issues in squeezing out more than two days of use while testing. When I took the phone out and about to do my usual array of camera tests, the battery level indicator fell a mere 4%. Motorola Moto G9 Power review: Cameras Of course not everyone needs the raw power of top-end flagships – in fact it's probably fair to say that the majority don't – and during our time with the Moto G9 Power we didn't notice any real slowdowns. From photo editing to podcast playing, the smartphone was responsive and fast enough to provide a polished user experience. While both the cheaper Moto G9 phones have 720p screens, the Moto G9 Plus gets the Full HD+ treatment, with a resolution of 1,080 x 2,400. That, combined with the massive 6.8in screen, gives you around 386 pixels per inch. There’s even a pleasant surprise for night shooting. Typically, lower-end phones in the Moto G series do not have Motorola’s Night Vision shooting mode, but the Moto G9 Play does.

One of the best phones on a budget

There’s also a 16MP selfie camera, as before, which turns out pretty sharp results as these things go. The G9 Power lays on 128GB of internal storage, which is a strong provision, if hardly unique for the money. You can expand that amount via a microSD slot too. 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.

Motorola makes sparing, judicious tweaks here and there, many of which are accumulated in the classy Moto app. Here you can learn about Moto Gesture, which lets you do things like activate the torch with two chop motions, or twist twice to open the camera app. The result? The Moto G9 Play is perfectly pleasant to use, and we were not in a rush to switch to a different phone when the review period came to an end. For a handset this affordable, that is a solid endorsement. There’s no IP rating here, but Motorola does speak of a “water-repellent design” to give you some rain protection. In most situations it makes ample use of HDR to lift the shadows while retaining highlight detail. And while a lot of our photos have a slight purple/red skew, the Moto G9 Play’s color is reasonably lifelike when shooting in daylight.The Moto G9 Power is even more of a specialist tool than previous models in the range, for better and for worse. 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. You don't get 5G with the Moto G9 Power, we should point out. That's not uncommon at this end of the market, and at the moment it's not a huge problem – 5G has yet to find its way to large swathes of the world. If you're looking for a smartphone that's fully future-proofed, however, it's something to bear in mind. Battery life The Moto G9 Play has three rear cameras but this feels like a single-camera phone because you only get one field of view. There’s no zoom, no ultra-wide. At 6000 mAh, this is Motorola’s biggest battery ever, and certainly the biggest I’ve ever seen in a phone. The Moto G8 Power, by contrast, weighed in with a relatively wimpy 5000 mAh cell.