Moto G Stylus 2022: Should anyone bother with a phone and stylus that isn’t a Galaxy Note?

At the moment, the Galaxy Note sits uncontested as there is no other flagship device that comes with a stylus, leaving the budget space empty. To fill the void, many have taken the opportunity with one of them being the Motorola Moto G Stylus. There are already 3 iterations of the model, with the latest being the Moto G Stylus 2022 which offers a stylus experience for USD 299 (RM1,249.22). But what corners have Motorola’s licensed manufacturer, Lenovo, had to cut to fit the phone in the budget class?

The first budget thing you will feel is the body of the phone, which is made out of polycarbonate – or plastic – and comes in Twilight Blue or Metallic Rose. The canvas upfront is a 6.8”, 90Hz LCD panel with a FHD+ resolution and a 20:9 aspect ratio. It is paired to a MediaTek Helio G88 SoC with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage with the option to expanded up to 512GB via a microSD card. It runs on Android 11 with Moto’s My UX interface on top and will be getting Android 12 soon. Disappointingly, according to cnet.com, Motorola has only committed to 1 OS update after Android 12.

At the top of the screen, there is a punch-hole cutout to house the 16MP front camera and a speaker grill. At the back, you will find a triple camera layout with a 50MP main shooter, 8MP ultrawide lens, and an 8MP macro lens. There is also a 2MP depth sensor and the phone uses a laser autofocus system. 

On the right frame, there is a power button, which doubles as a fingerprint sensor, and a volume rocker. At the bottom, there is – shockingly – a 3.5mm headphone jack, USB type C port, speaker grill, and the stylus dock. There is no mention if the speakers support stereo audio.

Providing juice to the phone is a huge 5000mAh battery which Motorola claims to last 2 days on a single charge.. For comparisons, The Verge reported its predecessors with a 4000mAh battery and a Snapdragon 678 SoC also claimed a 2-day battery life but only provided just a little over a day of battery life. Speaking about its predecessor, it had an NFC module which is omitted in the new device. This was a bad decision on Lenovo’s part as it restricts the user from using contactless payment service like Google Pay and easy pairing with other NFC enabled devices. Furthermore, if you get the upcoming NFC enabled Touch n’ Go card, you will not be able to reload the balance with this phone, but I digress.

The highlight of the Moto G Stylus is that it comes with a stylus that can be docked inside the phone. That is where the similarities between this and the Galaxy Note ends. The stylus of the Moto G Stylus 2022 looks similar to the stylus from the previous generation model and Motorola did not mention any improvements made to the stylus. In fact, the product page does not state any features of they stylus other than it can be used to navigate, write, and draw. Thus, it is safe to assume that the stylus has been carried over from the previous generation, just in a different body design. The stylus here is just a stick with a large and blunt touch sensitive nib, like the PDAs of old. The experience is similar to using a marker pen, thus writing will not be as precise. Nevertheless, you can still use it for writing and drawing on a notes app, but it would just emulate your fingers albeit relatively more precisely. Moreover, Motorola did not create any stylus specific drivers to optimise the writing experience, hence you will notice a latency between your stylus strokes and the line being displayed. But the 90Hz display on the 2022 model should alleviate some of that latency.

By contrast, the S Pen on the Galaxy Note comes with a pen-like nib and houses electronic components. Together with Samsung’s algorithms and drivers to optimise the hardware and software, writing and drawing on a Galaxy Note feels similar to writing with a pen and paper.

Now, Samsung’s first Galaxy Note did not offer the ultimate stylus experience as there were many flaws, which is to be expected from a first generation product. However, with each iteration of the Galaxy Note, Samsung kept refining the phone-stylus formula until it made the Galaxy Note the pinnacle of writing and drawing experience on a mobile device with the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. Samsung’s Note 20 series offers users every feature that is possible using a stylus. Features like off screen memo, which allows you to quickly jot down notes without the need to unlock the phone. You can use the S Pen to hover over the calendar date and get a popup preview of the events planned on that day.

The recent iteration of S Pen also gets Bluetooth connectivity which expands its capabilities by introducing Air Actions. This feature – which is a gimmick in my opinion – uses the accelerometer and gyroscope built into the S pen to allow you to mime a symbol in the air with the S Pen and have it activate an app or action on the phone. Another feature that the Bluetooth enabled S Pen brings is the ability to use the function button on the pen as a shutter key for the camera.

Additionally, Samsung also poured a lot of time and effort into making the Samsung Notes app as feature rich as possible so there is no need for a 3rd party app. As for the hardware, the Galaxy Note 20 is capable of differentiating up to 4,096 levels of pressure allowing you to draw a thicker line with a hard press and thinner lines with a soft press. Furthermore, the latency between the display and S Pen is an impressive 9ms, creating the feeling of writing with a pen and paper.

These features and hardware are exclusive to the Note Series with the S Pen and you cannot find a similar experience elsewhere in the smartphone market. Samsung’s hardware and software optimisation has made the Galaxy Note series a joy to use for taking notes or drawing a picture. It is worth noting that the next Galaxy Note successor will come in the form of the Galaxy S22 Ultra which is set to launch next week.

Some of you might say that the Galaxy Note has all these features because its a premium smartphone while the Moto G Stylus is a budget smartphone and therefore is not able to include these features due to cost restraints. While it isn’t fair to compare the Moto G Stylus 2022 to a flagship class device like the Galaxy Note 20, I wished Motorola put more effort in getting the phone and stylus experience right. At the very basic, they could have provided a pen-like nib and offer a lower latency between the screen and stylus.

In Malaysia at least, Motorola has been absent in the smartphone scene for some time, only to resurface back in November 2021 with 2 new offerings – Motorola Edge 20 Pro and Motorola e40. The sales, marketing and after sales service will be handled by Lenovo. There is no news if the Moto G Stylus will be offered in Malaysia. But if Lenovo does introduce the phone, it needs to take advantage of the fact that the Moto G Stylus is one of the rare phones to offer a built-in stylus in the budget space.

So then, does the Moto G Stylus provide a good enough writing experience for its asking price of around RM1,250? In my opinion, the phone doesn’t warrant a premium for having this generic stylus being included as it doesn’t bring anything to the writing experience.

If you’re looking a for a Galaxy Note-like experience, you will only find it on a Galaxy Note. Therefore, if you’re serious about writing or drawing on a mobile device, you should just pay Samsung and get a Galaxy Note. A cheaper option would be to pay someone else and get a second-hand Galaxy Note for the same asking price as the Moto G Stylus.

If you’re unsure about getting the best deal on the second-hand market and prefer the piece of mind that a brand new phone brings, like a warranty and newer hardware, there is a third option. Get a budget or a mid-range smartphone from brands like Xiaomi, Samsung, or Honor, and pair it with a 3rd party stylus accessory. You will most likely get a much better “Note” experience compared to the Moto G Stylus.

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