Moto G9 (Play) review

Clean Android with a few Moto features on the side

The Moto G9 Play comes with the same software as other Motorola devices from this year - clean Android 10 with a couple of added Moto-specific features. However, the G9 Play does miss on several of them compared to the Moto G 5G Plus and the Moto G Pro, but it's kind of expected being the most affordable from the bunch.

You can get familiar with those features right from the get-go as the system will prompt a message that, once tapped on, will take you through most, if not all, of the so-called Moto Actions. There's also a comprehensive guide to the "new" Android gestures. The new bit here is that you can adjust the sensitivity of the back gesture so you don't perform an unwanted back gesture when swiping in apps. The option to use the good old three software buttons is, of course, available.

Home screen, notification shade, recent apps and general settings menu

Anyway, the Moto Actions include screen-on and off gestures like a lift-to-unlock gesture that lights up the screen once you pick up the device, which works well in combination with the face unlock. The iconic karate chop motion is here to turn on the flashlight. Undoubtedly one of the best screen-off gestures around. The same goes for the twisting motion of the wrist when holding the phone to open up the camera app.

Motorola's additional features

The Moto Display section includes three options - Peek Display, Attentive Display, and Screenshot toolkit. The latter is pretty self-explanatory, while the Attentive Display keeps the screen awake as long as you are looking at it. It comes in handy when reading a long article without interacting with the screen.

As for the Peek Display, it works like the Ambient Display on OnePlus phones and other similar features. As soon as you move the phone or touch the screen, a small area of the display will light up with the time, date and notifications. You can even interact with the notifications without having to unlock the device. However, the proximity sensor doesn't work all the time like in other Motorola phones where it will light up the display before you even touch the device.

UI customization options

We've noted before, and we will note it again - we are glad to see the system-wide dark mode working as it should. The previous iteration of the software had some issues with the Dark Mode, so it's nice to have all the menus, including the drop-down in black. Keep in mind, however, that Dark Mode has battery saving benefits only for OLED screens. It's just the opposite with LCDs.

Moto Display options

New to Motorola's software is the ability to customize most of the UI all in one place. The Styles sub-menu under the Display section gives you control over the icon pack, fonts, accent colors, and even the shape of the icons and the quick toggles in the drop-down menu.

Last, but not least, the fingerprint reader's performance is outstanding. Rarely did we have to place our finger more than once to unlock the device, and the snappiness makes the unlocking experience even better. It does feel faster than most of the mid-range under-display fingerprint implementations if that's of any concern to you.

Motorola is famous for going with older SoCs for its budget-oriented devices, but it seems that in 2020, Motorola has learned a thing or two over the past couple of years. The handset comes with a 2020 Snapdragon 662 chipset based on the 11nm manufacturing process employing an octa-core CPU consisting of 4x Kryo 260 Gold cores clocked at 2.0 GHz and 4x Kryo 260 Silver cores running at 1.8 GHz. The Gold cores are based on the Cortex-A73 design, while the Silver derivatives are based on the energy-efficient Cortex-A53 cores.

On the GPU front, we have an Adreno 610. The SoC holds 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable internal storage. These two have been doubled since the last generation, so the change is very welcome.

Here's how it stacks against competing handsets with different SoCs.

GeekBench 4.4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Realme 6i
  5890
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  5655

GeekBench 4.4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Realme 6i
  1835
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  1510

GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Redmi Note 9S
  1785
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  1402
• Realme 6i
  1349
• Redmi Note 9
  1292
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  1100

GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Redmi Note 9S
  570
• Realme 6i
  388
• Redmi Note 9
  361
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  314
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  184

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Redmi Note 9S
  254000
• Realme 6i
  202275
• Redmi Note 9
  200414
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  170064
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  107157

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Redmi Note 9S
  30
• Realme 6i
  16
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  9.4

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Realme 6i
  31
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  26
• Redmi Note 9S
  26
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  19

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Redmi Note 9S
  18
• Realme 6i
  9.4
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  7
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  6

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Realme 6i
  17
• Redmi Note 9S
  15
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  11

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1440p

Higher is better

• Redmi Note 9S
  2357
• Realme 6i
  1347
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  1103
• Samsung Galaxy A21s
  901

Benchmarks aside, we did notice that the software doesn't feel as snappy as we'd expect it to be. One would expect that the main advantage of the vanilla Android is the relatively smoother and faster operations. However, the Moto G9 Play feels slightly sluggish, and animations seem to be slowed down intentionally to mask that.