Moto G9 Power review

Android 10 with Moto spices

The Moto G9 Power boots a near-stock version of Android 10 spiced up with a bunch of Moto apps and tricks. The phone unlocks via the rear-mounted fingerprint scanner - it is plenty fast and mostly accurate (the thick case may get in the way sometimes).

The Moto G9 Power relies on gesture navigation via a single elongated button in the center. Swiping upwards takes you to the home screen, a swipe up with a pause brings out the recent apps menu, swiping on the pill (left or right) switches between the last used apps.

If you want Back, then just swipe anywhere from the edge of the screen. By the way, if you swipe from the bottom corners, you'll summon Google's Assistant.

If, on the other hand, you want to have the classic three-button navigation, you switch to it from Settings.

System navigation

The Moto app offers a variety of smart Moto gestures for interacting with the phone - including a karate chop for toggling the flashlight on or off, twist motion to launch the camera app, three-finger screenshot gesture, accelerometer-based ringtone silencing.

Moto app • Moto app • Styles

There are also various personalization options, including Styles, where you can change various system icons and layouts, choose between different shapes, fonts, and colors.

Moto Gestures • Moto Display • Peek Display • Attentive display • Gametime

Moto Display consists of just two options, and the more important one is Peek Display - the not-always-on display. It will display notifications and let you interact with them right there on the lock screen, plus it will wake up when you pick up your phone. Another feature, Attentive display, will keep the screen on as long as you are looking at it.

All of these aside, the rest is pretty much Android 10 as Google intended it to be. Google's apps handle the multimedia, too - you get Photos and YT Music. The G9 Power supports FM radio, and Moto has pre-installed a proper app for that.

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Folder view • App drawer • Task switcher • Quick toggles

Everything else that comes pre-installed on the Moto G9 Power are all Google apps.

Photos • FM radio • FM radio

Performance and benchmarks

The Moto G9 Power is powered by the Snapdragon 662 - a midrange Qualcomm chip, made on an 11nm manufacturing process. It is quite similar to the Snapdragon 665 inside the previous Moto G8 Power, but with a refreshed connectivity options and DSP.

So, the SD662 packs an octa-core CPU in a 4x2.0GHz Kryo 260 Gold (A73 derivative) & 4x1.8GHz Kryo 260 Silver (A53 derivative) arrangement and an Adreno 610 GPU. The Moto G9 Power is sold in a single RAM and storage configuration - 4GB RAM and 128GB.

There is one key difference between the Moto G9 Power and Moto G8 Power - the new model has an HD display, while the old one had a Full HD panel. This means the G9 Power screen isn't that sharp, but it will run games much smoother than the G8 Power due to the lower pixel count.

Let's see what the benchmark scores tell us, shall we?

The processor performance isn't terrible, but obviously, there are faster phones in the same price bracket.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  1862
• Redmi Note 9S
  1785
• Poco X3 NFC
  1777
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T
  1775
• Realme 7
  1681
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  1402
• Poco M3
  1398
• Motorola Moto G8 Power
  1394
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  1385
• Motorola Moto G9 Power
  1374
• Realme 6i
  1349
• Xiaomi Redmi 9 (Prime)
  1325
• Realme 7i
  1318

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T
  595
• Huawei P40 Lite
  591
• Redmi Note 9S
  570
• Poco X3 NFC
  568
• Realme 7
  536
• Realme 6i
  388
• Xiaomi Redmi 9 (Prime)
  362
• Motorola Moto G9 Power
  315
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  314
• Realme 7i
  312
• Motorola Moto G8 Power
  311
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  310
• Poco M3
  308

The Adreno 610 raw performance isn't up to par. The offscreen tests are done in 1080p resolution, and it's obvious this GPU is rather weak.

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Realme 7
  34
• Huawei P40 Lite
  34
• Poco X3 NFC
  33
• Redmi Note 9S
  30
• Realme 6i
  16
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  13
• Motorola Moto G9 Power
  13
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  13
• Motorola Moto G8 Power
  13
• Poco M3
  13
• Realme 7i
  13

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  21
• Realme 7
  20
• Poco X3 NFC
  19
• Redmi Note 9S
  18
• Realme 6i
  9.4
• Motorola Moto G9 Power
  7.2
• Poco M3
  7.2
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  7.1
• Motorola Moto G8 Power
  7.1
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  7
• Realme 7i
  7

The Moto G9 Power doesn't have a 1080p screen, though, so it does much better when running HD graphics on its HD screen. In fact, it offers nearly as much power as the popular Poco X3 NFC phone and its Adreno 618 GPU under a 1080p screen. This means the Moto G9 Power will do well in gaming, provided you don't expect flagship-grade smoothness.

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Realme 6i
  31
• Huawei P40 Lite
  30
• Realme 7
  28
• Poco X3 NFC
  27
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  26
• Motorola Moto G9 Power
  26
• Redmi Note 9S
  26
• Realme 7i
  25
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  12
• Motorola Moto G8 Power
  12
• Poco M3
  11

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  18
• Realme 7
  17
• Realme 6i
  17
• Poco X3 NFC
  16
• Redmi Note 9S
  15
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  13
• Motorola Moto G9 Power
  13
• Realme 7i
  13
• Motorola Moto G8 Power
  6.6
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  6.5
• Poco M3
  5.9

The lower screen resolution is probably why the Moto G9 Power scores better than the Moto G8 Power with a similar chipset. Anyway, the G9 Power got an average AnTuTu score - it surely isn't among the leaders, but it's not around the bottom of the chart either.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Huawei P40 Lite
  325777
• Realme 7
  292828
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T
  288732
• Poco X3 NFC
  283750
• Redmi Note 9S
  254000
• Realme 6i
  202275
• Xiaomi Redmi 9 (Prime)
  201829
• Motorola Moto G9 Power
  182875
• Poco M3
  177904
• Motorola Moto G8 Power
  173607
• Realme 7i
  172933
• Motorola Moto G9 Play
  170064
• Motorola Moto G8 Plus
  168699

So, the Moto G9 Power has a feeble chip, but it behaves quite well under the 720p screen. The phone isn't that fast, and you can sometimes feel the interface tripping over its feet - it's not particularly laggy, but it just doesn't feel fast and responsive. But we've seen phones like the Poco M3 (with its Full HD screen) behave much worse when it comes to UI responsiveness, let alone gaming.

If you tune your expectations accordingly - it's a €180 phone after all - we think you'd find the Moto G9 Power performance acceptable, if not good enough. And it earns some extra points for being able to run games rather well.

Finally, the Moto G9 Power has excellent cooling, and it never gets warm and never throttles. In fact, it scored a 99.9% stability score on the Wild Life 3D Stress Test by 3D Mark, which is great.