Technologies

The New Moto G Power 5G Gets a Better Display, but Shorter Battery Life

Motorola says the $299 Moto G Power 5G will get 38 hours of battery life.

With its new $299 Moto G Power 5G, Motorola appears to be focusing on more than just a long battery life. The phone, announced Thursday, is part of Motorola’s affordable G series and gains a number of notable hardware updates over last year’s version, including 5G compatibility, an upgraded display and new front-facing camera. But those changes may come at a cost, since the new version of the G Power is priced $100 higher than its predecessor and is rated for shorter battery life. The Moto G Power 5G will be available unlocked, meaning it can be used on any carrier, starting April 13.

Improvements include a 6.5-inch display with a 1080p resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. That high refresh rate, which makes animations smoother when browsing the web or using apps, is rare for a phone under $300. Phones in this price range usually top out at around 90Hz.

The Moto G Power’s front-facing camera has a new 16-megapixel sensor, compared to 8 megapixels on last year’s version. Hopefully the newer sensor will improve the quality of selfie photos and video chats. The main rear camera has a 50-megapixel resolution just like last year, along with a 2-megapixel macro camera and 2-megapixel depth sensor for portrait mode.

Rear and front of Moto G 5G in Mineral Black — The Moto G Power 5G will also be available in Mineral Black.

Motorola

The phone will also include either 128GB or 256GB of storage — which is quite roomy for a $299 phone — with the option of adding 1TB of space with a microSD card. The G Power 5G also has either 4GB or 6GB of RAM, depending on the model, stereo speakers, a headphone jack, and comes with a 10W charger though its max charging speed is 15 watts.

Battery life has long been one of the Moto G Power’s high points, but it looks like Motorola may have scaled that back on the new model. Motorola expects the new Moto G Power’s 5,000 mAh battery to provide 38 hours of battery life, while last year’s version was said to last for three days on a single charge. Additionally, the Moto G Power’s 5,000 mAh battery no longer feels as unique as it once did now that more phones under $500 have the same capacity.

My recent experience with the $170 2023 Moto G Play makes me concerned about the new Moto G Power. Even though the Play easily gets two days of battery life (and potentially a third), the phone’s MediaTek Helio G37 processorwas so laggy that some apps wouldn’t load. The Moto G Power runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 930 processor — which could be fine — but I’ll have to test it to be sure it can run basic apps with ease.

Still, if the Moto G Power 5G does indeed have enough power — as it should, given its name — it could be a really great value for $299.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for June 9, #463

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle No. 463 for June 9.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Todays NYT Strands puzzle features a bunch of mysterious words. Some are a bit difficult to unscramble so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: What you see isn’t what you get

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Hiding in plain sight

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

CALL, CALLS, FALL, FALLS, SAME, SEAM, LAND, ROSE, COVE, CANE, CANES, FLUME, FLUMES, DIGS, MEAL, COLA, CARD, CASE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

MASK, CLOAK, COVER, FACADE, DISGUISE, CAMOUFLAGE

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is FALSEFRONT. To find it, start with the F that’s two rows over from the far left and two letters down. Wind around into a question mark.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for June 9, #729

Here are some hints and the answers for Connections for June 9, No. 729.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Do you play the NYT Spelling Bee? If you do, you should be able to ace the purple category in today’s NYT Connections puzzle. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Control-C.

Green group hint: Don’t wait till the last minute.

Blue group hint: Pals to plan a heist.

Purple group hint: Think another NYT online game.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Keyboard shortcut commands.

Green group: Secure in advance.

Blue group: Crime organization.

Purple group: Spellling Bee ranks minus a letter.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is keyboard shortcut commands. The four answers are paste, print, quit and save.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is secure in advance. The four answers are book, order, request and reserve.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is crime organization. The four answers are crew, family, ring and syndicate.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Spelling Bee ranks minus a letter. The four answers are genus, goo, mazing and slid. (Genius, good, amazing and solid.)

Technologies

I Made Google Translate My Default on iPhone Before a Trip and It Saved Me More Than Once

Google Translate supports far more languages than Apple’s app, and it’s easy to make the switch.

If you’re traveling overseas this summer, the Google Translate app can come in handy to quickly translate a road sign or conversation. The latest Google Translate update allows you to pick the app as your default translation app for Apple iPhones and iPads running iOS and iPadOS 18.4 and later. Previously, you were limited to the built-in Apple option.

Google began leveraging AI to boost Google Translate’s offerings, adding 110 languages last year to increase its total support for 249 languages. Compare that to Apple Translate, which supports 19 languages. Neither Google nor Apple responded to a request for comment.

Both apps offer voice and text translation, including a camera feature that lets you instantly translate by pointing your camera at text. Both also allow you to use translation features without an internet connection, which can come in particularly handy when traveling to more remote locations.

After using both, I found that the Google Translate picked up speech a little quicker so I didn’t have to constantly repeat myself, and the audio pronunciations were a little easier to understand than on Apple Translate. I switched to Google Translate as the default on my iPhone, and here’s how you can, too.