Technologies
I Tested the New $300 Moto G Power: Great Battery Life but Not Enough Elsewhere
Review: The 2026 budget Motorola phone lasts for two days on a single battery charge, but it’s not more powerful than others in the Moto G lineup.
Our Experts
Pros
- Classy looks
- Long battery life
- Ultrawide camera expands photo options
Cons
- Sluggish performance
- Lacks wireless charging
I find the new $300 Moto G Power to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing budget phones I’ve tested. I just wish the 2026 model offered some elevated features and improved functionality to accompany its elegant look.
For example, my review unit came with the Pantone pure cashmere vegan leather back cover. Its metal-finished sides have a champagne color that complements the back, giving it a classy look.
But I was sorely disappointed to see wireless charging removed from the 2026 model after it was included on previous Moto G Power models, which, to me, provided substantial value for a phone in this price range. Motorola appears to have made up for it by beefing up the battery, along with touching up the cameras.
I appreciated the improved battery life, which easily stretches into a second day of moderate use on a single charge. I can also take a few nice photos with the camera when there’s good lighting, but indoor and low-light environments can lead to some blurriness.
Most of these compromises are typical of this price range. Yet what concerns me most is that the 2026 Moto G Power uses the same processor as last year’s model, and is identical to what Motorola includes in the $200 Moto G. At a time when there are an incredible number of affordable phones for people to choose from, it’s disappointing to see how Motorola’s approach undercuts many of the features that made previous Moto G Power models stand out from the crowd. As I tested the new Power, I couldn’t help but question whether this year’s phone offers enough to justify the extra $100, when some aspects feel identical to those cheaper Moto models.
The Moto G Power comes with two years of software updates and three years of security updates, which is a common offering in this price range, but falls short of the six-year commitment Samsung provides for its budget phones.
Moto G Power (2026) design, features, battery
The Moto G Power’s highlight feature is its 5,200-mAh battery, which easily lasted me nearly two days between charges. While the battery size is the same as what Motorola provides in the cheaper $200 Moto G, I’m glad to see the Power’s two-day battery life, considering it has a bigger, higher-resolution display.
30-Minute wired fast charging test
| Phone | Percent increase | Battery capacity | Wall plug wattage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motorola Moto G Power (2026) | 56% | 5,000mAh | 30W |
| Motorola Moto G Play (2026) | 35% | 5,200mAh | 18W |
| Samsung Galaxy A36 | 31% | 5,000mAh | 45W |
| Motorola Moto G Power (2025) | 61% | 5,000mAh | 30W |
During a 45-minute endurance test, the Moto G Power’s battery level depleted from 100% to 93% — that’s better than last year’s Power, which dropped to 88%. The Power supports up to 30-watt wired charging, which recharged the battery from 0% to 56% in 30 minutes.
The 6.8-inch 1,080p display does the job when watching YouTube without significantly compromising video quality. I ran the display with the «hypersmooth» refresh rate option, supporting up to 120Hz, and the «vivid» color option. I wouldn’t say it looked particularly vivid, but it provided noticeable smoothness and color compared to the more muted displays on the cheaper Moto G phones. In cooking videos, the food looked good but not especially detailed.
Audio also plays loudly from the stereo speakers, making the Moto G Power particularly well-suited as a lower-cost media player for music and videos.
Gaming, however, is not a strong suit for the Moto G Power. Since the phone uses the same processor as last year’s Moto G Power and the Moto G, you may need to run games at lower graphics settings to ensure they work well. Most simple games will be fine, but I wouldn’t consider this a cheaper way to let your kid play Fortnite. Titles like the 2D dungeon crawling battles in Dead Cells look fine, but I tried to play Red Dead Redemption, and the opening cutscene seems unable to render characters and scenery.
During our benchmark testing, the MediaTek Dimensity 6300 performed very similarly to the $160 Moto G Play, which also runs on the same processor, although the cheaper phone has less onboard memory and storage.
3DMark Wild Life Extreme
Geekbench v.6.0
- Single-core
- Multicore
And this is where I have some confusion about the ways Motorola justifies the Moto G Power’s $300 price compared to $160 and $200 phones. When it comes to multitasking, the Power just doesn’t feel more powerful.
Even though the phone has 8GB of RAM, which is double the Moto G’s 4GB, I experienced noticeable sluggishness when opening and closing apps, loading games and taking video calls. I’m disappointed that the phone struggles with basic multitasking, such as texting while chatting on a video call. All these tasks work on the phone, but I needed to use Motorola’s RAM Boost feature, which converts a portion of the storage into RAM to help alleviate the bumps.
Moto G Power cameras
The Moto G Power’s cameras are identical to those of last year’s model. The 50-megapixel main camera is complemented by an 8-megapixel ultrawide camera, enabling the phone to be more versatile than the cheaper Moto G baseline phones, which have a single rear camera. The photos turn out OK for the price but aren’t especially detailed in most settings.
In ideal settings, such as a sunny window, photos taken with the 50-megapixel main camera at 1x and 2x zoom show off my friend’s cat, Charlie, soaking up the sun. Her orange coat fur is visible, although the actual details in her hair blur together when I zoomed in to 2x.
The ultrawide photo has a wider field of view and even picks up some of the scratches on the dining room table. No doubt that this scene’s stillness helped the camera take such a sharp and detailed image.
Scenes with slight motion, however, are noticeably challenging for the Moto G Power, especially in low light. In the nighttime street photo below, a slow-moving car in the scene is blurry. And the ultrawide photo appears even darker since its sensor captures less light.
Although the Moto G Power features a new 32-megapixel front-facing camera, up from last year’s 16-megapixel one, I still feel that the selfie camera struggles with detail. In one selfie I took at the well-lit German restaurant Schmidt’s in Columbus, Ohio, the photo looks like me, but details like my facial hair and skin feel smoothed over by noise reduction.
And in the even darker selfie photo below that I took at nighttime on a New York street, the image is blurry and lacks detail, especially in my hair.
I feel like the Moto G Power’s cameras are functional for most day-to-day quick photos, but if attending a more special occasion like a wedding, I would probably consider getting a disposable film camera.
Moto G Power (2026) bottom line
I wanted more from the $300 Moto G Power. It’s still a good phone for the price, even though I’m unconvinced by some of its changes. For instance, Qi wireless charging on the 2024 and 2025 editions was excellent, providing more options for using your phone. In 2026, the lack of wireless charging is a notable omission, especially if you’re coming from the 2024 model.
The Moto G Power’s long battery life is where the phone truly shines. It easily powers the big screen, which is great if you prioritize video streaming, browsing websites and using its speakers to play music. I wish the Moto G Power had a slightly more powerful processor, especially compared to its more affordable Moto G siblings.
If you just need a cheap Android phone and don’t care about having the bigger, higher-resolution screen, you could probably save money and go with the cheaper Moto G or Moto G Play. Or you could consider buying last year’s Moto G Power at a discount.
Although it’s not a particularly powerful phone, the 2026 Moto G Power at least offers a long-lasting battery and an elegant design for its price.
How we test phones
Every phone tested by CNET’s reviews team was used in the real world. We test a phone’s features, play games and take photos. We examine the display to see if it’s bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and build to determine how it holds up and whether it has an IP rating for water resistance. We push the processor’s performance to the extremes using standardized benchmark tools like GeekBench and 3DMark, along with our own anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution videos and playing graphically intense games at high refresh rates.
All the cameras are tested in a variety of conditions, from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We try out special features like night mode and portrait mode, and compare our findings against similarly priced competing phones. We also check out the battery life by using it daily, as well as running a series of battery drain tests.
We also consider additional features, such as support for 5G, satellite connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus support, fast charging speeds, and foldable displays, among others, that can be beneficial. We balance all of this against the price to give you the verdict on whether that phone, regardless of its price, actually represents good value. While these tests may not always be reflected in CNET’s initial review, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.
Technologies
Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for March 18, #1011
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 18 #1011.
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.
Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is pretty tricky, but musicians might find the blue group easy. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.
The Times 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 the 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: Time between two things, maybe.
Green group hint: That smarts!
Blue group hint: Rockers know these well.
Purple group hint: You might write one out to pay a bill.
Answers for today’s Connections groups
Yellow group: Interval.
Green group: React to a stubbed toe.
Blue group: Guitar effects pedals.
Purple group: ____ check.
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 interval. The four answers are patch, period, spell and stretch.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is react to a stubbed toe. The four answers are curse, hop, wince and yell.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is guitar effects pedals. The four answers are delay, reverb, wah and whammy.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is ____ check. The four answers are blank, coat, rain and reality.
Toughest Connections puzzles
We’ve made a note of some of the toughest Connections puzzles so far. Maybe they’ll help you see patterns in future puzzles.
#5: Included «things you can set,» such as mood, record, table and volleyball.
#4: Included «one in a dozen,» such as egg, juror, month and rose.
#3: Included «streets on screen,» such as Elm, Fear, Jump and Sesame.
#2: Included «power ___» such as nap, plant, Ranger and trip.
#1: Included «things that can run,» such as candidate, faucet, mascara and nose.
Technologies
My Kid Wanted Video Games. I Was Against It. This Console Gave Us Both the Win
The movement-based Nex Playground might be the antidote to parental screen time guilt.
When our 8-year-old started asking for video games, I knew we were about to engage in an uphill battle. Anytime we’ve been to friends’ houses with gaming consoles, he goes full zombie mode, then has an epic meltdown once the sensory overload wears off. And since he inevitably ropes his 6-year-old brother in, we’re essentially sealing both their fates.
So when our neighbors started raving about a movement-based gaming console called Nex Playground, my first instinct was to shut it down. The words «gaming console» alone were enough to put me in a mental block. Add in my own memories of Wii tennis sessions where I nearly took out the ceiling fan, and I was firmly in the «no» camp.
But after doing a little more research, I was intrigued enough to try it out.
Screen time isn’t something I take lightly. With three kids ages 2 to 8, my husband and I have always been intentional about how and what they watch. They don’t have their own tablets, and most of their screen time happens on our family TV, which means whatever the oldest is exposed to quickly trickles down to our toddler. So anything we bring into the house has to work for all of them. Tall order, I know, but the Nex Playground gets surprisingly close.
Getting started is easy
The console itself is refreshingly simple. It’s a small cube, slightly larger than a Rubik’s cube, with a circular camera and motion sensor, a light indicator and two ports for power, and an HDMI connection to the TV. There’s no controller beyond a basic remote for navigating menus. For most games, your body is the controller.
Setup is quick. Plug it in, connect it to your TV, and you’re ready to go. It doesn’t store video or upload footage to the cloud, which was an immediate plus. It also comes with a magnetic privacy cover that you can put on the lens when it’s not in use.
At $250, it’s not cheap, but it’s less than some of the popular gaming consoles for this age range, like the Nintendo Switch 2. That gets you a five-game starter pack: Fruit Ninja, Go Keeper (soccer), Starri (think Guitar Hero for your whole body), Party Fowl (an AR emoji frenzy) and Whack-a-Mole. Additional games require a subscription: $89 a year or $49 for three months, which unlocks a library of 50-plus games and counting. New titles dropped even as I was writing this.
The library spans a surprisingly wide range. There are board game adaptations like Connect Four and Candy Land, character-driven games with Peppa Pig, Bluey and the Ninja Turtles, and sports like baseball and, yes, tennis — minus the ceiling fan hazard. There’s even parent-friendly content like Zumba workouts, which I may or may not have fully committed to on a rainy afternoon.
Even my toddler has gotten in on the action, mostly bouncing her way through Hungry Hungry Hippos when her brothers finally concede.
Gameplay is where it wins
The movements range from swinging your arms to keep a ball in motion, hopping or full-body launches that are far more aggressive than what the game actually requires. (I’m not about to tell the kids otherwise.) After a 45-minute session, my kids are tired and sometimes even drenched in sweat. The Nex Playground entertains and burns energy in one fell swoop.
The graphics also seem intentionally simple and arcade-like, which fits the minimalist play experience. There’s no POV storyline to get lost in, no leveling up into a new world at 9 p.m. on a school night. Some games keep score, which awakens my kids’ competitive streak, but the vibe is more collaborative and hasn’t been the catalyst for more fighting like other games. If anything, it’s done the opposite.
I still don’t love defaulting to a screen when my kids are bored, so we try to use it in moderation. In our house, piano practice is the only thing that unlocks weekend play time, and the fact that they’ll sit at the piano for a full hour tells you everything you need to know.
The verdict that matters most
But the real test: Does it hold up to an 8-year-old who was dead set on a Nintendo Switch?
Short answer: yes. At least for now. He’d still pick the Switch if you asked him, but not for the reasons you’d expect.
«The Playground is more tiring,» he told me, which only helped seal the deal for me. His current favorite is Homerun Hitters. «It’s basically a baseball game where you go against ranked global players. Me and my brother are really good at it.»
This from a kid whose primary hobby is annoying his younger brother. The fact that he said «me and my brother» as a collective was an unexpected bonus.
The Switch may still show up on the Christmas list this year. And realistically, I know I’m on borrowed time. As kids get older, «cool» becomes the currency, and a motion-based cube probably won’t hold up against an Xbox or a Switch once playdates turn into side-by-side gaming sessions.
The Nex Playground isn’t a replacement for those. It’s more of a detour; it gives them a taste of gaming without all the usual side effects. Even if I do eventually cave, I can still see it sticking around for the occasional family game night or as a rainy-day sibling diffuser.
In the meantime, I’ll relish this simpler version of gaming while I still can. He’s not exactly rushing me to return this review unit. More importantly, neither am I.
Technologies
Don’t Wait for New Emoji in iOS 26.4, Here’s How to Create Them on Your Own
If your iPhone has Apple Intelligence, you can create your own emoji now.
Apple will likely add new emoji to your iPhone when the company releases iOS 26.4. Those new emoji could include an orca, a distorted smiley face and more. According to Emojipedia, there are 3,953 emoji with more on the way. The current list of emoji include smileys, sports players, weather conditions and flags. But there’s no emoji for a dog wearing pajamas, a plate with burgers and fries and many other things. But if you have Genmoji on your iPhone you can create these emoji and many more.
Apple released iOS 18.2 in 2024 and the company introduced its own emoji generator, called Genmoji, to Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones at that time. The Unicode Standard, a universal character encoding standard, is responsible for creating new emoji, and approved emoji are added to all devices once a year. With Genmoji, you don’t have to wait for new emoji to appear on your iPhone each year. You can just create them as you need them.
Read on to learn how to use Genmoji on iPhone to create your own custom emoji. Just note that only iPhones with Apple Intelligence, like the iPhone 17 lineup, can use Genmoji at this time.
How to make custom emoji
1. Open Messages and go into a chat.
2. Tap the plus (+) button next to your text box.
3. Tap Genmoji.
You can then type a description of an emoji into the text box near the bottom of your screen and tap the check mark on your keyboard to enter that description into Genmoji. You can also tap different suggestions and themes that are right above the text box. And with iOS 26 or later, you can also combine and use emoji to create others rather than describing a new emoji or using suggestions.
Your iPhone will generate a series of new emoji for you to pick from according to your description, and you can swipe through these new emoji. When you find the one you want, tap Add in the top right corner of your screen and the new emoji will be available to use as an emoji, tapback or a sticker. Now you don’t have to wait for the Unicode Standard to propose, create and bring new emoji to devices.
For more iOS news, here’s what to know about iOS 26.3.1 and iOS 26.3. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet for other tips and tricks.
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