The Motorola Moto G86 has immense battery capacity, but beyond that there’s not too much worth getting excited about here.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Huge battery capacity that can last a very long time | Ordinary cameras |
| IP69 water resistance | Plain design for a $499 phone |
| Nice bright display | Only one OS upgrade |
Score: 3/5
In this review
Moto G86 Power Specifications
Moto G86 Power Design
Moto G86 Power Camera
Moto G86 Power Performance
Moto G86 Power Battery
Moto G86 Power Conclusion
Ethical disclaimer: You’re either reading this bit properly because you care about having human-written, properly researched and tested reviews… or skipping over it if you don’t.
Still here? Good. The Motorola Moto G86 Power used in this review was loaned to me by Motorola Australia for the purposes of review, and it’s going back to them once done. That’s the sole input they have into this review, which is 100% my own tests, evaluations and opinions. Which is as it should be. For more on ART’s Ethics position, see here.
Design
The Motorola Moto G86 Power sits within Motorola’s more broadly affordable Moto series of phones, but at $499, it’s at the very tippy top high end of that pricing structure, only within what I might call a “budget” phone by a single dollar.
At that kind of price, you can start to have expectations around design that go a little bit more beyond your regular rectangular slab of a phone… but that’s almost exactly what the Moto G86 Power is.
It’s built around a 6.7 inch 120Hz capable 2712×1220 AMOLED display which works well enough, especially with brightness that can peak at up to 4,500 nits. Having tested it out in the Australian sunshine, that kind of brightness can be a real boon if you’re otherwise squinting to see your phone’s display. It’s also a plus that it’s IP69 rated, though once again I’ll remind readers that water resistance isn’t a permanent condition.
It’s just that the rest of the Motorola Moto G86 Power is just kind of dull. In Australia it comes in just two colour variants, Pantone Spellbound and Pantone Cosmic Sky. We’re all familiar with what those colours look like, right?
No?
Spellbound (as tested) is a very dark blue, while Cosmic Sky is more of a light lilac colour.
Internationally it also exists in Pantone Golden Cypress (a kind of pea green, more or less) and Pantone Chrysanthemum (a rather bold red), but we don’t get those choices here.
I’m typically a fan of blue phones as a colour choice, but the reality of the Spellbound colour is that it’s quite dark, presenting almost as black in some lighting situations – and black isn’t an exciting smartphone colour to speak of.
Controls are simple enough with an assistant/power button and volume controls sitting on the right hand side, while the base houses USB-C for power and audio; unlike some other Moto siblings there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack on the Motorola Moto G86 Power.
The left hand side of the phone houses a single SIM card/micro SD card tray, with support built in for eSIM if that’s more your style.
Motorola’s long been a fan of having textured backs to their phones, and the Motorola Moto G86 Power is no exception, with what it calls a “Soft Luxe Texture”.
I’ve long been someone who hates textured soft backs on phones – they set something off in my brain at a sensory level, and I appreciate that’s totally a personal quirk – but at least you do get a simple plastic case in the box if, like me, you don’t want to handle the rear of the phone.
Camera
In case you haven’t spotted it yet, the Motorola Moto G86 Power has a suffix, and that suffix isn’t “Camera”.
At the $499 price point, you’re starting to stretch into the area where you can get camera phones with just a few more fancy features than you’d expect in the budget range, but that’s not the choice Motorola’s made here.
The Motorola Moto G86 Power’s camera array sits rather more resolutely in the budget space, with a 50MP rear wide and 8MP Ultra-wide lens at the rear, plus a 32MP front-facing sensor for your selfie needs.
This is perfectly adequate within the budget space, but it really goes no further than that, period. We’re long past the point where you shouldn’t expect at least reasonable performance out of a budget phone’s camera in everyday conditions, but as soon as you have to push the Motorola Moto G86 Power’s cameras in any more tricky situation, the cracks start to show, whether that’s fast action or zoom – digitally capped at 10x and not great even then.
That is, arguably, not the point of the Motorola Moto G86 Power, hence the suffix – but if camera quality is of key concern to you even at this price point, you can stretch up to some more capable phones in this regard easily.
Motorola Moto G86 Power Sample Photos
Performance
Crack the Motorola Moto G86 Power’s frame open and… you’d most likely break it in an irreparable fashion and void the warranty, so don’t do that.
Take it on trust instead that inside its frame you’ll find a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 processor paired up with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage, expandable via microSD card.
The Dimensity 7300’s a reasonably capable processor, but how does the Moto G86 Power compare to other phones you can get at or around its price point? Let’s have a look at how it compares at a CPU level, by way of Geekbench 6’s CPU test:
Not quite best in class, but nothing to particularly worry about there, suggesting decent performance.
What about at the GPU level? Here’s how it compares against the same crop of phones using 3DMark’s Wild Life and Wild Life Extreme benchmarks:
A bigger performance gap there between the Nothing phone and the Motorola Moto G86 Power, but again it’s broadly doing as expected within this price range.
There is a fly in the ointment here, however, and it’s to do with the version of Android on the Motorola Moto G86 Power and where that’s headed. The Motorola Moto G86 Power ships with Android 15 on board, but Motorola’s only promising 1 single OS upgrade and 3 years of security upgrades, so all it’ll get to is this year’s version of Android, period.
Sorry, Motorola, but that’s just not enough; not when your rivals in this space are offering a lot more. Heck, even the cheaper Motorola Moto G56 comes with 2 OS upgrades if you buy the upper spec version, so why only one OS upgrade for the more expensive phone, Motorola?
General app performance is fine, but the reality that most buyers in the budget and mid-range space face is that they’d like to keep phones for as long as possible, and offering up a phone with such a limited upgrade path isn’t in any way compelling.
Battery
The Motorola Moto G86 Power is the Motorola Moto G86 Power because, like He-Man, IT HAS THE POWER.
It’s just possible I’m the only one who continually thinks of that clip every time I have to mention the Motorola Moto G86 Power – or maybe not, but I digress.
The POWER in this case is the battery pack, with an impressive 6,720mAh battery hiding within the Motorola Moto G86 Power’s frame. It’s not the thinnest phone you can buy, but it’s definitely not as chunky as you might think a phone with a 6,720mAh battery within it might be.
Having a nice big number is definitely appealing, but does it equate to massive battery life? Motorola’s proclamation is that the Motorola Moto G86 Power is capable of delivering “a full weekend of power on a single charge”… but can it?
The answer to that is… maybe.
As always, it’s going to depend on your app usage, as it always does.
To give that some kind of comparative picture, I first ran the Motorola Moto G86 Power through my standard YouTube battery test; you can find out more about how I test mobile phone batteries here.
The Oppo Reno 13F does outscale the Motorola Moto G86 Power here, but those are still some pleasing results for those who want more than a day’s battery life out of a phone, so Motorola’s claims aren’t totally crazy around it perhaps lasting a weekend between charges.
In more anecdotal testing, I can see how that weekend usage could be true if you were only a moderate phone user, but if you’re always on your phone checking your socials and playing games and so on, then you’d probably be scrambling for a charger come Sunday afternoon, or maybe even earlier than that.
When that happens you will have to provide your own charger, with the Motorola Moto G86 Power being capable of taking power in at up to 30W via wired USB-C.
Motorola Moto G86 Power: Alex’s Verdict
Like prior Motorola Power phones before it, the core focus of the Motorola Moto G86 Power is on the battery, and it’s a big and quite satisfying inclusion. If you just wanted a phone that would easily last through a day’s usage – and maybe even that weekend as long as you slept a little and stepped away from the phone from time to time – then it would meet that need. Performance, while not stunning is appropriate for its price, too.
What’s significantly less compelling is the design, which tends on the dull side compared to what you can get for $499. Likewise, the lack of serious Android updates is a definite down point, and the cameras aren’t anything to get excited about either.
Ultimately, if you’re as passionate about big batteries as Sir Mix-A-Lot is about posteriors, then the Motorola Moto G86 Power might be worth considering. If you’re not, look elsewhere.
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Motorola Moto G86 Power: Pricing and availability
The Motorola Moto G86 Power retails in Australia for $499.
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Hi Alex,
Thanks for the review.
Phone is currently on sale now for half price (thank you Black Friday) which is a big win.
Agreed 1 OS update is still a thorn, have you heard any updates on this from Motorola?