There are plenty of tech products out there. Some are great buys offering excellent value, but others aren’t. Most fall somewhere in the middle.
Unless you have the means to buy one of everything, you have to decide if something is the right fit for you. That can be hard; the companies making them will tell you that you need one to make your life complete, people who got a lemon or just didn’t like it will say the product is garbage, and reviewers simply can’t cover everything.
So many tech products! It can help if you take a breath, a step back, and think about what you really need. We’re here to help you do just that!
Often, it’s good to take a step back and see what you’re going to get inside that pretty package. Was it worth what you paid for it? Will you get enough use from it to justify the purchase? Or maybe you should hold off and see what’s coming next.
We can’t make those decisions for you, but we can tell you what we think and maybe where you should start your decision-making process.
Should you buy a brand-new 2025 Moto G for $50? Because Google wants to sell you one.
In 2025, fifty dollars doesn’t buy much. Inflation has gone crazy in the past 12 months; everything is going up except the paycheck, and money still doesn’t grow on trees. There’s a good chance you’ll spend more than $50 at the gas pump nowadays.
But you can get a phone, a brand-spanking new one, for $50 from Google Fi. They’re selling the 2025 Moto G unlocked for $49.99 plus those pesky taxes and such. Is it worth it?
The Pros
The Moto G isn’t the most premium high-end device the world has ever seen, and most people consider it a budget model. I would. But that doesn’t mean it’s junk.
It has a huge battery. It’s not a tiny phone or one of those thin phones that somehow became cool again, but it’s not some gargantuan beast like the Galaxy S Ultra either. Regardless, it has a 5,000 mAh battery inside that will last you all day. This time, you can believe them when they say all-day battery life.
It has 5G. It’s unlocked and will work almost anywhere on earth. Does it have support for every radio band? Nope. But MediaTek and Motorola made sure it works just fine for most everyone in most places.
It has a big screen. 6.7 inches to be exact. It’s a 720 x 1604 pixel, 20:9 ratio display that checks in at a respectable 262 ppi (pixels-per-inch) density, so things don’t look like fuzzy garbage.
It has an SD card slot. The phone comes with 128GB of on-board storage and can handle a 1TB SD card slot if that’s your thing.
The cons
Three things instantly come to mind here, and no price reduction will “fix” them.
The camera. It’s capable at 50MP and has a decent macro mode, but this is not the camera that will wow you like the Pixel or iPhone camera will. It’s plenty good enough for most photos, but it isn’t going to handle things like your dog running a million miles per hour or anything.
It uses an LCD. It’s 120Hz capable and doesn’t have huge bezels everyone seems to hate, but it’s an LCD. Blacks aren’t as black, and viewing angles matter. Whites aren’t pinkish-bluish-green like they are on an OLED either, so this could be a pro as well.
It has 4GB of memory. This is enough to run regular phone things, and it should handle them all fairly easily, but some features require an insane amount of RAM, like on-device AI. Those features can never come to this phone because it will never be able to run them.
Google Fi. You don’t have to use Google Fi (maybe you want to try it, though), but you need to be in a place where Fi sells phones to get this one. That’s a bummer because Google still hasn’t figured out how to sell everything everywhere.
My verdict
So, should you buy one? No.
You should think about buying two.
Look, I’m a happy, well-adjusted cheapskate and hate spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a phone. Normally, I would never say to buy a phone you don’t need. But at $50, this turns into a device you can set up, stick in the drawer, and use as a backup when things go bad.
You expect some clamshell dumbphone burner on the shelf at Walmart to be in the $50 range. You do not expect a capable, full-featured 2025 Android phone at that price. It may not be the best phone available right now, but it is 100% the best value in phones available right now.
