With that out of the way, it’s time to talk about the fun stuff. The Moto G9 Play is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 processor, which is paired with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (which can be expanded up to a further 512GB via microSD). At 6000 mAh, this is Motorola’s biggest battery ever, and certainly the biggest I’ve ever seen in a phone. The Moto G8 Power, by contrast, weighed in with a relatively wimpy 5000 mAh cell. The front camera has an 8MP f/2.2 sensor that seems to smear fine detail in anything less than good lighting. But we think it’s a perfectly acceptable selfie camera at this level. The Moto G9 Play also has a Portrait mode for selfies, which is a lovely touch. The Moto G9 Play has a 5,000mAh battery that outlasts plenty of top-end phones with similar capacity according to our testing. On lighter days we are left with over 40% charge by bedtime. We have never needed to give the phone a top-up to make sure it lasts the day.

While the Moto G9 Plus isn’t completely immune to this phenomenon, it makes a good fist of it, as you can see from the sunset picture of my garden above. Zoomed in below, you’ll see a little detail lost but, again, this is very good for the price.It comes bundled with Motorola’s 20W TurboPower 20 fast charger, which I found was able to get from 16% to 99% in two hours. 15 minutes will generally get you a 13% increase, right up until the final stretch when the charging rate invariably slows down. Battery life is certainly above average as the chart below shows, but as you might expect it’s not quite as impressive as the phenomenal stamina of the Moto G9 Power with its extra 1,000mAh of battery capacity and lower resolution screen.

The Moto G9 Power, however, at least offers something a bit different. The clue is in the name, of course, since the Moto G9 Power has the biggest battery of any Motorola phone to date, promising up to 60 hours of use on a single charge. If it’s as long-lasting as Motorola claims, then we might have another contender for the battery life crown on our hands. Motorola Moto G9 Power: Everything you need to know Motorola Moto G9 Power release date: When can you buy one? Finally, the Moto G9 Play can only record video at up to 1080p (Full HD) resolution at 30fps. There’s no option to record at 60fps or higher resolutions but the footage is fully stabilised at least. Motorola Moto G9 Play review: VerdictThe G9 Power lays on 128GB of internal storage, which is a strong provision, if hardly unique for the money. You can expand that amount via a microSD slot too. Giving you a much bigger yet much less defined canvass, resulting in a paltry 263ppi output, seems like an odd decision from Motorola. I get that the Moto G9 Power is all about prioritising battery life, but the cost to clarity is too much. In most situations it makes ample use of HDR to lift the shadows while retaining highlight detail. And while a lot of our photos have a slight purple/red skew, the Moto G9 Play’s color is reasonably lifelike when shooting in daylight. In day to day use, that means you’re getting a phone that feels perfectly snappy and should be absolutely fine for most people’s needs. But it also means that it’s keeping pace with phones that cost a bit more, while giving it a little boost on the rest of the Moto G9 family.

The other cameras? Well, they’re all fairly standard and probably not of much use other than as a novelty when you first unbox the phone. Here’s the same picture of the church above, only this time taken with the ultra-wide lens. A huge amount of detail is lost in the effort to capture a wider scene. One area in which the Moto G9 Power’s camera is notably inferior to the Moto G8 Power’s is with video capture. Thanks to the use of the Snapdragon 662, it can only manage 1080p/30fps video capture, whereas its predecessor could hit 4K/30fps and 1080p/60fps. Software – Typically clean Android experience from MotorolaBut now, more than a week later? We don’t really notice the slightly old-school handling of fast-scrolling menus. Given the Moto G9 Play’s price we’re happy with the phone’s screen quality. We didn’t leave the Moto G9 Power wishing it had more pixels, but Full HD+ displays always look better. Moto G9 Play price and availability You don't get 5G with the Moto G9 Power, we should point out. That's not uncommon at this end of the market, and at the moment it's not a huge problem – 5G has yet to find its way to large swathes of the world. If you're looking for a smartphone that's fully future-proofed, however, it's something to bear in mind. Battery life The Moto G9 Power is even more of a specialist tool than previous models in the range, for better and for worse.