Moto G Power 2026 vs. Moto G Power 2025: Something's not right

Motorola is kicking off 2026 with a sequel to its popular G Power smartphone series. The Moto G Power 2026 will launch on January 8th for $299.99, which is the same price as the 2025 model. Motorola is promising improved toughness, better battery life, crisper selfies, and plenty of classic Moto UX apps. Naturally, its biggest competitor would be the one that it's replacing, which is the 2025 Moto G Power.

The latter was a solid mid-range offering when it launched, but it wasn't perfect. Now, with a $100 price cut, the Moto G Power 2025 has jumped in value, making it one of the cheapest Android phones to feature the highly coveted IP69 rating for dust and water resistance.

With the new model now here, comparing the Moto G Power 2026 vs. Moto G Power 2025 is something you don't want to miss.

Moto G Power 2026 vs. Moto G Power 2025: Design and display

The Moto G Power 2026 looks very similar to the 2025 model. There's a minor design tweak to the rear camera bump, but everything else, like the weight and dimensions, is seemingly identical. I wouldn't be surprised if the previous gen's cases would fit this new model too. The Moto G Power 2025 was extremely well built and looked great, and I imagine it would be the same for the 2026 model.

You get IP68 and IP69 certifications for water protection, which is the same as what the Moto G Power 2025 offered. Motorola claims the 2026 model has been tested against "16 categories and 14 MIL-STD-810H tests," so it's certified to withstand extreme temperatures, drops, and humidity.

The display's scratch protection has been bumped up to Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, from Gorilla Glass 5 on the older model. The 2026 Moto G Power comes in new shades called Pantone Pure Cashmere and Pantone Evening Blue. The display is the same 6.8-inch IPS LCD with a Full-HD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate.

The 2025 Moto G Power set the toughness standard for a $300 smartphone in early 2025. The IP68/ IP69 rating, coupled with the MIL-STD-810H certification, makes it one of the best rugged phones to own on a budget. The build quality was excellent, it came in two fun colors, and it simply felt like a solid phone when you held it.

The 2025 model had a solid display too, coming in at the same size as the 2026 Moto G Power. Maximum brightness level was only 1,000 nits, but sunlight legibility wasn't an issue when we tested it. On paper, the Moto G Power 2026 and 2025 editions are pretty much identical in terms of design, display, and build quality, so you're not really sacrificing anything going with the older model.

Moto G Power 2026 vs. Moto G Power 2025: Hardware & specs

I think Motorola did the Moto G Power 2026 a bit of disservice by using the exact same SoC as the 2025 model. The MediaTek Dimensity 6300 works decently well for regular tasks as well as a bit of gaming, but we did feel a bit of sluggishness at times when using the 2025 model. This could be down to the software optimizations made by Motorola (or lack thereof), so this could improve with Android 16.

The new Moto G Power only comes in a single variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Thankfully, Motorola continues to provide a microSD card slot for storage expansion. Kudos to Motorola for increasing the battery capacity but not the weight of the phone. You now get a 5,200mAh battery, which is said to provide "two days of power."

There's also 30W wired charging like before, but Motorola has removed wireless charging, probably to compensate for any weight increase. I'm sure there are some wireless charging fans out there that would be disappointed by this.

The 2025 Moto G Power has the exact same RAM and chipset as the 2026 model. General performance is good as long as you manage your expectations. Of course, don't expect to play graphically demanding games at the highest quality settings, but toning things down helps even heavy games run well. Battery life is also solid, as you can stretch usage up to two days if you're a bit frugal with your usage.

The fact that you get 15W wireless charging is a big feather in the 2025 Moto G Power's cap. It's a shame Motorola decided to remove it from the new version. It's certainly not the fastest wireless charging speed, but for a now $200 phone, it's really hard to complain.

Moto G Power 2026 vs. Moto G Power 2025: Software

The Moto G Power 2026 runs Android 16 out of the box and comes bundled with Motorola's signature apps. There's Moto Secure, Moto Unplugged, Family Space, ThinkShield, and more. There aren't really any homegrown AI features or apps, though, but you do get some of them from Google, like Circle to Search and Gemini. We hope Motorola has done away with some of the bloatware apps it bundled with the 2025 Moto G Power.

The 2025 Moto G Power was promised two OS upgrades and three years of security updates, and we assume the same holds true for the 2026 model as well. We would have liked a longer software upgrade commitment to be honest, as it falls severely behind Samsung's update promise for its recent A-series phones.

Moto G Power 2026 vs. Moto G Power 2025: Cameras

Selfie lovers should have better luck with the 2026 Moto G Power, as it now has twice the resolution as before. The 16MP shooter on the 2025 model was alright, but images were usually noisy and lacked detail. The 32MP sensor on the new model should hopefully fare better.

Sadly, the rest of the cameras seem to be exactly the same. There's a 50MP main sensor and an 8MP ultrawide camera. Motorola claims that users can use the RAW Night Vision Mode to take "crisper cityscapes or a dimly-lit night out." We'll know how much truth there is to these claims once we've had a go at it.

In my experience, I wouldn't expect a world of difference in image quality between the two models. At most, we could expect some tweaks to the software post-processing due to the newer version of Android, but these improvements should ideally also trickle down to the 2025 model once updated to Android 16.

Moto G Power 2026 vs. Moto G Power 2025: Which one should you buy?

For me, the choice is pretty easy. I'd save the $100 and grab the Moto G Power 2025 while I still can. You're not really losing out on anything major by going with this older model. In fact, you gain wireless charging, which has been dropped in the newer model. I don't see much of an incentive in picking the 2026 model for $100 more.

I think Motorola rushed the launch of the 2026 Moto G Power for reasons only it knows best. At $300, it still has many features that most phones don't, and for that alone, you could maybe consider it. But not while the 2025 model is still in circulation.