With Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals right around the corner or already here you could be in for a good deal on Smartphones that can be used for mining VerusCoin (VRSC), so do look for sweet deals on Samsung Galaxy A03s as a popular option, that one can get you around 3.6 MH/s with a price as low as $30 USD when in promo (for an operator locked device). We are not going to be talking about Samsung here however, but about two smartphones from Motorola that you can get at a good price at the moment even without special deals – Motorola Moto G Power (2021) and Motorola Moto G Pure (2021) and we are going to see if they are good for VRSC mining and if so, what can you expect performance wise.
Starting up with the Motorola Moto G Pure (2021), a device that normally is in the $50 USD mark when operator locked or around $100 USD for an unlocked version, but you can currently get it as low as $24.99 USD from Amazon for a TracFone Moto g Pure (2021)(Locked/Renewed). This is a pretty sweet deal price wise and you essentially get a device that is like brand new with a data cable and a charger bundled as well, but the question here is if the smartphone is suitable for VRSC mining. An Android 11 device that features a Mediatek MT6762G Helio G25 (12 nm) chipset that utilizes an 8-core ARM CPU (4x 2.0 GHz Cortex-A53 and 4x 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53), so far so good, but unfortunately what you get is a bit disappointing if you want it for mining. The smartphone we got was with Android 12 installed and it felt kind of sluggish right out of the box, but the bad news here is regarding mining as this device is simply a no go as it features a 32-bit OS even though the processor is 64-bit capable. Simply said this smartphone will not be able to run 64-bit apps and thus the VRSC miners are not going to work. So, do not go for that Motorola if you are looking for a smartphone for crypto mining!
The other device from Motorola, namely the Moto G Power (2021), is more promising and just a slightly more expensive than the Pure. The $34.99 USD TracFone Moto G Power (2021) Locked/Renewed deal on Amazon gets you a device that can actually be used for VRSC mining and not only is the price good, but also the performance. The Moto G Power (2021) comes with a Qualcomm SM6115 Snapdragon 662 (11 nm) chipset that has an 8-core processor (4x 2.0 GHz Kryo 260 Gold and 4x 1.8 GHz Kryo 260 Silver) and Android 11, though it is upgradable to Android 12 (but you should not, why in a moment). The refurbished version from Amazon is pretty much as a brand-new device with a charger and a data cable bundled, but at half the price what a regular locked version of this model normally goes for and at a quarter or even more of the price of an unlocked device. The next question is if the Moto G Power (2021) is good for mining VRSC what performance to expect from it?
The hashrate you can expect for VerusCoin (VRSC) mining on the Motorola Moto G Power (2021) is in the range of around 4.2-4.4 MH/s with a power usage of about 3 Watts measured at the wall. We’ve mentioned that you should not upgrade the phone to Android 12 even though it is available as it will reduce the performance a bit, the image on the right above shows Android 12 with about 0.1 MH/s slower hashrate than the same device with Android 11 on the left… and the Android 11 looks and feels better than the 12 on that particular Motorola device. Still, even if you upgrade you can still use the Moto G Power for mining, just with a slight performance hit and a bit more annoying user interface. So, Motorola Moto G Power (2021) is definitely a good option for VRSC mining, especially if you manage to get a great deal like the Refurbished one (essentially like new) from Amazon currently available. At a regular price for a Locked device, it could still be quite good considering the good hashrate, but there is more competition in that price range as well.
