Motorola Moto G: Review, features and specifications
Are you looking for a review of Motorola Moto G? Here you can read detailed review about new budget Android smartphone from Motorola, Moto G, which is packed with a lot of features as well as new Android 4.4 KitKat at quite reasonable price. Let's find out its new features, pros and cons.
Talking about affordable Android smartphones, it probably won't get so much attention as their high-end smartphones, however, there is no doubting that these handsets are in huge demand, particularly in huge markets like India. Motorola's Moto G, a mid-range Android device comes with Android 4.4 Kitkat OS as well as low asking price, is an attempt to get folks attention by giving plenty of features at a quite reasonable price.
Surprising as it may sound, there isn't a single Android handset in this price sector that sticks out. Most of the Android handset manufacturers manage to hit that selling price by slicing corners and using low quality hardware. Priced at Rs. 13,999 for 16GB version and Rs.12,499 for 8GB version, Motorola claims that Moto G can deliver a premium Android smartphone experience for one-third price of latest high-end Android devices. Does it? Let's find it out.
Build / Design
Motorola Moto G, except for its size, seems to be a replica of the Moto X but is different in several ways. It's thicker, measuring 129.9x65.9x11.6mm over the dimension of Moto X's 129.3x65.3x10.4mm. At 143 grams, the Moto G is also heavier than the 130g of the Moto X. Even so, I'm pretty much sure that an average buyer in this price segment doesn't care about the weight and thickness of a smartphone. The handset is made from plastic material but it feels extremely sturdy. The Moto G boasts a water resistant coating, which means you can easily whip it out even in the rain but it is not waterproof like Sony's Xperia Z Series. The device features a removable back cover, and the construction is great. It's also possible to peel off the rear cover and swap it for a different color, which the company is promoting as a major customizable feature of the handset. Overall, Moto G's build quality is way better than what we have from other handsets priced a lot higher than it.
Like most other smartphones, the front profile of Moto G is clean and minimalist, save for the 4.5-inch screen that uses up approximately 70% of the total front panel. Apart from the earpiece and front-facing shooter, the only appealing thing about its front panel is the lack of physical buttons, instead it has opted for on-screen buttons. The volume rocker and power buttons are positioned on the right side of the device, while the 3.5mm audio jack is placed on the top and the Micro-USB port is on the lower side. Its back boasts a 5MP shooter with an LED flashlight and a speaker grille towards its left. You can see the company logo is embossed just below it and is similar to the one seen on the Moto X. The rear side of the handset features a removable back panel. Peel off the back cover and you can find the SIM slots. As an entry-level smartphone, this handset's design is ergonomic and usable. Display
Nowadays most of the high-end handsets pack 5-inch displays as standard, the Moto G's display aren't big, and yet Apple continues the small-screen tradition with a 4-inch panel, making the Moto G's display bigger than Apple's flagship. Packing a 5-inch 720x1280-pixel display giving the pixel density of 329ppi, is a tad greater than Apple's iPhone 5S's 326ppi, making the Moto G's display panel quite sharp for its class. Its display delivers vibrant colors, and the images and text appear very sharp on the display. There are many handsets from various vendors that feature a 720p display at this price segment but we are yet to bump into any that can deliver the same color reproduction, sun visibility and viewing angles as the Moto G's display panel. Especially, its display is very readable even under bright sunlight. So it's not an issue to browse through your device while taking a stroll outside during the daytime. Its display is guarded by Corning's Gorilla Glass 3 protective layer, which means you don't need to worry about scratches. At this price point, Moto G's 4.5-inch display panel does a wonderful job.Camera
The Moto G comes with a 5MP rear shooter followed by an LED flashlight, and also features a 1.3MP front-facing camera. Its 1.3MP front shooter is okay for video calling, but don't expect outstanding outputs from it. However, at this price tag, you can't expect a higher megapixel count. In well-lit conditions, surprisingly, the image quality from the rear shooter is decent. But, images shot in low-light circumstances and indoor weren't that great but noise levels were somewhat less than other handsets available in the same price segment. The rear camera can shoot 720p video and found the quality of captured video to be acceptable.
The company has gone minimalistic with the camera UI. The device's camera viewfinder features no buttons save for the camcorder or rear/front camera toggle. If someone expecting to tinker with various effects, modes and advanced settings such as white balance and brightness, then the Moto G is not the suitable camera phone for you looking for. All you find are HDR mode, shutter sound, flash, and aspect ratio toggles alongside a Panorama mode, the option to hook up location data to your photos and a rudimentary exposure and focus control. It's a real shame that this handset doesn't have even a somewhat better camera, but to attain this price point a concession had to be made somewhere, and this is it.Software
Out of the box, the Moto G came with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, soon the device got Android 4.4.2 update for it. And, of course, this is one of the first Android smartphones to be updated to Google's latest mobile OS- Android 4.4.2 KitKat. Moto G runs a nearly stock version of Android OS that comes with on-screen navigation controls. Its interface is similar to Google's Nexus 4 with the exception that Motorola also incorporates a few of its own apps. The device has more transparency, more muted colors in the status icons, flatter-design elements and simpler transition animations. It features a lot of widgets, five customizable home screens, and apps grouped into downloadable and preloaded categories. The handset also comes with a new Photos app that lets editing and viewing of locally stored and Google+ photos, this app benefits much deeper integration with Google+ and can be useful to tag photographs. Additionally, it includes Google Drive, Play Movies, Play Movies, Keep, Play Games, Play Books, Quick Office and Play Newsstand for editing and creating documents, presentations and spreadsheets.Performance
Moto G features 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Processor bundled with RAM and Adreno 305 for better graphic processing. Talking about storage memory, the device has 16 GB storage, out of which 12.92 GB is only available for the user and the remaining space would go for OS. Sadly, you can't expand the storage space as the handset doesn't have a memory card slot. Though Google is giving 50 GB free cloud storage in Google Drive with the handset but I don't see it as a good option till data tariffs go cheaper and data connectivity gets much better. Coming to the connectivity options, it features all the standard connectivity options you'd expect from a mid-range Android smartphone that include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G and GPS are all on board. There's unfortunately no NFC and 4G supports, and while this isn't a big surprise when you consider the price tag.
With its quad-core processor running under the hood, you can hardly experience any lag while playing light games, launching and switching between apps and scrolling through the web pages. Also, playing heavy games like Nova 3 and Ashpalt 8 on this device is not a big issue. Call quality on the handset was really amazing and the handset was able to lock on to mobile phone networks even in poor signal areas, which came useful at times.
This smartphone is powered by 2070mAh L-ion non-removable battery and the battery juice will last a full day even if you turn the screen brightness at the maximum level and use 3G data throughout the day.Conclusion
The Moto G is one of the affordable Android smartphone available right now, which is getting good results in various levels beginning with ideal performance across the OS. The Snapdragon 400 SoC used in this smartphone is incredibly powerful, and when coupled with a stock Android build, it is capable to offer a smooth user experience. It may not possess the greatest and latest technology loaded into it, but it does a good job at showing text and images. Plus, it features with a decent battery life.
Motorola must have sliced some corners to attain this price point of Moto G, and its camera shooter is one segment, which has seen the compromise. Having no expandable storage option will be a real issue for some folks, especially if someone ends up with the 8GB model of the handset. Also, it doesn't have latest tech advances like 4G and NFC. The Moto G deals with this segment offering fantastic performance at reasonable price. For now, there's no other Android smartphones I can recommend for you in this price segment. Currently, this device is available in two variants, 16GB model is available for Rs.13,999 and 8GB for Rs.12,499. If you would like to purchase Moto G, then I would recommend you spend some extra bucks and have 16GB model.
Click here to buy Moto G from Flipkart.
Suggested read: Things you should do after purchasing the Moto G
