With a flagship smartphone from the likes of Sony, Samsung and HTC and more that will cost you the best part of £600 off-contract. Can Motorola do a good budget smartphone for little money. Well, Motorola thinks is can Welcome the Moto G, the Moto G is the first smartphone from Motorola in the UK since Google took over the company.
With Motorola claims only 20 per cent of the 7 billion people in the world own a smartphone, largely because they are too far out of reach of cost. So Motorola responded to this, the company created the Moto G smartphone as “an affordable smartphone for people who don’t want to compromise on quality, experience or style”.
The Design
The Moto G was designed with a focus on comfort and I was impressed by how good it feels to hold in your hand. It fits into one hand without a problem. With the curved back is a delight, and soft and warm to touch with a matte finish and I liked to it. With the Removable and changeable backs but a non removable battery.
Price
The Moto G comes in two models there is an 8GB model (£135 Sim free) and a 16GB model (£159 Sim free) available, with a removable back that houses the SIM slot underneath, there is no microSD card support.
With the Moto G you get 50GB extra Google Drive storage on top of the standard 15GB, giving you 65GB without spending a penny.The bonus 50GB is added for two years this means you can store up to 7,000 music files, up to 140,000 pictures, or up to 500 HD video clips.
Spec
With it Measuring 65.9 x 129.9mm with the curve between 6 and 11.6mm, it is a lovely size at a 4.5 inch display (720p), from the coloured power and volume buttons on the side, to the charging port centred at the bottom. It weighs only at 143g with 1 GB of ram with ppi of 329.
feels light compared to some of the other flagships budget smartphones on offer how days. On the rear of the Moto G it has a speaker, camera, LED flash and the Motorola “M” logo in an indented circle like the big brother Moto X.
Camera
Like many smartphones around today, the Moto G camera features fewer megapixels than many of its competitors now days. With the rear camera is a 5 megapixel and the front camera comes in at 1.3 megapixels.
Taken Without HDR
Taken With HDR On
Android 4.3 with Guaranteed Upgrade
The Moto G ships with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, but you are guaranteed an upgrade to Android 4.4 KitKat before the end of January 2014, which is good news. With Android 4.3 it brings some exciting features of its own, and I really like that the Moto G is a raw Android experience with no overlay. Motorola said at the launch event that “it was aiming to avoid the fuss of duplication that you find in some rivals and the raw that’s true here”.
Sound
I was very pleasantly surprised by the sound from the Moto G that it managed to put out from it. The call quality from the Moto G, I had no muffling and was very happy with it.
Battery Life
With Motorola promising upto 24 hours from the 2070mAh battery inside the Moto G, but I did get about 15 hours on a typical day, like make calls, do emails, Twitter open, WhatsApp running constantly, like using the camera as well and browse the internet regularly, and even play a few games on it. Just sure that you put on the battery saver option on with that option you can see a rundown on what services you are using a lot of power.
Final Thoughts
Fors
Price Point is excellent for the money you pay for the Moto G
Brilliantly Designed
Very Good Battery life
Against
No SD Support
Not the Best Camera but not the worst
