Moto G Review

Motorola made a lot of news last year with just two phones. First one being Moto X which came with a lot of new features but never sold much. The second one is the Moto G which had a huge market success and still continues to. The phone has been selling like hot cake and it was very difficult to get one during the release with a waiting period of at least 10 days.

Moto X and Moto G are pretty similar. They have the same build. But that ends there. Moto G does not have active notifications or the camera shortcut like the Moto X does. It has none of the cool features of Moto X. Instead, the biggest feature of Moto G is the price. The  8 GB version is priced at Rs. 12,500 and the 16 GB version is priced at Rs. 14,000. Motorola has put in a lot of effort in making an inexpensive phone and at the same time not compromising on the quality of the smart phone. This phone is target towards the growing markets where for most of them this will be their first smart phone. Also, the phone is not expandable. So, the extra Rs. 1,500 for the 16 GB version is totally worth it.

The Indian version of the phone is a bit different from the ones sold in other countries. For starters, the Indian version is a dual sim phone and you can use both the sims at the same time. Also, you get a pair of headphones and a wall charger which is not included in the US version of the phone.

This review has been done keeping in mind the price at which the phone retails. 

Hardware

Starting with the hardware,it features a 4.5 inch 720p IPS LCD Display with a pixel density of 326 ppi which is as good as the iPhone. Also, the glass is Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and it’s not going to get scratched easily.

Coming to the internals, it uses a Qualcomm MSM8226 Snapdragon 400 Chipset, 1.2 GHz Cortex A-7 CPU, Adreno 305 for the graphics and 1 GB RAM. Also, it comes with an accelerometer, a proximity sensor, GPS and a compass.

The back of the Moto G is removable, but it does not have much functionality. The battery is screwed to the phone and it is not removable. You can insert the sim cards. You can’t get your own custom Moto G like you can get a Moto X. But that does not mean you can’t customise it.  The default back cover can be switched with more back covers and flip covers which are sold in many different colours.

The phone comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top, the power button and the volume rocker to the right. There are no other physical keys for the phone. The bottom of the phone comes with a Micro USB port which is used for charging and transferring data. It does not support OTG.

Also, the phone is said to stand pretty well against water but we haven’t personally tested it.

Battery

Motorola ships the phone with a 2070 MAh battery which is not removable. Motorola calls this an all day battery. It did last a whole day with mixed usage and this should be enough for most of them. But, it was pretty bad when it came to playing graphic intensive games. The battery drained in no time.

Software

Software is another impressive part of the phone. Almost every manufacturer wants to ship their phone with bloatware which people don’t usually use. The phone comes with Android 4.2 the way Google intended it to be. When you boot the phone for the first time you’ll be asked to upgrade it to Android 4.4.2 KitaKat. The OS is really smooth and you can multi-task with a breeze. Most of the games render pretty well without any frame rate drops or lags. It comes with a couple of Motorola apps which are actually useful. First is the motorola Migrate which lets you import things like contacts, call logs, Media from your old android phone just by scanning a QR code. Next is the Motorola Assist which automatically puts your phone is silent mode when you’re in a meeting or while you’re sleeping. Signing in to your Google Account gives you an additional 50 GB space in Google Drive for the next two years.

Audio

The Indian version comes with a pair of headphones in the box. But, it is pretty bad and we’d recommend you to get your own pair of headphones. Also, it comes with FM radio which you can listen to by connecting the headphones. The speaker on the front which is used for making calls is pretty bad. It is difficult to listen to the call. But, the speaker on the back is pretty loud and you won’t miss any call.

Camera

For a lot of people, the camera is the most important feature in any phone. If you’re someone like that, you should definitely stay away from the phone. It comes with a 5MP primary camera which is pretty OK outdoors under bright natural light and horrible indoors. Also, the HDR mode does not do much. Panorama photos are easy to shoot, but they are also bad. The secondary camera is a 1.3MP camera which is good enough to make video calls on Skype.

Connectivity

Connectivity of this phone is limited to 3G. It comes with no 4G LTE. But this is not really an issue because this is an inexpensive phone aimed at markets where 3G is just getting started.