Motorola Moto G Review
by Brian Klug on December 18, 2013 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola
- Mobile
- *VA
- Cortex A7
- snapdragon 400
- Moto G
Making an affordable smartphone for the masses that aren’t willing to spend the dime on flagship-tier devices is a pitch I’ve heard a few times. Usually the device starts out great, but software support ends up being negligible from the start, or the device has serious caveats in actual practice. The number of mid to low end phones I’ve seen which promised to be halo devices of the mass market but are stuck running the same software they launched with could fill a few desk drawers.
I’ve been using Moto G as my daily driver since getting it, and absent a few features (camera, LTE, always on voice and display tuning), the device is surprisingly close to offering a similar kind of experience as the Moto X. Form factor is roughly equivalent, it’s like a Moto X that has put on a few pounds and a few millimeters around the edges. The physical differences aren't huge, and I'm glad that Motorola didn't sacrifice anything major by adding removable back shells.
On the display side I'd actually opt for an LCD over AMOLED to begin with for power reasons, although with emphasis on calibration. Resolution and contrast is excellent on the Moto G. I miss the camera activation flick gesture from the Moto X, and to a lesser extent the always on voice activation, but trading those off in favor of a lower price point makes a lot of sense given their reliance on extra dedicated silicon and more expensive display.
The previous generation of Snapdragon 400-based phones that I played with for some reason never really was fast enough to smooth over the demanding parts of Android 4.x. The four Cortex A7s and Adreno 305 in MSM8x26 seem competent enough to run Android at a decent clip without hesitation or dropped frames. I’d wager Motorola’s continued use of F2FS which started with the Moto X also helps the system feel speedy and storage I/O competitive. The storage sizes available are comparatively small at 8 and 16 GB, and given the small price delta between the two there's really no reason anyone should opt for the smaller of the two. I'm eager to see how much the Android 4.4 KitKat update improves memory occupancy on the Moto G, since occasional app suspension is my only usability complaint on Moto G.
The Moto G grew on me considerably in the time I've spent with it, just like Moto X did before it. The question is ultimately whether the Moto G delivers a good overall experience for the price – I'd argue it definitely does.
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ESC2000 - Monday, December 23, 2013 - link
I always appreciate the extensive numbers you guys collect to lend some objectivity to your conclusions rather than offering unsubstantiated impressions and opinions like all other reviews. That said it is interesting to me that people's responses to various displays are so individual-specific. Even though the Samsung phones don't seemto score well other than in black levels of course, I still prefer their displays over most of the other phones on which you gathered data. Overall it looks like the iPhone did the best (although it looks like in some categories - whiteness, grayscale - it regressed from the 5 to the 5s) but I've never liked the displays on iphones. It is hard to evaluate on the 5s because I dislike the color scheme of iOS 7, a strange mixture of pastels and bright red.a1exh - Saturday, December 28, 2013 - link
Nice review. But you missed that the Moto G doesn't have MHL (HDMI out over USB). This feature has been on all my phones for the last few years and is a must have when visiting relatives without a smart TV. I wonder why such an easy feature was omitted?BallGum - Saturday, December 28, 2013 - link
Does anyone expect an update to the Moto G sometime, with the new SnapDragon 410 SoC?Gothmoth - Sunday, December 29, 2013 - link
do you think writing "DELTA" all the time makes you look l33t3?you sound like a cheap wanaabe nerd repeating this "DELTA" over and over.
otherwise the article is nice....
Davidjan - Sunday, January 19, 2014 - link
Really cool! Nice gadget to add Moto G's storage- a tiny MicroSD reader: http://goo.gl/2iJ6gforenlevy - Thursday, January 23, 2014 - link
America ,iphone,nexus updates??? well i have xiaomi mi2s and every week there is ota update,hardware-beast, snapdragon 600 2G ram ,well updates with reach feature but android version change each year .but most kitkat updates already there for monthes, add cloud service includes apps & setting,gallery,logs,sms ect backup ,firewall ,antivirus, ftp server...2 paratiton each time the other update during system on! it is possible and it is hear for 300$ camera i have very nice shoot in darkness using night mode also video in club,i think the near feuture will be chinees company like that,service....updates....every week....
shmotog - Sunday, February 2, 2014 - link
I did my video review on the black flip shell for moto g here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsnWYpOjDzk&fea...Also here http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RALAUPNHK9K8U/ref=c...
I also did a review on moto g itself here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP9dGAzfEso
jfelano - Tuesday, February 4, 2014 - link
G stands for GOOGLE duh. Google just bought Motorola.sephirotic - Wednesday, February 5, 2014 - link
No micro SD? "This is a new tendency"? That's ridiculous. This phone is automatically excluded from my next smartphone possible-upgrade lists. No quad core, 720p or "ultra-cheap price"can compensate for that. There has been 50USD phones from 10 years ago that already had micro sd support. This is utterly unacceptable. If you don´t live in US or EU you can´t count on unreliable and limited internet to rely on cloud services. Even so, you can´t install all applications or produce most content relying on remote files. What's the point of a fast processor, good gpu and large screen if you can´t install anything in it or fill it with movies and music? Net surfing and google maps? You don´t need a quad core for that... Only casual users would not see all the drawbacks of being completely limited on local storage. Cloud storage is not "the future", maybe for the casual illiterate user, but for us, power-users and non-US/EU residents, is just a nightmare. I rather expend 30% more on a similar spec phone (even a dual core) with external storage than buying this. I don´t understand how this can appeal to the "masses". Maybe the US "masses", because the rest of the world doesn´t have decent unlimited internet to rely on clound services at all.wolfram74 - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
The camera review does not speaks about speed, time to focus, lag etc. I didn't get the whole information needed about camera.