The Moto E (2015) Review
by Brandon Chester on April 21, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola
- Mobile
- Moto E (2015)
Camera Performance
Examining a phone's camera on paper can only tell part of the story about its image quality. The camera's system of lenses and processing after the sensor captures an image have major impacts on the quality of photos. While I do wish we had a more consistent and objective test for comparing camera quality, there's still a great deal of information that can be found by comparing how different smartphone cameras resolve detail and handle noise reduction and sharpening.
Left: iPhone 6. Right: Moto E (2015)
While I normally begin with a test that has several objects in a white box with extremely generous lighting to get an idea of how the camera performs in the most optimal conditions, the Moto E presents an issue with that test. For whatever reason, Motorola's white balance algorithm goes berserk in the presence of the 3000K LED bulbs that I use for lighting. Users can rest assured that I never encountered this issue in any other situation, but it's still somewhat concerning. If nothing else, the Moto E's image quality in the photo above is very good apart from it being yellow.
The Moto E's camera performance in adequate lighting is actually better than I had expected. The tree in the upper right is well captured, and brick walls of the building on the left have a good level of detail. The low resolution limits the amount of detail in the bricks of the orange brick building, and the shrubs on the right side also end up becoming a bit of a mess. The colors of the photo also seem to be shifted slightly toward orange compared to what they actually looked like to me in real life. Overall though, the output is certainly acceptable for posting on Twitter or Facebook, or for sending to someone via MMS/IM. It's not the world's best camera, but it's good enough that I'm sure people will be glad Motorola included it.
Unfortunately the Moto E's sensor size ends up hurting it when it comes to low light situations. The photo has much more noise than any of the other smartphones compared, including the iPad Air 2 which has the same pixel size but on a larger 8MP sensor. It's impossible to see the brick texture on either building due to the noise, and the bricks on the ground that are more than a couple of feet away just end up blending together.
The Moto E is capable of 1280x720p30 video recording. Unfortunately the quality of those videos is nothing exceptional. There's just a general lack of detail to everything, even objects that are very close. Video is encoded with an average bitrate of 10Mbps and uses the H.264 High profile.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
90 Comments
View All Comments
Impulses - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
It looks very similar to the rest of Moto's lineup... You think the Moto X & G are fugly too? How many people have you polled to determine the majority definitely agrees with you?I happen to like how it looks, actually Moto's rounded plastic phones are some of the few I would dare use without a case... Both because they seem more resilient than metal ones and because the customization aspect makes it more unique.
I remember noticing a lip on the Moto X that actually lifted the screen by a mm when face down sans case, not sure if that's standard, but that and lack of a camera hump also make it easier to go case-less.
For reference I like the new SGS6 (tho I still dislike the home button) and Sony's Z line, I could take or leave the One design (poor ergos), and I thought older SGS with plastic imitating other materials was chintzy.
At the end of the day I care more about a phone's features, performance, and ergonomics than it's looks tho. None of them are *that* striking or stylish.
chizow - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Sure, here you go, the same tenets apply to smartphones as they do to people's faces:https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=symmetrical+f...
Its been shown whether subconsciously or not, the more symmetrical a face is, the more pleasing it is to the eye.
The rounded and concave edges just make it look like a cheap toy, too much round around the sharp angles of the rectangular screen and the asymmetrical nature of the speakers and cameras don't do it any favors either.
blzd - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
Well that settles it. 100% Confirmed. Everyone agrees with you.lol please do the world a favor and delete your internet.
hans_ober - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
If it's anything, wide bezels make devices ugly.sonicmerlin - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
lol that was my first thought upon seeing the picture. It looks like a half-done prototype. The Lumias going for half the price look better.DabuXian - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Off topic, but why don't you update NAND performance of the Nexus 6? It's been vastly improved on Android 5.1.Brandon Chester - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Our NAND tests are being moved to Androbench 4. The writing of this review took place over a longer period than I had anticipated, which is why there are a few things like the usage of the older NAND bench and the GS6 not showing up in the charts. In future reviews the Nexus 6 should have up to date storage performance benchmarks done on 5.1.djvita - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
The graph for Basemark OS II battery score is missing the Moto E's score.whiteiphoneproblems - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
"The procedure for iOS is a bit different, and it involves signing into your iCloud account which I'm just a bit weary of..."Should be "...just a bit WARY of".
Also, I don't see the Moto E listed on the "Basemark OS II Battery Score" chart(?)
whiteiphoneproblems - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
(Apologies for x-post with the above)