The Moto E (2015) Review
by Brandon Chester on April 21, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola
- Mobile
- Moto E (2015)
Display
In the past few years we've seen a tremendous improvement in the quality of smartphone displays at every single price point. The display was often the first thing to be compromised when building a smartphone to meet a low cost, and the most inexpensive phones could ship with TN panels at resolutions as low as 480x320. But today even inexpensive smartphones like the Moto E have IPS displays and high enough resolutions to render text without overwhelming aliasing.
The 2015 Moto E has a 4.5" 960x540 IPS display, which makes it slightly less sharp than the original Moto E which had the same resolution on a 4.3" panel. However, a display's pixel density is just one of many attributes. To evaluate the various other aspects of the Moto E's display quality we turn to our standard smartphone display tests. As always, measurements are performed with X-Rite's i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer and SpectraCal's CalMAN 5 software, with the exception of contrast measurements which are done with an i1Display Pro colorimeter.
At 402 nits, the Moto E's display actually has a fairly good peak brightness. Black levels are also very good, which leads to a surprisingly high contrast ratio. It should be noted that the Moto E makes use of Content Adaptive Backlight Control (CABC), and dynamic contrast. The actual contrast ratio is closer to 1050:1, which is still a very good result.
Greyscale results from the Moto E are unfortunately nothing exceptional. However, with a price point of $149 they are also not unexpected. The Moto E actually does not fare much worse than Motorola's flagship Moto X. The display's average white point tends toward the red as the blue component of luminance drops off when shades of grey approach white. The warm appearance of whites is definitely noticeable during use, but it's not highly bothersome.
With saturations the Moto E actually performs better than I had expected it to. It's certainly imperfect, especially with blue and any secondary color with blue as a component, but with a price of $149 it surpassed my expectations of how well it would perform. The gamut itself is also larger than what one might expect from a budget IPS display.
In the colorchecker test the Moto E does very well. While it isn't at the level of the most expensive flagships with calibrated displays, it beats out many devices that cost significantly more. The display is surprisingly accurate when displaying color mixtures, with much of the error coming from the issues with reproducing shades of grey.
Overall, the Moto E's display is actually much better than I had expected it to be. While I would really love if it were a 1280x720 panel, it's just not manageable with the price point that Motorola had to meet. Even so, text was still rendered fairly well, and colors were reproduced with much greater accuracy than I expected. If you have reasonable expectations of the Moto E's display when you purchase it, I think you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised.
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Brandon Chester - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
That's a really bad mistake I commonly make. Thank you for pointing it out. Also the Moto E should be on the basemark chart, it might have glitched out and not regenerated or something. Let me take a look at it.mayankleoboy1 - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
I have the MotoE 1st gen. I have only 2 complaints:1. The internal storage is too low at 4gb. I cant install many apps.
2. The gallery app takes a long time to sharpen zoomed images.
PsychoPif - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
I'm happy to see you got some Windows Phone in there. While there is newer alternatives at this price, it's nice to see the diversityPeichen - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Overpriced when comparing with Chinese phones that have way better parts for the same price. The only reason Moto charge as much as it does with the the X, G, E and speciality phones is because it is the only American Android phone and if you want to buy American you have to pay the premium.Daniel Egger - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
> Overpriced when comparing with Chinese phones that have way better parts for the same price.And which phones would that be? At least there're no brand phones at that price tag with this (hardware) feature set and then we haven't even talked about software yet; it's close to impossible to find a phone which is available with (mostly unadultered) Lollipop and given that many or even most vendors in this price segment do not even care to offer *any* updates that's a major factor for any sane person. Also Motorola is one of the few companies which allow for easy rooting and even bootloader unlocking -- that's no small feat.
I totally agree with Brandon that the only reasonable price/performance competition can be found in the Windows Phone camp.
Peichen - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Xiaomi Redmi 2 is $112 with Snapdragon 410, 1 or 2GB of RAM, 8 or 16GB of storage, 720p 4.7" screen, 8mp and 2mp camera and Android 5.0Daniel Egger - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Aha, I can't find it for less than $132 (the 1GB/8GB version). Here in Europe the cheapest price is 40€ more expensive then the Moto E 2nd Gen LTE. Also MIUI v6 is based on KitKat and 32bit so not really interesting.Impulses - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Not sure why the slightly xenophobic tinge is necessary... It might be designed in the US but I'm pretty sure no Moto phone is made there anymore (they closed the Texas assembly plant no?) and Moto's parent company is Chinese anyway (unless Lenovo decided to move).Moto has better distribution than Xiaomi etc, particularly within regions that Anandtech's readership is at, get over it. That isn't even saying much considering how woeful Moto's distribution and site are, but it's still a fact. I'd actually love to see some Xiaomi reviews but if I can't easily buy one it's pointless.
Nothing against them, I've got a pair of Xiaomi Pistons that are some of the best IEM I've tried under $70, if not the best (and they were $25).
blzd - Thursday, April 23, 2015 - link
If you actually try and buy an imported Chinese phone you end up paying a lot more then their MSRP, often more then double.Also who wants to use an Android interface that was never designed to be used with the English language?
RealTheXev - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
I just picked up the LTE version of this phone for my mother on Verizon Wireless (and yes, I am 100% sure it is the 2015 model). It comes setup for pre-pay plans and has a bargain basement price of $69 (at Walmart no less). I even read on XDA of a few people being able to add it to their post paid Verizon plans simply by calling Verizon.For THAT price, its a freakn' sweet phone and its a huge upgrade over my mom's something LG with Android 2.6 3G (it was soo old.. and it was only a year old.. not even worth looking up the model # lol).