The Moto E (2015) Review
by Brandon Chester on April 21, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola
- Mobile
- Moto E (2015)
CPU Performance
The 2015 Moto E with LTE is the first device with Snapdragon 410 that we've run through our tests. However, buyers of the 3G versions will only get a quad core Snapdragon 200 with 4 Cortex A7 cores. While this is still an improvement over the original, it's quite a disappointment when compared to the LTE edition. To be clear, the results below are from the Snapdragon 410 version, not the Snapdragon 200 version.
Qualcomm's MSM8916 is a quad core Cortex A53 part. Motorola's implementation has it running with a peak CPU core frequency of 1.2GHz, and it's paired with a 400MHz Adreno 306 GPU. Like the Cortex A7 cores used in Snapdragon 410, Cortex A53 is still a dual-issue in-order design, and pipeline depth remains the same as well. ARM has greatly improved branch prediction accuracy and expanded how instructions can be co-issued with Cortex A53, and so much of the performance increase over Cortex A7 will come from those improvements.
The Moto E shows a decent improvement over Snapdragon 400 based devices like the Moto G, and the improvement over the original Moto E would be even larger. That being said the Moto E doesn't do quite as well as one might expect in our browser tests. Browser optimizations play no small part in this, with Chrome having lagged behind the stock browser from other manufacturers for some time now. Motorola's devices use Chrome as their default browser, and I have a feeling that to an extent the Moto E is limited by software here rather than hardware.
PCMark is a benchmark that focuses more on real-world scenarios where race to sleep speed is paramount. In it we see another modest overall lead compared the Moto G. The writing test in particular shows a great deal of improvement, while the video playback test is slightly worse which I suspect is the result of the Moto E's flash storage speeds causing video seek times to be longer than the Moto G.
In BaseMark OS II we actually see the Moto E performing worse than the Snapdragon 400 powered Moto G. The Moto G's higher score in the memory subtest helps to give it an advantage overall, and I'm at a loss to explain why the Moto E scores 50 points lower than the Moto G in the Web subtest. I can only imagine that the cause is related to software tuning but I can't definitively say why the gap is as large as it is.
Overall the Moto E does perform well for a budget device, but I do wish Snapdragon 410 showed a greater performance uplift over Snapdragon 400. With only 1GB of RAM and a maximum memory bandwidth of only 5.3GB/s Snapdragon 410 is also under some heavy memory constraints that could be acting as a bottleneck to potentially greater performance improvements with Cortex A53 over Cortex A7.
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Hubb1e - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
While the camera performance is pretty meh, I really don't see how you can complain about 802.11n being a downside. AC wireless is nowhere near ubiquitous and N is surely fast enough for low end users. AC is decidedly a high end feature in phones and even computers these days. Most users of this phone probably still have wireless G in their homes or coffee shop hotspots which I would argue is still plenty of speed for a phone with a low end mobile chipset.hans_ober - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Yeah, it makes more sense to upgrade the cameras to 8MP/2MP than to switch to 802.11ac.Olaf van der Spek - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
The E makes the much more expensive but slower G seem a bit expensive. Is Moto planning a new G?Cryio - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
"It wasn't that long ago that I recommended buyers looking for inexpensive smartphones avoid Android devices in favor of Windows Phone."" With Android Lollipop and new budget devices like the Moto E, my opinion about the quality of low end Android devices has changed."
While all these may be true, the Lumia 640 is a true challenger. There are still reaasons to recommend the 640 over this.
sprockkets - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Problem is what is the price, and two, it's a 5 inch phone. It was made to compete with the Moto G, not the Moto E.Currently I find WP to be great at first, but after a few days of trying again WP with the Lumia 635, it just flat out tries to annoy me. Today's annoyance is opening up the weather app goes to the store telling me there is a pending update. Then it disappears to the home screen. Before that when I told it to update all apps, it updates 16 out of 26. Why does the next 10 have to have me tell it again to download and install?
After the update it took two tries to open the weather app as it keeps crashing to the home screen.
The camera on it works good for pictures, but is utterly useless at night for video. Why can't they allow exp control for video?
Also learned they won't issue GDR1 or 2 updates for WP8.1 since it will go to WP10. Too bad the latest build is a buggy mess.
BMNify - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
You seem to have a defective Lumia 635, get it replaced, never seen or used such a buggy Lumia, Even the old and humble Lumia 520 performs much better than what you describe.Kakti - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
I bought this phone about two weeks ago from Best Buy - it's $79.99 for the Verizon one with NO contract. Not $120, not $150. $80 bucks. I can buy six of these for the same price as a new galaxy.The size of the phone is perfect, the screen is very nice, and due to the low resolution (compared to flagship phones), the battery actually lasts a really long time. Charging is fast and mine did come with a charger.
I've already recommended this phone to several family members and friends who are sick of 2 year contracts, gigantic phones that don't fit in your pocket, etc. Yes the camera sucks, no it doesn't beat a flagship in bench tests. But I don't run benchmarks, I have maybe 5-6 apps open at once and it has never slowed down or locked up on me.
Honestly if you're looking to save money and not have a laptop jammed into your pocket, take a look at this. The only reason I didn't get the Moto E last year was it didn't have 4G and we don't know how long until the 2015 Moto G comes out. 80 bucks no contract is pretty hard to beat.
BMNify - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
No contract does not mean Unlocked, it is still a Verizon locked phone and that is why you are getting for a lower price. As long as people keep buying locked phones from Carriers they cannot and should not complain about software updates. You become a carrier slave and slaves don't ask.sonicmerlin - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
If it runs on Verizon's LTE then it comes unlocked.RealTheXev - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
I'm pretty sure all Verizon phones on LTE come unlocked. It sucks because some bands that it would normally access will probably require hacking (whenever that might happen), but all of my Verizon LTE phones are unlocked by default.