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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Kakti - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Don't all companies have to unlock phones these days once you're not in a contract though? I personally use the month to month for $45, but figured if they ever scrapped it or raised the price I'd move to an MVNO.Also, I recently received a MS Nokia Lumia 635 from my work - that's another real nice cheap phone IMO. Was originally going to get one for my personal but went with the Moto E when I saw the price. Everyone complains about it at work (they all use Iphones) but I think it's great for what its intended purpose is i.e. make calls, read emails, read news, weather, etc. I dunno maybe I'm just getting old (get off my lawn) but the prices and specs of top end phones these days are so overkill. Having a 2560p 6.5" screen and then needing a 300g battery to power it? No thanks....
RealTheXev - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
Several people on XDA forums have been able to contact Verizon and get the phone added to their postpay plan. I would have gone that route myself if I could have unlocked the bootloader (but you can't with Moto's tools).All Verizon LTE phones should come unlocked, but I have no other carriers to try my mothers Moto E on (that would get reception no less).
Gunbuster - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Would be nice to see a review of the new BLU Win JR LTESamus - Tuesday, April 21, 2015 - link
Super nice phone for $150. Probably the only android phone id recommend to people like my parents.grant3 - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Does this phone respond to 3-button android headset controls?What is the sound quality on music playback?
I'm disappointed that so much effort and detail was put into analyzing the display/software/etc. but there is nothing about the audio.
Kakti - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Can't comment on android headsets but the sound quality through $10 earbuds is fine. Sounds the exact same as my previous phones playing FLAC files.Playing music without headphones is alright, it's definitely loud enough for most uses; I play music on it after most leave my office and can hear it probably 50-75 feet away. There's roughly 0.0% bass as expected....played some Omni Trio drum and bass and it was like listening to half the song ;) But that's a given for any cell phone speaker really. Playing rock music FLAC files sounded as good as I could ask for from a cell phone.
grant3 - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
The issue I had with a previous motorola droid was there was a lot of line hiss. i.e., if you were in the quiet portion of a song, you can hear a background hiss (sounds like when you're on a phone call and no one is talking)It's sometimes tricky to notice because the internal amp would shut off when music is paused. and usually people are listening to their phone in a place where there is some background noise.
Kakti - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Just checked with some live concert soundboards - between songs it's pretty much silent and I didn't hear any hiss at volume levels that are comfortable to listen to.ASEdouardD - Thursday, May 7, 2015 - link
Why use FLAC files using $10 earbuds? I'd go high quality MP3.CharonPDX - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
I'm curious - is lack of 5 GHz WiFi (n or ac) really that much of a problem in an ultra-low-cost phone?I understand it would be great for future-proofing, but how often are people looking at ultra-low-end phones going to have 5 GHz 802.11n, much less ac? Or the high-enough-speed internet to notice the difference?