Motorola Moto G Review: Is this the best budget smartphone?

The Motorola Moto G has been the most anticipated mobile phone for some time now because of it's super cheap price tag and really good specifications. Motorola has gone all out by trying to give a great phone at a throwaway price. After the success of the Moto X, this phone has a lot of hopes and anticipations tied to it. This phone is a huge one for Motorola as it looks to re-enter the Indian market after it wrapped up after being bought by Google. Incidentally, Lenovo recently acquired Motorola from Google which has really taken away the fear about the after sales support in India as Lenovo as quite a lot of service centers. This deal can also have a negative impact on the mindset of Indians as the faith in Motorola, it being a Google company, could somewhat reduce. Well, all of this does not really impact the device itself, so let's see how this device fairs in the day to day tasks along with those multimedia needs it has to cater to. 

Moto G

Courtesy: Motorola Mobility






Design and Build Quality: 9/10

The design of the Moto G is quite similar to it's elder and popular brother, the Moto X. It has a slightly curved back which fits perfectly in the hands making it a delight to use the phone. The phone is extremely well built with a plastic back which feels rubber-ish giving the phone a good feel and secure grip in the hand. The design is minimalistic but gives a nice feel in the hand despite it's cheap price tag. The dimple at the back of the phone with the Motorola logo is a really nice touch which is perfectly placed for the users index finger to rest on while using the phone. This restricts the finger from accidentally landing on the camera lens and saving it from smudges. All in all, the design team at Motorola has built a really smart design which is quite appealing.

The built quality on this phone is quite nice. The quality of plastic used is nice. The back panel is really difficult to take out, thus making it a better device in terms of build quality. The only con here is that the battery on the Moto G is non-removable which might bother some people. Personally, this does not really bother me as I usually carry a portable charger with me to charge my devices. None the less, if Motorola gave a removable back, it should have given a user removable battery. All in all, the phone has a really well design and build quality.

Display: 9.5/10

The display on the Moto G is a 4.5 inch HD 720p display. It has a pixel density of over 320 ppi. There is only one thing to say about this display. It is out and out gorgeous. The display on the Moto G is absolutely brilliant with great viewing angles, great colour reproduction and good sharpness. The display is the main USP of the device and it is really tough to beat a display this good, specially in it's price category. It also comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection which makes it scratch resistant. The screen size though is a debatable aspect of the device. Some people might feel this size to be really small in these days when the phablets have screen sizes upwards of the 5 inch mark. Some other people would feel this device to be perfectly sized, not too big, not too small. The screen size enables a perfect one handed use of the device without having to stretch for corners. All in all this is one of the best displays one can get out there especially at this price point. 

Hardware: 9/10

The Moto G packs some great specifications. It is powered by a 1.2 Ghz Quad Core Snapdragon 400 processor coupled with an Adreno 305 from Qualcomm. The device comes with 1GB of RAM and 8 GB or 16 GB of storage options. This hardware combination helps in providing a really smooth user experience without any sort of visible lag. The Adreno 305 ensures smooth graphic performance.

The con here is that it does not support any micro-sd card or any external storage. On the brighter side, the phone supports USB OTG functionality, which enables one to connect USB devices to the phone using a host cable. This is available after you download a paid app Nexus Media Importer which would help you browse the files on the pen-drive(Needed only for Android 4.4.2 Kitkat. Not needed for 4.3). Overall, the hardware is quite satisfactory and given the super cheap price point, this is quite good.

Camera:6.5/10:

While building a cheap or budget phone, a company has to cut some or the other corner. Motorola also had to do so and they did this with the camera. The Moto G is equipped with a 5MP camera with LED flash and 720p HD video recording capability. The camera quality is so so. The outdoor shoots in ample lighting conditions are really good with good colour reproduction and good amount of details. Sadly, the happy and nice part about the camera ends here. The camera performs really badly in indoor conditions with artificial lighting conditions. The colour reproduction is all over the place and details are missing with a lot of noise creeping in. Most of the people click a lot of indoor shots with there cellphones and here is where the Moto G fails to perform. The video recording capabilities are quite similar. It is great in outdoor conditions but is quite out of track when shot inside with a considerable amount of noise creeping in. The slow motion video recording at 120 frames per second is also okay-ish. The front 1.3 MP camera is only okay for video chats though the "selfies" won't turn out to be that good. Overall, the camera performance on the Moto G is just average.

Software: 8.5/10

The Moto G comes with Android 4.3 Jellybean with Kitkat update already rolling out. The good thing with Moto G is that it comes with an almost stock android without any custom skins laid over it. This enhances the performance of the device significantly. The software is thoroughly optimised so that the device is able to run the without much lag. Motorola only added two apps over the stock apps which are Motorola Migrate and Motorola Assist. These apps are of great use to the users and really enhance the overall user experience. 

Gaming: 9/10;

The gaming performance of the Moto G is also very good. It is able o run each and every game very smoothly including graphic intensive games like Asphalt 8 etc. The games did not lag much and by setting the appropriate graphic settings, the best experience can be had. The only problem is that the screen is not ideally big enough for extreme gaming enthusiasts. None the less, the phone performs brilliantly and runs every game you throw at it.

Battery:10/10

The battery on the Moto G is of a modest 2070 mAh capacity which may sound a little low but it is certainly not so. The battery life on this device exceptional when compared to today's average. This phone can last a heavy user(one who use there phone all the time) one full working day. A moderate user can expect a battery backup of 1.5 days whereas a light user can get an exceptional battery life of almost two days. This is really a great battery backup when even flagship phones do not last a full working day on battery.

Value for money:10/10

The Moto G retails for a price of 180$ for 8GB and 200$ for the 16GB variant. In India, it is launched for Rs 12500 for the 8GB and Rs 14000 for the 16GB version. At this price point, the Moto G is an exceptional value for money device.

Conclusion:

The Moto G is an exceptional device to buy for the price at which it is selling. It is not a device which does not perform well to be able to fit a budget. It just out performs many of the more expensive phones which talks a lot about the achievement of Motorola while producing this phone. The biggest con of the phone is the Camera, but overall, it's hard to beat for it's price point.
Overall:9/10

Moto G 8GB Flipkart

Moto G 16 GB Flipkart

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