Motorola has officially unveiled the Moto G, which it promises will be “an affordable smartphone that doesn’t compromise.” With a 4.5-inch display, the company hopes that it can bring a large display to a budget phone, starting the launch event by highlighting the current choices on the market — with most of them restricted to smaller 3.5-inch screens.
The 4.5-inch display doesn’t blow away some of the phones we’re seeing from other manufacturers, who are launching gorgeous full HD displays, but it’s probably a little optimistic to ask for that from a budget device. Thankfully you’re not stuck with a terrible low resolution display either, with a resolution of 1,280 x 720, or in layman’s terms, 720p.
Of course it’s not just about the large display, with Motorola hoping it can win with premium-like specifications on a budget device, with 1GB of RAM and a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 clocked at 1.2GHz. Battery life also promises to impress with 33 percent more talk time than the iPhone 5s — something which we’d expect from a mid-range device.
Whilst it’s not in the same league as the likes of the Lumia 1020 or Sony Xperia Z1, Motorola believes that the Moto G is more than good enough for the average consumer. In fact according to the company, it takes “incredible photos in just about any setting.” Whilst we’ll have to put that to the test ourselves, its megapixel count is rather low with the phone boasting just 5 megapixels.
People who buy the Moto G are likely looking to take professional quality photos anyway, with Motorola probably aiming to have good enough photos for sharing on Facebook or Instagram, which is fair enough. Just because it’s a budget phone doesn’t mean it can’t have some camera tricks up its sleeve either, with slow-motion video, HDR, panorama and burst mode all onboard as added extras.
Like the Moto X, the Moto G will be customisable — although you won’t get access to the Moto Maker software to make it happen. Instead you’ll have to separately purchase some removable backs, dubbed Moto Shells. Unfortunately you’ll only get the chance to change the colour, although there will be other accessories available including cases and portable power packs.
If you’re going to pick up a Moto G today in parts of Europe and Brazil, or in a few weeks time for other parts of Latin America and Europe, it’ll set you back an extremely cheap $179 for the 8GB model, or $199 for the 16GB model. You’ll also be getting access to the latest generation Android 4.4 KitKat by January 2014 — which means the device won’t be launching with it.
In the UK it’ll cost just £135, whereas the rest of Europe it’ll cost 169 EUR.