In the recent few weeks, the Motorola Moto G has been in the spotlight for all the right reasons. This cracking device has specifications that rival the mid range to high end market of Android smartphones, but sits firmly in the low end smartphone budget.
So what has made the Moto G such a popular phone? The simple answer is the price. With the 8GB model starting at just £100 from Vodafone, it fits perfectly into the budget smartphone price bracket. At this price range, many phones come with very low end specifications, such as a single core processor and an outdated version of Android. That changed when the Moto G was announced.
The Moto G comes with a Snapdragon 400 quad core processor clocked at 1.2GHz, a 4.5″ 720p LCD screen and Android 4.4 KitKat. The processor may not be the best, but when you see that both the HTC One Mini and the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini both have dual core versions of the Snapdragon 400 and cost nearly £200 more, it shows that this device really is a bargain.
It also runs the latest version of Android, 4.4 KitKat. This version Android reduces the minimum hardware requirements of the phone, reducing the minimum RAM needed to just half a gigabyte! This means that with the Moto G’s 1GB of on-board RAM coupled with its quad core processor, you will not notice any slow down!
Another big talking point is the screen. A 4.5″ 720p LCD display is more than enough for internet browsing, gaming, reading anything really. It is the sweet spot if you like for manageable phones. Motorola have made the screen almost edge-to-edge making it even easier for one-handed usage. With a resolution of 1280×720 it is by no means the highest resolution, especially with the 1080p displays we have on the high end flagships, but with a ppi (pixel per inch) of 326 it matches the Apple Iphone 5S! The screen is quite possible the most surprising bit of the phone at this price point.
But there must be a corner that is cut to get to this price point. The camera is only 5MP, which is of course an area which has been skimped on. But in the words of Marques Brownlee, “I’m really impressed that there is even a camera at all on the Moto G”. If you really wanted a phone with a good camera then you wouldn’t be looking at this price point anyway. People who are looking at this price point for a smartphone, don’t particularly have a good camera at the top of their list which is why the Moto G only has a 5MP camera and not a 10MP camera like its bigger brother, the Moto X.
So what does this mean to the world of smartphones. It shows that you don’t need to break the bank to get a phone with great specifications but it also means that OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) need to seriously think about the specifications of their “budget” phones. It seems that the mobile world is moving to cheaper and cheaper components which is good for consumers and until manufacturers realise that not everyone has hunderds of pounds (or dollars) to spend high end flagship phones. But no one wants a bad experience either. The Moto G has in essence led the way for future budget phones.
Overall, the Moto G is a steal for the specifications. There really is no other phone which even come close to this phone at this price point. The closest in terms of specifications are the two phones I mentioned above, HTC One Mini and the Samsung Galaxy S4 and they cost more.
