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Motorola Moto E Review

Price
Euro100

Motorola Moto E Review

Motorola Moto E Review

Introduction

The Motorola Moto E is aimed at cashing in the success of the Moto G that successfully united mid-range spec with a surprisingly low price tag and then continued to sell by the truck-load. The Motorola Moto E is a somewhat smaller, a bit cheaper alternative to the Moto G which is the highest-selling phone Motorola has ever made. It is not set to replace the Moto G because it is an entry level handset with a truly bargain bucket price, whereas the Moto G is a mid-range phone rather Moto E is meant to bring its bargain rate charms to a whole new audience who don't want, or can't afford, to spend upwards of $130 on a phone.

The strategy which the Motorola Moto E released with is pretty much same as that of Moto G except that it is an entry level phone. In the high-end section, Moto X Android smartphone proved the world that heavy specs are not the surety of a phone is great and will be successful.

In the meantime, it’s Moto G on the other end of the spectrum that showed in a spanking era for the proud company with its hard-to-beat price. Following up to that success is Moto E that further continues the trend by diving even more deeper in the competitive entry level smartphones segment of the market. Although, it’s not rather as market-shaping a device as the Moto G, but it definitely is another bargain. With an even more cheaper price tag of $130 off-contract price, do you think that Moto E can permanently make extinct those feature phones?

Unboxing the Moto E

The Moto E, like the Moto G, is shipped in a very tiny retail box that contains the phone itself and a USB cable. The rest of the things that you need, you will have to buy yourself. However, the retail package contents may vary across different markets.

Design

The Moto E comes with a humbling design that comes away smooth. Essentially, it applies the same modest design language of the Moto G, though, with few minor differences. The Moto E is a compact, lightweight and form fitting mobile phone that is extremely comfortable to hold. Its decent construction and slightly arched casing give you a good grip. Apart from that, there is a very pleasant personalization aspect to the design because of the interchangeable rear casing. Its design could have been gone a total different way, but this is how company decided to manage a design that does not go over objectionably cheap.

It is pretty much similar to the Moto G with few exceptions, such as speaker is positioned to the front below the display, and there is no front facing camera, obviously to keep the cost with their target budget. What is more, 3.5mm headset jack is present on the top, microUSB port on the bottom and power and volume controls on the right. A 5-megapixel fixed focused camera is present on the rear side of the Moto E with the ability to shoot 854 x 480 (FWVGA) video. Luckily, a microSD card slot to extend its storage capacity is concealed behind the rear casing. Motorola has also added a water-resistant splash guard feature that safely protects the phone from minor splashes, though it is not envisaged to survive submergence.

Display

Although, the display on the Moto E is far from being the sharpest yet it gets the job done without any complaints. There is no second opinion that its display is not one of those dazzling visuals that we have seen with today’s crop of smartphones, yet it comes with a more hand friendly sized 4.3 inch 540 x 960 (qHD) IPS displays with Gorilla Glass 3. The pixel density comes as 256 ppi which is sufficient enough to make net surfing tolerable. All in all, the phone manages provide a usable display while keeping the cost of the phone low.

Knowing its price point, we were not expecting something extraordinary with the display, yet its weak points make it somewhat unusable in sunny conditions such as colors that from the front radiate with a punchy and robust tone quickly wash out with the slightest of tilt. Moreover, its weaker brightness output of 389 nits along with poor viewing angles make it very difficult to use the phone under sunny conditions. Despite having said that, it’s pretty much pointless to complain about its deficiencies because of its low cost.

Interface & Functionality

The Moto E comes with a stock Android experience that makes thing easier for the first time smartphone owners without making being overcomplicated. Basically, it is Android 4.4.2 KitKat with a pretty clean, intuitive and straightforward UI that gives first time users an easy time to take hold of the things quickly. Furthermore, as there is no customization from Motorola’s end, hardcore Android fans therefore will be more than happy with this gesture.

With respect to what is new in the Moto E, we find two new features that we are not familiar with. The one is the Motorola Migrate that as its name suggests allows new owners to transfer content from their old device to Moto E. the second one is the Motorola Assist feature that protect you from getting interrupted during certain scenarios. Other than that it is pretty much the same Android experience and there is nothing new that would make us dribble with excitement. However, the most interesting thing about the Moto E is that Motorola keeps the things simple and straightforward without burdening its users with redundant things. Rather than that the company provides all of the essential things that you could find on any Android device.

The on screen keyboard provides a fair amount of responsiveness, however, since the buttons are rather tiny and because of the cramped confines of the layout, using keyboard still is a challenging task.

Processor & Memory

Seeing its price tag, it was expected that the small things will execute finely and this is what the situation is. The Moto E finely executes the small things, whereas when it comes to demanding stuff, it sheds lots of its performance. There is nothing to surprise about as it was predictable because of its intended target. The Moto E is equipped with a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 SoC with 1GB of RAM and the Adreno 302 GPU. This specs is sufficient enough to provide overall good performance for its price range, though the scores are not quite inspiring.

Overall, the Android KitKat operating system is pretty much responsive for the everyday usage like web browsing is as quick as you would expect with some popular games run quite fine, though it is not a gamers’ choice and nor meant to be a powerhouse yet it delivers.

The phone comes with 4GB of internal storage that breaks down to 2.21GB of actual usable space making the storage a very precious commodity. Moreover, there is a microSD card slot that make thing a bit easier for you as well.

Internet and Connectivity

The Moto E comes in single and dual SIM version and the dual SIM version of the Moto E has 2 different types of connectivity for different markets. These include Quad-band GSM (across all models), Dual-SIM (Moto E XT1022, XT1025 only), 3G: 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100, 21 Mbps HSDPA (Moto E XT1021 only), 3G: 2100, 21 Mbps HSDPA (Moto E XT1022 only), and 3G: 850 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100, 21 Mbps HSDPA (Moto E XT1025 only).

The rest of the connectivity features available across all models include single-band Wi-Fi b/g/n and Wi-Fi hotspot. There is also support for Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and GLONASS, plus an FM radio with RDS.

Overall, complex web pages take longer time to load. The navigational control is quite responsive and due to this the overall web browsing once the page is completely loaded is pretty tolerable.

For connectivity purpose, a microUSB 2.0 port is also available for data connection as well as for charging. Apart from that, media transfer mode for accessing phone’s memory and microSD card via USB cable is also supported.

Camera

This is the part that is arguably the most underwhelming. The Moto E sports a poor fixed focus 5 megapixel camera that lacks auto focus and can take photos in the maximum resolution of 2592x1944 pixels. Although, it has built-in HDR mode that you can set to activate automatically under certain conditions.

The interface is kept simple and minimal same as the one found in the Moto G and Moto X. the interface includes only two on-screen buttons for video recording and front facing camera. Taking image is very quick and this is what the camera mainly focuses on.

Furthermore, there are no manual control nor there any meaningful shooting modes. The camera interface is extremely cluttered free and simple. As far as the quality of the pictures is concerned, it does not scream anything remarkable with undeniably soft details making pictures appear as painted piece of artwork rather than anything else. Moreover, under low lighting, the camera quality gets even more worse where noise and more grain make it hard to like the picture.

Coming towards its video recording feature, the Moto E is capable of recording FWVGA (864 x 480) videos at a constant 30fps. The video recording like its still picture is just sub-par and there is nothing tangible about it. Video quality is nothing to write home about, especially when it captures 854 x 480 videos that is two time less than 720p.

Multimedia

It is quite surprising to see that the Moto E is quite tolerable for most multimedia purposes. There are two gallery apps that Android 4.4 KitKat offers you. One is default gallery and the recently introduced Photos. The Gallery app shows all of the photos in your phone whereas providing you load of sharing options as well. On the other hand, the Photos app is the most recent gallery app that Google is striving to move forward lately. It incorporates with Google+ and can backup your photos automatically to your Google+ account if you like. It also shows all the photos from your online albums.

A very basic video player is also integrated within the gallery app. It is best to follow nothing higher than 720p, this is because 720p videos play smoothly on the device whereas, 1080p videos just freeze and lock up. Moreover, the only supported format is MP4.

Google’s own music player called Play Music handles your music collection on the Moto E. there is nothing special here that we have not seen or experienced before. The Music app features the brand new Listen Now feature that intelligently tries to figure out what you like and sequence your playlist accordingly.

You will also be offered with the FM Radio which is a pretty straightforward affair. Simply plug in your headphones and the app will scan for the available radio stations in your area. You can also scan the station manually. There is RDS support as well. The smartphone is averagely loud and demonstrates good dynamic range, low noise levels and decent distortion levels.

Call Quality

There is some distortion in voices on both ends that makes it a bit challenging to hear the other party at times. Although, the volume output of the earpiece and the speakerphone are pretty much fine yet voices tend to have a static tone to them. Furthermore, the caller on the other end also face some difficulties like the voice are very choppy.

Battery

The Moto E is shipped with a 1980 mAh battery that delivers an excellent battery life which is impressive enough. The battery can last roughly 2 days of normal usage which is pretty much excellent. Moreover, it gives rise a time of 8 hours, 8 minutes with our battery benchmark test, which straightforwardly tops many high-end phones in the category.

Should I Buy The Moto E?

The Moto E, as compared with the other smartphones in the category, does not have much fighting chance, but, on the contrary we handled this review totally realizing that this type of pricing is almost bottom of the barrel. Though, we were expected to be disappointed but we wanted to see whether Motorola has done it again, like it did it with the Moto G.

The Moto E is not a perfect smartphone, neither does it has to be - essentially for the reason that the Moto E is most impressive for its rich value. What’s more, we are felicitous that the Moto E delivered effectively in so many departments on top of the most reasonable price tag. Its price is something that would entice the people who does not want to spend tons of money just to experience the advantages of a smartphone.

At around $130, the phone offers a 4.3-inch screen with an ambient light sensor and Gorilla Glass 3 protection along with the recent Android release and the satisfactory performance of the Snapdragon 200 that is more than enough for a phone of this range. Plus, the loudspeaker is pretty much loud which accounts for a rarity among the smartphones these days, and last but not the least its impressive battery life which is quite good enough too.

In short, the Moto E shows that loads of devotion and affection can still be felt in something so cost-conscious and that too without getting cheap or shabby!