Motorola had taken the Indian market by storm by launching its first version of Moto G smartphone in the month of February. To take the story forward, Motorola has introduced second generation Moto G with some improvements. The new Moto G has a bigger display and better camera compared to the earlier version. It is still Rs. 1,000 cheaper compated to the previous version and is Readily available exclusively on Flipkart. Is this really a best smartphone in the budget segment? Yes, we can say and how, please read:
Build Quality
The new Moto G is bigger than the previous version and has two metal strips at the top and bottom, which are basically speaker outlets. These two speakers on top and bottom provide an audio boost and prove useful for streaming music and videos.
It measures 141.5×70.7×10.99mm, and weighs 149 grams. It is available in black and white color variants and one can customize the phone with different color Motorola shells.
The power and volume buttons in metal have ben placed at the right edge. The micro-USB port is at the bottom and 3.5mm headset jack is put on the top edge.
The slightly curved plastic back covers are interchangeable and are available in a host of different colours. The back cover has soft-touch rubberized matte finish exactly as of earlier version of Moto G. On the top of the back panel, the rear camera, LED flash and Motorola logo appear in the descending order.
You can find the microSD card slot under the swappable cover. In the new Moto G, the standard storage of 8GB or 16GB can be expanded upto 32GB with the microSD card slot. The lack of expandable storage was a disappointing feature on the older Moto G, as it was only available with 8 or 16GB versions. For storing your contents and apps, it was a major issue with many users and the 32GB expansion capability is quite reasonable for the majority of users in this budget segment.
Display
The Moto G features 5 inch HD (720X1280) IPS display at 329ppi, with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The display of this smartphone has high brightness, produces vivid colours and images with enough detail, and boasts of excellent viewing angles. While browsing the web, the text and images appear sharp and crisp. You can use the display in direct sunlight also without much discomfort.
Motorola has also added Nano-coating to the Moto G’s chasis to make it splash resistant to some extent, but this feature can’t be classified as water proof i.e you cannot afford to dip this device in the water. It can resist accidental splash of water only. Not a bad feature for the budget smartphone.
Camera
The new Moto G comes with 8MP rear camera with a f/2.0 aperture, rear-facing LED flash, and 4X digital zoom, which is marked improvement from the earlier version, which was packed with 5MP sensor. The camera of new version is capable of shooting slow motion video, burst shots, HDR, and panorama. There is no touch focus and you can click images by tapping anywhere on the screen. Moreovre, it is not possibel to focus again by tapping another area of the viewfinder. It is possible to choose between a 6-megapixel widescreen or 8-megapixel standard resolution for your images.
The images snapped with this camera offer good results with acceptable color reproduction, contrast and having good detail. The photos taken in fading lights also come out good. Those images clicked in good light and in bright backgroud come out more sharp and with better and ntural hues.
The new Moto G also has front-facing 2MP camera for the selfies. It produces average results and those images taken in low-light turn out to be little bit fuzzy. However, the video quality was good when we captured normal and slow motion videos at 720p HD resolution.
Software
The best part of new Moto G is that it runs on pure Android 4.4.4 KitKat OS and there is no interface on it, which normally makes any device slow. We are not fans of those vendors who superimposes their own interfaces on Android OS. Motorla has also assured that new Moto G will be updated with Android L OS, whenever the same is released by Google.
However, Motorola has added a few useful apps, which fortunately are not blaotware, such as Assist, which automatically silences the phone when it rings and when you are sleeping or in a meeting; Alert, which will keep you safe by keeping you connected with preferred family and friends in the event of an emergency; Migrate programme enables you to transfer content from your old Android phone or iPhone.
Hardware Performance
The new Moto G is also powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor coupled with Adreno 305 graphics and 1GB RAM, which was also on earlier version of Moto G. Despite no change in processing power, the new Moto G will not disppoint you and we did not face any lags while web browsing, streaming videos and music, laucnching apps ans switching them. It was a smooth experience to perform many tasks on this device.
The call quality on this smartphone is crystal-clear and the audio output is bit loud but good. Despite its limited RAM, you can play all sorts of games without any hiccups and resourceful games also run on this device without any lag or frame drops.
This smartphone is fuelled by a non-removable decent 2070mAh battery, which can last upto 8 hours if you play video on it continuously. It is capable of remaining on for full day with single charge and can deliver upto 3 hours of talk time. The new Moto G is a Dual-SIM smartphone and for connectivity options, it supports 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, Micro-USB, GPS, GLONASS, and 3.5mm audio jack.
Conclusion
The new Moto G is refined version of the earlier Moto G and I would not hesitate to call it a best smartphone in budget segment for its simple aesthetics look and almsot stock/pure Android expeirence. By pure Android OS, we mean that it does not have any other UI superimposed on it, which usually make the smartphones slow.
The new Moto G will give tough competition to many Chinese smartphones especially Xiaomi’s Mi3 and Redmi 1S and Asus 5 Zenfone. The plus point of new Moto G is that it is readily available compared to Xiaomi devices, which are available by strange method of online flash sales and there are also issues on getting Asus Zenfone 5. Moreover, Moto is now established brand due to its performance and acceptability.
If you are looking for no nonsense mid-range smartphone and your budget is Rs. 13,000 then you should not consider any other smartphone and opt for this device. I am prepared to give 4 marks out of five to new Moto G.
