Motorola Moto E 2nd Gen. Smartphone Review

Using the Moto E 2nd Gen.

The Moto E 2nd Gen. is smooth and fast for an entry-level smartphone. The screen size gives a good balance between a big screen and ease to carry the device around.

Being 0.48” (12.3 mm) thick, it is a little thick, but as it is curved at the back, it is comfortable to hold and to carry it in the pocket of your pants.

The quad-core, 1.2 GHz CPU is fast and gives an excellent usage experience.

The 960 x 540 screen resolution seems low when compared to mainstream models, but it is better than most entry-level smartphones, which usually have 800 x 480 screens. The angle of vision is not as good as that of mainstream models, even being an IPS screen.

The phone supports microSD cards up to 32 GiB.

The Android 5.0 operating system the highlight of this phone. Figure 10 shows the initial screen when you turn on the Moto E 2nd Gen. for the first time.

Figure 10: main screen

Pressing the icon with the circle with six dots, you enter the list of applications, shown in Figures 11 and 12. The Moto E comes with few preinstalled apps and games, which is nice since you can simply install what you really need.

Figure 11: list of applications

Figure 12: list of applications

You can install new applications using the Google Play Store, which has thousands of applications and games available.

The smartphone uses a 2,390 mAh lithium battery, which lasts up 24 h of mixed usage, according to the manufacturer.

The Moto E 2nd Gen. has a 5 MP camera, with average quality. The lack of a flash is a problem, but the overall camera quality is not bad for an entry-level smartphone. You can check the quality of unedited photos taken with the device by clicking here and here.

It records videos only at 720p, with no image stabilization.

The front camera has a VGA (640 x 480) resolution, which is only good enough for video chats, not for decent “selfies”.