Motorola Moto G Smartphone Review

Using the Moto G

In use, the Moto G smartphone is smooth and fast. The screen is clear and crisp, and its size gives a good balance between a big screen and ease to carry around.

The phone, however, could be thinner. It is 0.46” (11.6 mm) thick, but as it is curved at the back, it is not uncomfortable to hold or to carry in the pocket of your pants.

The quad core 1.2 GHz CPU was fast and gives an excellent usage experience.

The HD (1280 x 720) screen resolution if good for the size of the screen. Of course, we did not expect to see a Full HD screen in a device on this price range, and actually most of its competitors have 800 x 480 resolution.

The Moto G does not support an external SD card, so it is best to avoid the 8 GiB version. On the other hand, all of its available storage space (11.9 GiB when the phone is used by the first time, on the 16 GiB version) is configured as a single unit, which avoids the lack of space for new apps found in older Android devices.

The Android 4.4 operating system is easy to use and intuitive. Figure 10 shows the initial screen when you turn the Moto G on 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 G 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 2,070 mAh lithium battery, which easily lasted two days with average browsing and a few calls.

The 5 Mpixel camera is one of the points were the Moto G disappoints. Not only for the relatively low resolution, it has focus issues, and does not handle well with high luminosity.

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. It has an option for “slow motion” recording, halving the frame rate instead of capturing at twice the frame rate.

The front camera (for video chats and “selfies”) has 1.3 Mpixel resolution.