The Moto G is the first Motorola phone to be released since Google took over the brand back in 2012. Offering far better specs than most other big-name phones, this £120 phone is unbelievable value.
The Moto G has a plastic casing, with a curved back that cares more about feeling good in the hand than being terribly thin or light. At 143g and 11.6mm thick, it’s significantly thicker and heavier than most phones with similar specs. However, for the average buyer this won’t be much of a sacrifice.
The back is smooth and comfy, and as the 4.5-inch screen is smaller than many high-spec Androids the Motorola Moto G is easy to use one-handed. It might lack the recognisable design of the Razr-series phones, but it offers a level of customisation thanks to an array of available body shells.
Thought removable phone fascias were dead? The Motorola Moto G is trying to bring them back. 19 different backs are available for the phone, coming in all sorts of different colours and types.
The phone is stylishly executed and practically designed. It even has a water-resistant ‘nano’ layer inside the phone, designed to protect it from light splashes. The design also keeps any power connections away from water, by sealing in the battery.
With the entry-level £120 model you get 8GB of internal memory, around 5GB of which is accessible, and there’s a 16GB version that costs £150.
The Motorola Moto G’s most impressive feature is its screen. 720p resolution stretched across a 4.5-inch display gives a pixel density rating of 329 pixels per inch (ppi). This gives the phone the sort of ultra-sharp text and images that was normally only synonymous with much more expensive phones. Image quality is good too. The Motorola Moto G uses an IPS display, the same type used in both the HTC One and iPhone 5S, and it’s a good one. Colours are well-saturated and vivid, contrast is strong and the evenness of the backlight is on-par with phones costing several times the price.
With Gorllia Glass 3 as the screen covering, the phone is less prone to flexing under pressure and scratching.
The Motorola Moto G runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. You get all of Google’s standard Android apps, including the latest addition Quickoffice. This is a mini Microsoft Office-style suite that lets you make documents, spreadsheets and presentations from your phone/tablet. It’s all sync’d in with Google Drive too, making it remarkably handy if you already use Google Drive to share your documents.
There are two extra apps that Motorola humbly bundles into the Moto G – Motorola Assist and Motorola Migrate. Their functions are things designed to make your life easier in simple ways, and both are fairly good.
The Motorola Moto G is a phone that proves how cheaply a high-quality phone can be made with a bit of aggressiveness and the right decisions. It stands out among its peers as the new ‘phone to beat’.
