When Motorola made its comeback to the Indian market in 2014, the budget-friendly Moto E played a major role in its success. The company received a massive response to the first Moto E launch, leading Flipkart servers to crash and units to go out of stock within seconds. Motorola followed the same strategy with its second-generation Moto E(Review) but didn’t quite achieve the same level of success in India thanks to stronger competition.
Now, post takeover, Lenovo is launching the third-generation Moto E. There is however a change this time; the model that is launching is called Moto E3 Power, and it’s a variant of the Moto E3 for India. The Moto E3 Power is definitely superior on paper thanks to its bigger battery, and twice the amount of memory and inbuilt storage. But will that be enough to take on the likes of some popular budget smartphones in the country? Only time will tell. We spent some time with the new Moto E3 Power at its launch event in New Delhi, and here are our first impressions.
One of the biggest highlights of the Moto E3 Power is its large 3500mAh battery, and this is being marketed heavily by the company. Making the deal even sweeter, Lenovo will ship a 10W charger in the Moto E3 Power’s box. The phone supports rapid charging, which means plugging it in for 15 minutes will give you up to five hours of battery life, according to the company.
The Moto E3 Power has a removable back cover that opens up to reveal two SIM slots as well as a microSD card slot. The company has gone with a removable battery on the Moto E3 Power, which looks like a welcome change from most phones today which have non-removable batteries.
The new Moto E3 Power definitely looks a lot like the first-generation Moto E with speaker grilles both above and below the display. The 5-inch screen makes this phone feel taller than the original Moto E which had a 4.3-inch display as well as the Moto E(Gen 2) which had a 4.5-inch display. The front of the new phone is plain with no branding, while the rear sports the iconic Moto logo just below the camera. We liked the textured rear panel and the metal frame, which both give the Moto E3 Power a sturdy feel as well as decent grip.
The volume and power buttons are on the right, while the left is blank. The 3.5mm audio jack is on top, and the Micro-USB charging port is on the bottom. At around 154 grams, the phone feels slightly heavy for its size, and with a 9.5mm side profile, it’s also quite thick.