Last week I reviewed the Motorola Moto G and today I’m on to its little brother the Motorola Moto E. Flipkart sold the phone on Monday for an exclusive 5500 for the day. Well, even 7000 isn’t a bad deal for this phone, considering its range of features.
Much like Moto G, what would have been a 12-15 k phone is being sold by Flipkart for a mere 7000 INR. Is it worth the deal? Let’s analyze.
Display
The Moto E boasts off a 4.3" LCD screen with a QHD resolution(no720 p), Gorilla Glass 3 and 256-pixel density. All in all a superb package for an entry level smartphone!
Battery
As one of the users mentioned in my Moto G review, these phones comes with a nonuser removable battery. Which means you can’t really charge the battery alone using an adapter. Another minus? It doesn’t have a wall charger in the pack. The 1980 mah battery performed reasonably in my initial tests, lasting well over a day on 1 hrs of calling and 2 hours of browsing.
Android Kitkat
Unlike the Moto G, this one comes with the KitKat android in the first series itself, instead of the regular stock android. The experience is pretty fluid devoid of blemishes. As usual, there’s the lock screen upfront. There are the home screen widgets plus a camera shortcut widget at the bottom. You can protect your lock screen by Face, Pattern, PIN or Password unlock, as is the case in Moto G. On the right side, there’s the quick toggles for wifi, Bluetooth etc. It would have been great if Google could finally integrate a close all, one touch widget into the system sooner rather than later.
Browsing
The typical stock browser is replaced by Google Chrome in Moto E. Opening and closing the tabs is child’s play with a simple swap to the right of the screen or left. Rest is pretty much the same as in Moto G. Auto sync to the PC. Missing adobe flash. Same old plus points, same negatives too.
Inside the system, there’s google play, there’s quick office, Adobe read. Pretty much anything you need. Android store lets you download thousands of apps for free as well. The phone also has a built in Do Not Disturb feature via their Assist app. It will keep the Moto E quiet while you’re in a busy cocert or a meeting.
To transfer contacts, messages and multimedia from other Android devices or iPhones, there’s a built in app called the Migrate app. Rest of the things is standard motorola. There’s phonebook, which lets you manage contacts. Telephony and connectivity work solidly. The 5 mp camera works ok. So is the music and video player apps.
The performance of Snapdragon 200 chipset was quite reasonable, given the pricing. In any case that’s where Moto E excels. Its cheap price and decent build quality and performance albeit the service quality remains a question since the brand is not visibly present in the market. The phone also comes in dual-SIM, which is a good add-on for business class people.
Alternatives - Nokia Lumia XL, Lumia 520, Lumia 525 and so on.