I’ve been looking to replace my nearly 20 month old Nexus 5 for some time as the battery life was progressively declining. I considered opening up my Nexus 5, unscrewing things and getting a new battery. In the meantime, I went on a questionably unsafe hike where it then poured and my Nexus 5 got more than a little wet. Needless to say, I needed a new phone as my Nexus 5 now had more than battery issues.
I settled on the Moto G 2015 16GB, 2GB RAM version from Fl* rt. Ordering the Moto G was a snap, and in less than a week I had my Moto G in hand.
SHINY EXTERIOR ( or not really) :
The Moto G 2015 sports a 5” gorilla glass screen at a 1280 x 720 resolution for a 294 PPI. This is quite low compared to other phones out there, but the Moto G is also 60% or 75% of their price ( Looking at good brands, not Chinese craps! ). Furthermore, higher resolutions require more powerful chips to run and suck up more power. Part of the reason I went with the Moto G over waiting Nexus 5X is because the Nexus 5X have even higher PPI than the Nexus 5 resulting in likely worse battery life. I can tell the difference between the Moto G and the Nexus 5 screens if I look real hard, but it doesn’t bother me. Screen to body ratio, or how much of the face is screen vs non-screen is 67% . Edge to edge screen this phone is not.
Now the back is way different from my Nexus 5 in that it’s textured and easy to grip unlike the smooth backing of the Nexus 5. Still plastic, but I don’t see a problem with that at all. The texture however is likely to accumulate all kinds of gunk and dust, so I’m putting mine in a case as soon as it arrives. The backing comes off revealing a micro SIM and MicroSD ports. You can order additional different color backings directly from Motorola to customize your phone and change the colors based on whatever you feel like.
The phone’s backing is curved with the audio port on the top. The top of the phone also curves down making audio port buttons like the not viable.
Power button is on the right above the volume up and down. Speaker ( unknown if mono or stereo at this time) and microphone are front facing with respectable sound. Front facing with along with a 5 MP at f/2.2. The back camera is a 13 MP at f/2.0 with dual flash.
Weight is fairly average in real life. There is no notification light. So the ability to glance at your phone and see whether an email, text message, Facebook post, Instagram post or anything you’ve assigned an LED light color is flashing is now gone. In its place, the screen will now selectively turn on a small portion of the screen with the icon of the application when a notification comes in. Not as useful by far, but still better than nothing. ( This feature is copied from Lumia’s there its called ’Glance Screen’)
GUTS, WIRES, & SILICON:
The Moto G is running a quad core Qualcomm S410 which is a fairly low to midgrade processor with a Adreno 306 graphics chip. The S410 is actually quite a big improvement over the S400 despite being granted just 10 higher in the naming nomenclature. The S410 uses 64 Bit computing, is a quadcore vs dual core, better efficiency and uses ARM v8 which is a superior instruction set. Basically, don’t be fooled by the low processor number, this processor can handle most peoples’ daily routine. Don’t expect to run mobile high performance games at max here, but this will easily handle mundane tasks. Furthermore, remember, low to midgrade processors tend to be more power efficient leading to, you guessed it, better battery life.
Depending on the model you get, it will either be the 16GB/2GB Ram model or 8GB/1GB Ram model. I strongly suggest getting the 16GB/2GB Ram model. The 16GB model only had 11.81 GB free after OS. Android doesn’t run all that well under load with just 1 GB of Ram.
Battery is rated at 2, 470 mAh and is fairly impressive in how long it takes to drain the battery. With a lower resolution screen and a low to midgrade processor, the battery life on a sub 3, 000 mAh battery phone is very impressive. Battery is NOT removable. After extended use of this phone, two days is plausible if you aren’t a big movie or game player. I get up at 6: 30 in the morning and after checking email, WhatsApp and a few other apps, my phone is down to 95% by 9: 00 am. Finishing my day at 6: 00 has my phone down to 73% despite usage all through the day. Turning into bed at 10: 00 pm has the phone down to 58% . I can go two days without a recharge, but I’m also not streaming video or playing games. Your mileage will of course vary. The reviews aren’t kidding about “all day battery.” 42% usage on 15 hours with frequent, but short usage.
As usual, there is the standard Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS/GLONASS. iFixit hasn’t done a teardown of the 2015 Moto G, so I cannot be sure who’s making what chip. Odds are though it’s Broadcom providing the Bluetooth/GPS chip. There is NO NFC. I found that I rarely used NFC on my Nexus 5, so not a big deal to me. There’s an accelerometer and the regular gambit of sensors. There is however an FM radio that doesn’t rely on WiFi or a data plan. It does however require you to plug in headphones as they act as the antenna.
The specification page says that the phone works with microSD cards up to 32GB. This is inaccurate. I currently have a 64GB microSD card working perfectly with over 20 GB of music on it. You will need to have the phone format the microSD card first before you can start moving files on to it. The Moto G 2015 apparently only reads FAT32 format which Windows will not format a larger than 32GB memory card to. Motorola I believe stated that up to 32GB as some larger cards may perform inconsistently. See my photo for more information.
THE DIGITAL BITS, SOFTWARE:
Motorola has adopted stock Android+ , where the + is a few optional Motorola apps which are relatively useful. There is no Samsung Touchwiz, or LG, HTC or other manufacture skin on the phone that so regularly slows down devices running such skins. So if you like stock android ( you must like! try stock Android once and you’ll never come back! ) , this is a huge benefit, out of the box virtually stock Android. My model shipped with Android 5.1 Lollipop. You get to decide what your phone looks like, the power is yours.
Motorola has included a few Motorola apps which are pretty useful in learning your routine to keeping the screen off during your regular sleep hours, what to do based on certain motions of the phone, who’s calls and text messages to block and let through based on your calendar and so on and so forth. The best thing is that none of these are mandatory and you can completely ignore them should you wish to. It’s all up to you.
USB OTG is enabled, but you do need a third party software package like the Nexus Media Importer application to read USB hard drives and flash drives. Mice work without any additional software. The microUSB port will not however connect through a wired CAT5 adapter to the internet ( or at least mine didn’t play nice) .
If you’ve previously been on an Android phone, the transfer is super simple via either the built in app “migrate” or by Google’s cloud backup. The real nice software bit is that you don’t have to install every Google App in this process. Don’t want Google Keep/Wallet/Etc? Don’t install it. ( It got Marshmallow update in India! Yay! )
CONNECTIVITY:
All good, no problem here. Motorola has always been great in this department ( afterall they invented mobile phones! )
LOOK MA, I’M A PHOTOGRAPHER, THE CAMERA:
The camera is a 13 megapixel at f/2.0 with dual flash with a front facing camera at 5 MP at f/2.2. Low light shots are mediocre at best, but well to moderately lit environments has the camera performing at a ?30, 000 smartphone level . Autofocus is reasonably fast and flash is bright.
Stock software includes HDR, Panoramic, video recording as well as built in a QR/bar code reading software. There is no image stabilization software which may create some blurry photos, but you may be able to find some camera software app that can mitigate that.
Considering that this phone costs ?10K for the 16GB/2 GB Ram model, the camera is beyond expectations.
OH CRAP I DROPPED IT IN WATER, OH YEAH IT’S WATER RESISTANT:
It’s amazing that a ?10K-15K phone is shipping with IPX7, which allows for 30 minutes submersion in fresh water without damage. How many people themselves or know someone who has damaged a smartphone by getting it wet? I’m guessing nearly everyone. With the Moto G 2015, you can carry on like normal when it rains, not freak out when someone spills a drink, and wash your phone under the faucet should it get dirty. Why can’t every brand follow Motorola on this?
NOW FOR SOME CELL PHONE PHILOSOPHY:
Now, the question is, will this budget phone do the job? Ask yourself, what do you primarily do on your phone? Text? Calls? Email? Browsing? Youtube? WhatsApp? Amazon? Facebook? Candy Crush? Tweet? Instagram? If you answered yes to any of those, this phone is for you. Buy smart, and buy what you need and what you’ll actually use. And odds are, this phone will fit your needs just right at an excellent, well balanced price. I bought this phone sorely on the basis of durability, stock Android and good updates, but I’m impressed what I got I’m the package!
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SUMMERY
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Pros:
-excellent value for money
-awesome battery life,
-decent camera,
-water resistant,
-back plate customization
-microSD card
-durable
-stock Android
-nice screen size ( completely personal, everyone likes different screen size)
Cons:
-No voLTE ( still voLTE have time to go in India, so don’t panic) ,
-no notification light,
-no NFC,
-no removable battery,
-midgrade resolution
-mid-cum-upper grade performance