Motorola Moto G 16GB

Here’s an interesting fact – the Moto G tips the scales at 143g, which is exactly the same as LG’s 5.2-inch flagship the G2, and the gold standard in smartphone build, the metal-clad HTC One. This says something about the Moto G’s build quality, especially considering it’s encased in plastic. Suffice to say that the Moto G won’t be eligible for the lightest smartphone tag, but it sure feels reassuringly solid in the hand. Its looks won’t get you second glances though – and really the only word that comes to mind is ‘boring’. However, you can choose to liven it up with colourful back panels or flip covers offered by Motorola, or opt for one of the many third-party options available.

So, a 4.5-inch 720p screen would normally make us stifle a yawn. However, the Moto G’s display is one of its strongest points, and is really one of the best we’ve seen in this category. Sharp and vivid is how we’d describe it, but you have to experience it for yourselves to see what we mean. The touchscreen forms the backbone of the user-device interaction for any smartphone or tablet, and the one on the Moto G is certainly an asset – it’s highly responsive and makes text and images come to life, adding another level of immersion to videos and gaming.

The phone camera offerings can be broadly classified into two – those that try and one-up the others by adding on the megapixels, using fancy technology to enhance images and adding tons of features. Then there are others that simply deliver. We’d like to classify the Moto G’s shooter as the latter, despite its not-so-noteworthy 5MP sensor.

Motorola launched the Moto G in India with Android 4.3, but as soon as we unboxed and set up our review unit, we got a notification to upgrade to KitKat 4.4.2 and we did so gladly. The handset is pretty much the only device in its class that runs KitKat officially, and that also bodes well for it.

Many, us included, have the tendency of being bowled over by high-end specs when we see them listed as part of a new mobile phone launch. However, the Moto G’s spec sheet can hardly be called impressive, not by a long shot. Inside sits a quad-core Snapdragon 400 CPU running at 1.2GHz. It’s paired with 1GB of RAM and Adreno 305 graphics, while there are two storage variants on offer – an 8GB model that provides around 5.5GB of actual storage capacity, and a 16GB model with about 13GB of usable storage. One of the major downsides of the device is that there’s no microSD slot for adding more memory, though Motorola provides an extra 50GB of free storage on Google Drive for a period of two years. It also redeems itself slightly by including support for USB On-the-Go (OTG), so you can connect flash drives directly to the device using a cheap adapter. Note that you’ll also need to download a file manager app like Astro File Manager to make use of this capability. As you can fathom, this is a highly useful feature to have, especially for a device that doesn’t allow memory expansion, though it’s just not as convenient in comparison since you’ll need to carry the adapter cable and the flash drive with you and have it jut out when you’re using it.