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Motorola launches Moto E

by Mark Tyson on 13 May 2014, 12:13

Tags: Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), Motorola (NYSE:MSI), Lenovo, PC

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Motorola today launched the Moto E smartphone. It is variously described by Moto's marketing folk as "Made to last," "Priced for all," and the smartphone which will mean millions say #GoodbyeDumbPhone. The price of this new smartphone should be $129 or £89 without any contract.

It seems like Motorola is putting a lot of emphasis on this new mobile being the device which finally makes feature phone hold-outs succumb to the lure of the smartphone. The Moto blog says that "we want to radically transform the mobile industry once again by making quality smartphones that can do great things available to practically everyone". The firm aims to do that by making a smartphone that is cheap yet capable.

I have certainly bought a cheaper smartphone previously, which made me miss the immediacy of the 'dumb' or feature phone that it replaced. It will be good if people sold on the smartphone dream don't suffer from the nightmare lag and unresponsiveness of the old entry level (Android) handsets.

Motorola says that it kicked off this cheap yet capable movement with the Moto G, its biggest selling smartphone ever, and wants to continue with the "fully loaded and fairly priced" Moto E. It hopes to finally push over the wall of feature phone users which it says still account for 70 per cent of mobiles in use worldwide. (link to stupidly long infographic)

Moto E specifications

  • Dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor with Adreno 302 400MHz single-core GPU
  • 4.3-inch 540 x 960 pixel (256ppi) display protected by Gorilla Glass
  • 1GB RAM.
  • 4GB storage built-in + microSD card slot to add 32GB more.
  • 5MP rear facing camera, takes panoramas and videos too. No 'selfie' camera.
  • Micro SIM, dual-SIM option
  • 1,980mAH "all day" battery
  • Bluetooth 4, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS
  • Built-in FM radio
  • Android 4.4.2 KitKat
  • Size 125 x 56 x 12.3mm, weight 142g
  • Choice of 20 colour and design combinations using 'Motorola Shells'

This smartphone also offers water 'splashguard' resistance to aid in its everyday durability. It will be available in over 40 countries over the next few weeks.

Motorola also launched an upgraded Moto G today with the extra of 4G connectivity. The 4G Moto G will have an RRP of $219 compared to the $179 of the 3G Moto G.



HEXUS Forums :: 13 Comments

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It certainly puts my original htc desire to shame ! maybe I should think about picking one of these up in a few months when they hopefully drop a bit in price.
The Moto E looks like a great buy for the money. I'm sure it will sell incredibly well!
It's similar to my Desire HD in spec but that was around £400 at release, slightly smaller screen and only a single core.

I was looking at the original moto G but the lack of Micro-SD slot put me off.
The 4G Moto G will be equipped with a Micro-SD slot and said to be priced around £150 so that's likely my next phone should mine die!
Odeas
The Moto E looks like a great buy for the money. I'm sure it will sell incredibly well!
It's similar to my Desire HD in spec but that was around £400 at release, slightly smaller screen and only a single core.

Luckily the Snapdragon 200 it uses is one of the A7 based designs (I think) rather than A5 and overall it's close to the HTC Sensation (from 2011) spec, the only things that ruined that handset were 1GB built-in storage and only having 768MB RAM with the memory hogging Sense. 1GB RAM and no Sense should would have ticked along nicely and 4GB storage in the E is enough for most people's app needs with media on an SD card.

For £89 it's a steal.
If I'm honest that £89 price seems a little expensive for the Moto E considering the price of the Moto G.

I bought the moto G and although 4G and micro SD are nice add ons they're not really that much of a reason to change it, I don't even get decent 3g where I live (it's the networks being cheap/lazy) and I'm a long way off filling my 16GB of storage so the micro SD would be a waste too.
brought my GF a cheap Chinese quad core phone this weekend of fleabay 4GB rom 1GB ram 5mp 5" screen so with that in mind this dammmm expensive.