Motorola bills the Moto G as the phone for the rest of us - the ones who can't afford $500 to $700 for a high-end smartphone. That's a big deal overseas, where carriers don't subsidize phones with two-year service contracts the way they do in the United States. But even in the U.S., more people are moving to contract-free plans and ones that offer frequent upgrades, meaning the full retail price is what's going to matter.
(Also see: Moto G budget smartphone goes official at $179, coming to India in January)
The Moto G started shipping in the U.S. this week, initially for the GSM networks used by AT&T and T-Mobile. I spent the past week testing the Moto G, comparing the phone primarily with its more expensive cousin, Motorola's $500 Moto X. I also put it up against another lower-cost phone, Google's $349 Nexus 5, as well as the premium, $649 iPhone 5s from Apple.
Where the Moto G fell short was in its camera, battery life and inability to access faster, 4G LTE cellular networks. For everything else I tested, the Moto G stood up well.
Motorola, which is owned by Google Inc., doesn't skimp in equipping the Moto G with a speedy processor. Apps launch almost as quickly as they do on the phone's pricier rivals. The Moto G runs a fairly recent version of Google's Android system, with a promised upgrade to the latest, Kit Kat, early next year.
(Also see: Moto G dual-SIM smartphone to land in India with Android 4.4 KitKat: Report)
The Moto G also has a decent screen. It's about as sharp as the Moto X's and the iPhone's, enough for 720p video, though the Nexus and various Samsung phones do better by offering full, 1080p high definition. The Moto G's screen measures 4.5 inches (11.4 centimeters) diagonally, which is larger than the iPhone's but small for Android. Colors aren't as rich as on the Moto X's display, but if I want a superb visual experience, I'd turn to a tablet, a TV or even a movie theater. For a phone, the Moto G's screen delivers video quite well.
As for the other shortcomings
Cellular access
The Moto G delivers 3G performance at best. Many parts of the world are moving to 4G, but Motorola points out that many of its target markets are still upgrading to 3G. Even in the U.S., many regions lack 4G. If I'm doing a lot of things requiring top-notch speeds, I'm better off finding a Wi-Fi network anyway.
Battery life
The Moto G has 6 percent less battery capacity than the Moto X. I got about up to eight hours of streaming video on Hulu with the Moto G, compared with nine to 10 hours on the Moto X. Although the Moto G has a removable plastic back, the battery can't be exchanged with a spare. That said, eight hours for streaming video is a lot, and you can stretch it to a full day with more moderate use.
The main camera has a resolution of 5 megapixels, less than the 8 megapixels on the iPhone and the Nexus and the 10 megapixels on the Moto X. There's more to a good camera than the pixel count, but the pictures I took with the Moto G weren't particularly good, especially in low light. They are passable for selfies and Facebook posts, but you'll want a better camera for keepsakes. Perhaps the money you save on the phone can go to a point-and-shoot camera that takes better pictures.
The Moto G is also short on frills. Part of that stems from Motorola's philosophy not to tinker with the Android operating system too much. Many rival phone makers do just that and wind up creating more chaos and confusion.
Instead, Motorola tries to limit what it adds. In the case of the Moto X, you can twist the phone to automatically launch the camera. You can initiate voice commands by saying, "OK, Google Now." The Moto X also offers unprecedented customization when you order; you can choose everything from the color of the power button to a personalized message on the back cover.
Be aware that the $179 price gets you 8 gigabytes of storage, half of what most phones offer. Given all the room your photos and video will need, pay the extra $20 for a 16 gigabyte model. Unfortunately, there's no slot for memory cards, as some Android phones offer.
Motorola sells the phone unlocked, meaning you can switch carriers as long as they use GSM. Verizon and Sprint are among the few carriers in the world using a different technology, CDMA. A Verizon version is coming early next year, while Sprint won't say whether it will have one.
Phone makers have been trying to set themselves apart by loading phones with more and more features, only some of which are useful. Motorola doesn't try to do that with the Moto G, apart from including an FM tuner. Instead, it's distinguishing itself through price. No one can question whether that's useful.
Build/ Design
The Nexus 5 sports a very understated look and there's nothing really striking in the phone's design that will shout for your attention. The phone is made of plastic and doesn't feel very premium.
However, when you place the phone in your hand, you'll feel that it's very pleasant to hold thanks to the soft touch matte finish. Also, despite its large 4.95-inch screen, we didn't face any issues operating it with one hand. This is also due to the phone being quite lightweight at 130 grams.
The Nexus 5's edges are less curved and its corners less rounded compared to other phones, including the Nexus 4. The phone is available in Black and White colour variants and we got a Black one as our review unit.
The 4.95-inch full-HD display dominates the front of the Nexus 5, and there are no hardware buttons. A round LED notification light is placed below the display, while the sensor array and the front camera sits above it.
The right edge of the Nexus 5 features the Power/ Screen lock and the Micro-SIM card tray, and the left edge features the volume rocker key. All the keys are made of ceramic and offer decent tactile feedback.
The 3.5-mm headset jack sits at the top edge of the Nexus 5, while the Micro-USB port and speaker grill sits at the bottom edge.
As we mentioned, the back of the Nexus 5 sports a matte soft touch finish giving it a good grip. It is a bit susceptible to smudges, though. The rear features an 8-megapixel ring shaped camera lens and the LED flash, apart from LG and Nexus branding.
Display
The Nexus 5 comes with an IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and pixel density of 445 ppi. The display comes with Corning's Gorilla Glass 3 protection making it resistant to scratches.
In our use, we found the Nexus 5's screen to be very bright, with text and images looking crisp and sharp. Colours looked vivid and not oversaturated like they look on AMOLED display though blacks don't look very deep.
The screen delivers great viewing angles, though it was a little reflective. Sunlight legibility was good though the screen brightness levels could be better.
Overall, the Nexus 5's display is one of the best in its class.
Software/ User Interface
The Nexus 5 is the first smartphone to ship with Android 4.4 KitKat, the latest release of the operating system. As with all Nexus devices, the phone includes the stock build of the operating system, without any additional UI skinning.
Android 4.4 KitKat on the Nexus 5 features a number of visual changes including a new launcher, making the interface even more minimalistic. It sports flatter design elements, muted colours in status icons, transparency, and smoother transition animations.
With Android 4.4 KitKat, you can now have as many home screens as you want by simply dragging an icon or placing a widget on a new one. After enabling Google Now, Google's smart assistant that fetches information and offers updates based on your data and usage behaviour, you'll see that the left most home screen would be Google Now pane with information cards and a search bar. The screen can also be invoked by swiping up the screen from the Home button. The Google search bar with the voice search icon is present on all home screens and cannot be removed.
Interestingly, you can also initiate voice search from the Nexus 5 when it's in the unlocked state by simply saying, 'Ok Google.' The option is only available when you choose US English as the default language option in the Google Now app's settings, though. With this change, Google search is integrated deeply with the phone.
The launcher has been revamped with icons looking bigger than their Jelly Bean avatars and dots are used to indicate the pagination in the home screen and app launcher, similar to iOS.
When you launch the KitKat app launcher or go back to the home screen, you'll notice a smooth fly away animation.
The app launcher now only features app icons and gets rid of widgets. Due to the larger icons, you'll see a 4x5 grid instead of a 5x5 grid.
Long pressing on the home screen brings up the menu to change the Wallpapers, Widgets and Google Now settings. The choice of default still wallpapers, live wallpaper and custom wallpapers are now available under a single menu.
The KitKat notifications tray features notifications that can be expanded by using two finger pull. It also features buttons for clearing all notifications and for displaying toggles for Brightness, Settings, Wi-Fi, Network, Battery, Aeroplane Mode, Bluetooth, Location settings and Alarm clockAndroid 4.4 KitKat also includes an immersive mode that hides the status and navigation bars offering a full screen experience in apps. Apps like Google Play Books already support this mode and developers can choose to enable it for their apps. The OS also allows developers to display semi-transparent navigation and status bars. We've not seen any apps that take advantage of this feature, however.
Android 4.4 also includes a revamped Phone app that now automatically prioritises your contacts based on the people you talk to the most. When you first launch the app, you'll see a screen that displays a search bar, a place where most frequently called contacts and favourites are displayed and shortcuts to launch all contacts, the dialling pad, call history and settings.
You can also search for nearby places and businesses, contacts, or people in their Google Apps domain directly from the search bar.
If you receive a call from a phone number that is not saved in your contacts, the Android 4.4 KitKat-based Nexus 5 will look for matches from businesses with a local listing on Google Maps.
We felt that the new Phone app could be a little overwhelming for some as it's not very intuitive when it comes to describing what the shortcut keys do. However, the search feature packs in an online phone directory in the app. It will even fetch numbers for users who've registered their phone numbers with Google. The number identification feature also works for incoming calls eliminating the need for apps like Trucaller.
Camera
The Nexus 5 sports an 8-megapixel rear camera with Optical Image Stabilisation, and a 1.3-megapixel front facing camera. The phone features the stock Android 4.4 Camera app with 4 default shooting modes - Still, Video, Panorama and Photo sphere (360-degree).
Similarly, in the Video mode, you can change video quality settings (1080p, 720p or 480p), Time lapse, Exposure settings and Flash. We have to say that we're no fans of the nested arc shaped settings toggles and find the app a bit unintuitive.
Putting the camera of the Nexus 5 to test, we observed that images taken outdoors during daylight came out a tad brighter. However, there are a number of issues with the phone's camera that we encountered in our use. We observed that auto-focus is not consistent, and focusing manually takes time resulting in images being different from what we desired. We also observed that there was a slight lag between the time we fired the shutter and when the phone captured the image.
Comparing images with the ones taken with an iPhone 5 in the same settings revealed that the white balance on the Nexus 5 camera (in the default mode) is skewed towards the warmer end of the spectrum. Low-light shots were also not up to the mark and had noise.
The camera does a good job for shooting videos and supports 1080p video capture.
The 1.3-megapixel front shooter does a decent job for video calling and taking self clicks. It supports 720p video capture.Overall, the Nexus 5's camera is underwhelming at best. We hope Google pushes out a software update to fix the focus issues and shutter lag.
Performance/ Battery Life
The Nexus 5 comes with top of the line hardware (at this point in time), as it is powered by a quad-core 2.26GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB of RAM, and an Adreno 330 chip for processing graphics. Our review unit had 32GB of built-in storage (a 16GB variant is also available), out of which 26.7GB is available to the user. The phone doesn't offer a microSD card slot for expandable storage.
The overall experience of navigation through the Nexus 5's interface was extremely impressive, thanks to all the power under the phone's hood and the UI being devoid of unnecessary bells and whistles such as transition effects.
We did not experience any lag at all while launching apps, playing games, scrolling web pages or switching between apps on the Nexus 5. The gaming experience on the Nexus 5 was pretty good with games like Temple Run 2, Subway Surfers, Shadow Gun: Dead Zone and Asphalt 7 running without encountering any issues.
We were able to run a number of video formats except for full-HD MOV and AVI through the native video player on the Nexus 5. We also experienced some issues with audio while playing an MKV format video. This was easily fixed by downloading a third-party video player. The phone then plays full-HD videos without any issues.
The speaker on the Nexus 5 is another pain point. It delivers below average quality sound at high volume levels and the sound gets distorted. However, the speaker grill is located at the bottom edge so the sound doesn't get muffled when the phone lies on its back.
Notably, the Nexus 5 doesn't include FM radio functionality.
Call quality was good on the Nexus 5, and we were able to receive cellular signals even in low signal areas.
The Nexus 5 comes with a 2300mAh battery, and in our usage, it lasted us just about a day with medium usage, including 1-1.5 hours of phone calls, two e-mail accounts with push notifications, playing some music, clicking a few pictures, Twitter notifications and WhatsApp chats.
It's worth pointing out that we had mostly used 3G data with intermittent use of Wi-Fi and had put the phone's screen brightness at the highest level. Altering these settings might help in running the phone for a longer duration, depending on your usage pattern.
Verdict
The Nexus 5 is one of the best Android smartphones that you can buy for under Rs. 30,000. Powered by a Snapdragon 800 processor, and 2GB RAM, the phone ticks all the right boxes in terms of hardware specifications. Since it's a Google experience device, you're always assured of regular software updates (at least for the 18 months promised period).
These two big factors do partially offset the main disadvantages of the phone, namely its mediocre camera, lack of external storage support and underwhelming battery backup. Google may or may not bring a software fix to resolve the issues (if these are due to the software limitations) but even assuming that this is not the case, the starting price of Rs. 28,999 makes the Nexus 5 a great deal. We can't think of a phone in this price range that delivers the same value.
Price: Rs. 28,999
As per GizChina, Huawei's President, Xu Xin Quan was spotted saying on the Weibo blogging platform that the new Ascend P6S smartphone, successor to the Ascend P6, will be unveiled with company's updated version of the in-house K3V2 processor with octa-core processing prowess. Further, the report revealed that the upcoming eight-core chipset will feature integrated 3G and will be optimised for extended battery life.
Unfortunately, the company's President has not shed much light on the innards of the Ascend P6S except the chipset. No details about the release and availability of the smartphone were shared either.
Samsung and MediaTek have already launched octa-core processors, the Exynos 5 Octa chips and MT6592 chipset respectively.
While it has already been confirmed that Motorola will be launching the dual-SIM version of the Moto G in India in early-January 2014, and that the smartphone would be receiving a 'guaranteed' Android 4.4 KitKat the same month, a new report says the model that will ship in India will come pre-loaded with Google's latest iteration of Android.
Omio News Blog in a report has revealed Motorola's plans for the rollout of Moto G with the latest Android iteration in various countries.
The report quotes Mark Randal, Senior Vice President, Supply Chain & Operations, Motorola who while replying about Android 4.4 KitKat rollout plans for Moto G said that the company will be shipping the smartphone with Android 4.4 KitKat after Christmas. Considering that in India, the Moto G will be launched next year, in early January, it is quite evident that the device will be running Android 4.4 KitKat out-of-the-box.
Further, the report notes that the Motorola Moto G will release in two waves (as we confirmed during the press conference) , the first wave includes countries namely Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico and UK, while the second wave includes US, South East Asia and other countries. Randal also revealed that the Motorola Moto G will be launched with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean in first wave countries, though they will also receive the Android 4.4 KitKat update by the end of January.
On Thursday, a tweet by Guy Kawasaki confirmed that the Motorola Moto G dual-SIM variant would be making it to the Indian market, as well as Brazil. While Motorola has already confirmed that the Moto G will be arriving in India, it has yet to reveal the precise plans for the type of retail availability.
The Motorola Moto G features a 4.5-inch HD 'edge-to-edge' display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels (translating to a pixel density of 329ppi) and boasts a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 screen. Powered by a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor coupled with an Adreno 305 GPU, the Moto G features 1GB of RAM. On the optics front, the Moto G sports a 5-megapixel rear camera along with an LED flash and also includes a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. The rear camera supports HD (720p) video recording.
The Motorola Moto G also features water-resistant nano-coating on the inside and outside. The Moto G packs a 2070mAh battery, which Motorola claims can deliver up to 30 percent more talktime than the Apple iPhone 5s.
The yet to be announced HTC Butterfly S smartphone has been listed on company's official website. However, there is no word when HTC may launch the device.
Earlier, HTC unveiled Butterfly S in Taiwan and it was speculated that the company would launch the device in developing markets soon that includes India.
HTC Butterfly S sports a 5.0-inch Super LCD 3 display with a pixel density of 440PPIs and the display also features Corning Gorilla Glass 3. On the hardware front, the device is powered by a 1.9GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor with 2GB RAM. It would run the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with HTC Sense 5.0 UI on top. The HTC Butterfly S much like the HTC One, comes with a 4.0-megapixel UltraPixel camera with the Zoe camera software feature and the rear camera supports full-HD video recording. It also has a 2.1-megapixel front camera with an 88 degree wide-angle lens.
The device supports single SIM and would use a micro-SIM rather than the regular sized SIM. On music front, the device boasts off the HTC BoomSound feature with dual front stereo speakers with built-in amplifiers and Beats Audio.
Connectivity options include NFC support, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi. The company has included a 3,200mAh battery that the company claims would deliver 29 hours of talk time and 544 hours of standby time. HTC has added the tagline, "Impressive style meets long-lasting stamina" to its HTC Butterfly S smartphone on the official site, highlighting the battery strength of the device.
Earlier we reported about HTC allegedly working on a 6.0-inch device, the One Max. The company is said to be working to expand its One series of smartphone globally. If the rumours are true, this would be the smartphone with biggest display from HTC and would be up against Samsung's Galaxy Mega series and Sony's Xperia Z Ultra smartphone.
Pee power! In a world first, UK scientists claim to have developed a novel method to charge mobile phones - using human urine.
Scientists working at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory have described the "breakthrough" finding of charging cell phones using urine as the power source to generate electricity.
"We are very excited as this is a world first, no-one has harnessed power from urine to do this so it's an exciting discovery. Using the ultimate waste product as a source of power to produce electricity is about as eco as it gets," Dr Ioannis Ieropoulos from University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, an expert at harnessing power from unusual sources using microbial fuel cells, said.
"One product that we can be sure of an unending supply is our own urine. By harnessing this power as urine passes through a cascade of microbial fuel cells (MFCs), we have managed to charge a mobile phone. The beauty of this fuel source is that we are not relying on the erratic nature of the wind or the Sun, we are actually re-using waste to create energy," said Ieropoulos.
He said so far the microbial fuel power stack that scientists have developed generates enough power to enable SMS messaging, web browsing and to make a brief phone call.
"Making a call on a mobile phone takes up the most energy but we will get to the place where we can charge a battery for longer periods. The concept has been tested and it works - it's now for us to develop and refine the process so that we can develop MFCs to fully charge a battery," he said.
The Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) is an energy converter, which turns organic matter directly into electricity, via the metabolism of live microorganisms, researchers said.
Essentially, the electricity is a by-product of the microbes' natural life cycle, so the more they eat things like urine, the more energy they generate and for longer periods of time; so it's beneficial to keep doing it, they said.
The electricity output from MFCs is relatively small and so far we have only been able to store and accumulate these low levels of energy into capacitors or super-capacitors, for short charge/discharge cycles.
This is the first time we have been able to directly charge the battery of a device such as a mobile phone and it is indeed a breakthrough, researchers said.
Scientists believe that the technology has the future potential to be installed into domestic bathrooms to harness the urine and produce sufficient electricity to power showers, lighting or razors as well as mobile phones.
The study was reported in the Royal Society of, 'Chemistry Journal of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics'.
The rumoured specifications include a 6.0-inch 1080p display and a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor with Adreno 330 graphics chip and 2GB RAM. The device will supposedly feature an UltraPixel rear camera that has been used in the HTC One, with a 2.1-megapixel front facing camera, Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity and would pack a 3,300mAh battery. The device is likely to be available in two storage variants, 32GB and 64GB, though storage would not be expandable.
The report also claims that the device would be a dual SIM phone and would be LTE compatible. Much like its predecessors, the HTC One Max is also expected to come with Sense 5.0 UI layer on top of the Android operating system.
Looking at the sheer size of the rumoured HTC One Max, it is being speculated that it would be a serious rival to the Samsung's Note Series that has been doing well in terms of sales since its launch. If true, this would be the first phablet from the stable of HTC.
The Taiwanese handset giant has been rumoured to be expanding its 'One' series and the HTC One Max can be considered to be a part of this expansion.
The Mobilegeeks.de also claims that HTC is all set to release the One Max and One Mini in September. However, it is also being said that HTC has no plans to release any new phones this calendar year.
Earlier, HTC One Mini was spotted again in fresh photos with supposedly confirmed specifications. The HTC One Mini is rumoured to be powered by a 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor with Adreno 305 for graphics and 1GB RAM. It could sport a 4.3-inch 720p display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels. It is also expected to feature the 4.0-megapixel UltraPixel camera found in the HTC One along with a 1.6-megapixel front camera. It would run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean with the latest Sense 5.0 UI layer on top. The device will come with 16GB storage of which 12GB will be user-accessible.