Moto E 4G on O2’s network from Amazon for £119. The non-4G model will be available in the US, Latin America and India from 3 March, with other countries to follow. That 3G version will cost $119.99 in the US, but a UK price is not yet known. At £109 this budget 4G phone goes up against the likes of the EE Kestrel and Doogee F1 Turbo Mini. With some useful hardware upgrades that we’ll outline below, the Moto E is no longer just a cheap phone for fi rst-time or light users, but a proper Android smartphone that is more than capable enough for day-to-day use. Design and build The new Moto E 4G is very similar in its design to the original, with the same curved rear, chunky design that feels good in the hand, and reasonably thin screen bezel. It’s lost one of the two metal bars at the front, now with just the one at the top to hide the speaker.
For a budget phone, it looks pretty good. Whereas you could change the rear shell on the original Moto E, with this new version you can also change the grippy band that runs around its edge, allowing you to mix-and-match colours and create your own design. Motorola shells and bands are sold separately, though, and the Moto E ships with matching black or white shell and band. A key diff erence is the slightly larger screen. Now a Kestrel-matching 4.5in rather than the 4.3in we saw in the original Moto E, the Motorola off ers slightly more screen space on which to watch videos and play games. The resolution hasn’t changed, though, meaning this qHD (540x960) IPS display has a slightly lower pixel density of 245- rather than 256ppi. Show us the diff erence and we’ll show you a liar. The display itself is good for the price, bright and reasonably clear for a qHD screen.
For a budget phone, it looks pretty good. Whereas you could change the rear shell on the original Moto E, with this new version you can also change the grippy band that runs around its edge, allowing you to mix-and-match colours and create your own design. Motorola shells and bands are sold separately, though, and the Moto E ships with matching black or white shell and band. A key diff erence is the slightly larger screen. Now a Kestrel-matching 4.5in rather than the 4.3in we saw in the original Moto E, the Motorola off ers slightly more screen space on which to watch videos and play games. The resolution hasn’t changed, though, meaning this qHD (540x960) IPS display has a slightly lower pixel density of 245- rather than 256ppi. Show us the diff erence and we’ll show you a liar. The display itself is good for the price, bright and reasonably clear for a qHD screen.
IPS tech means colours are true and viewing angles are good. The Moto E’s screen is now splashproof; it also has an anti-smudge coating and is protected with Gorilla Glass 3. Despite the increase in screen size, the new Moto E is just 3g heavier than the original. The reassuringly heavy 145g smartphone is the same width at 12.3mm, which is a tell-tale sign of its budget price, and just a little longer and wider at 66.8x129.9mm. Hardware and performance The new Moto E features several hardware upgrades. It still has a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, but the 410 chip seen here is quad- rather than dual-core. Memory is the same, at 1GB, while storage has doubled to 8GB. As before you can add up to 32GB via microSD. (Neither the memory or storage allocations would be anything to shout about with a fl agship phone, but at this price they’re very reasonable.) And whereas the original featured the Adreno 302 GPU, this new Moto E has the 306. We ran the new Moto E 4G through our usual benchmarks and were pleasantly surprised with its performance. Whereas the original managed 608 points in Geekbench 3.0’s multi-core component, the new Moto E recorded 1463. In the single-core component we saw 464 points. In terms of raw performance, that makes it signifi cantly faster than the original Moto E, quite a bit faster than the EE Kestrel, and lagging only the Doogee F1 (but that’s a grey-market phone, and you may prefer to stick with one intended for sale in the UK).
In SunSpider it lagged those phones with its 1301ms score, but again saw a marked improvement over the original Moto E’s 1877ms. And it was the same story for graphics performance, with the new Moto E 4G turning in 6fps in Manhattan and 13fps in T-Rex (the original managed 5fps in Manhattan and 11fps in T-Rex). In actual use, the new Moto E feels pretty swift in general, but there can be annoying delays when opening apps. There’s also slight hesitancy when navigating around Lollipop, but nothing you won’t quickly get used to. Cameras One of the additions to the new Moto E is a frontfacing camera. It’s only a VGA model, and not much cop for selfi es (although you can set a timer), but those looking to Skype or video chat through other means will appreciate its presence. As before the rear camera is 5Mp, here with a f2.2 aperture, 4x digital zoom and several features such as a burst mode, auto HDR, tap to focus and quick capture. HD (720p) video is supported at 30fps, and there’s also a slo-mo video mode. There’s no LED fl ash, which is not at all unusual for a budget phone, but it’s a pain if you were hoping to use your phone as a torch. The results are very much the same as we saw from the original Moto E.
In SunSpider it lagged those phones with its 1301ms score, but again saw a marked improvement over the original Moto E’s 1877ms. And it was the same story for graphics performance, with the new Moto E 4G turning in 6fps in Manhattan and 13fps in T-Rex (the original managed 5fps in Manhattan and 11fps in T-Rex). In actual use, the new Moto E feels pretty swift in general, but there can be annoying delays when opening apps. There’s also slight hesitancy when navigating around Lollipop, but nothing you won’t quickly get used to. Cameras One of the additions to the new Moto E is a frontfacing camera. It’s only a VGA model, and not much cop for selfi es (although you can set a timer), but those looking to Skype or video chat through other means will appreciate its presence. As before the rear camera is 5Mp, here with a f2.2 aperture, 4x digital zoom and several features such as a burst mode, auto HDR, tap to focus and quick capture. HD (720p) video is supported at 30fps, and there’s also a slo-mo video mode. There’s no LED fl ash, which is not at all unusual for a budget phone, but it’s a pain if you were hoping to use your phone as a torch. The results are very much the same as we saw from the original Moto E.
Images are generally well exposed, but lack detail and reveal heavy-handed compression when you zoom in and look closely. They’re fi ne for sharing online, but won’t produce good enlargements for printing to put on the wall. A neat feature of this new Moto E is its ability to quickly launch the camera with a quick double-fl ick of your wrist, even if the phone is in standby. As usual, you’ll need to change the default aspect ratio in the camera app from 16:9 to 4:3 in order to get the full resolution of the sensor, otherwise you’ll be getting 3.7Mp images. Video is understandably shaky since there’s no stabilisation. However, it is captured in HD now – 1280x720 as opposed to the 854x480. It is much better than the old phone and colours are decent enough, but detail is lacking compared to the best smartphone video and it isn’t particularly sharp. Connectivity Here’s the key change in the new Moto E: for an extra £20 over the original it includes 4G connectivity, operating on LTE bands 1, 3, 7 and 20. 4G is the fastest mobile data standard, and both network coverage and pricing within the UK is getting better all the time. Other connectivity specs remain unchanged, and the new Moto E 4G features Bluetooth 4.0 LE, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and GPS. Software Whereas the original Moto E ran Android KitKat, the new Moto E 4G has Lollipop version 5.0 out of the box.
Amazingly, for such a cheap phone, Motorola is also guaranteeing an upgrade to the next version of Android. It’s a reasonably plain implementation of Lollipop, but with some unique Moto software features. It can show notifi cations without waking the screen, and monitor your activity to create useful new features and functions. Motorola Assist keeps your screen off while you sleep or in a meeting, plus there’s the double-twist gesture we mentioned earlier to launch the camera. Motorola Migrate also features, easing the transition from your old phone, and there’s Motorola Alert, which can share your location with your friends and family. Battery life Motorola has also upgraded the Moto E’s battery. Whereas before it was fi tted with a 1980mAh battery it now has 2390mAh. That’s perhaps not a big a jump as it sounds, given the faster hardware, although Android Lollipop *should* be more effi cient than KitKat. We’ve not had this phone long enough to thoroughly test the battery, but early indications are very good, and we’re sure the Moto E will last a full day with mixed use, just as Motorola claims. Verdict The new Moto E 4G is a worthy upgrade over the original, with upgrades in every area. For an extra £20 it adds 4G connectivity and a frontfacing camera, plus performance and storage improvements. A much better deal than the Kestrel, this is the best UK budget 4G phone we’ve seen.
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