Moto G vs Nokia X: A comparison

New Delhi: If you wonder how much a Rs 13,999 smartphone would get you, then the answer is “a surprising amount.” Moto G offers a great build, features and software along with an affordable price tag that makes it really special. It has commendable performance, a comfortable design, and a clean and intuitive user interface, making you almost forget that it's a budget phone. If you take into consideration an excellent display, versatile camera and a good battery life, then it makes it an all-round budget smartphone. Though camera and storage are always there to remind you of its slab, otherwise it's a rare feat for an entry-level smartphone.On the other hand, for Rs 8,599, Nokia X, is another good buy. The first three phones in the family - the Nokia X, X+ and XL - run on the new Nokia X software platform, that is based on Google's Android. These phones are not pure Android phones, rather run a forked variant of Android, similar to the way Amazon does for its Kindle Fire lineup.Read on to find out who offers what in this battle of budget smartphones: Design and BuildMoto G: 129.9 x 65.9 x 11.6mm, 143gNokia X: 115.5 x 63 x 10.4mm, 128.7gUpon first look, you might mistake the Moto G for the much-more-expensive Moto X, Motorola's flagship smartphone. Though it looks the same, the phone is a bit thicker than Moto X. It's built around a 4.5" 720p edge-to-edge display that's covered in Gorilla Glass 3 for extra protection against scratches and drops. The phone features liquid repellent nano-coating technology both inside and outside, which prevents water from being absorbed onto the phone's surfaces. The phone's curved rear panel is made of a soft-touch polycarbonate, which makes it comfortable to hold and grip. The panel is removable even though the battery isn't. The front is dominated by a 4.5-inch screen, which is only marginally smaller than 4.7-inch display found on the Moto X. The front panel features a black strip of glass around the screen that visually differentiates the plastic front and rear panels. Regarding button allocation, there's a headphone jack on top, a power port on the bottom, and power and volume buttons on the right. That's it. Unfortunately, that means there's no microSD card slot. With Nokia X, the Finnish smartphone maker chose to use the same design language that underpins its Asha line. Nokia X looks a mix of Nokia Lumia 520/525 and Asha 503. The device has the same rectangular design and a polycarbonate colourful shell, which is a bit chunky. The phone also has the Asha-like capacitive button with the arrow label. Measuring 115.5 x 63 x 10.4 mm, and weighing just 128.7 grams, the Nokia X is really easy to hold, and very comfortable thanks to the curved edges. It nestles in your hand quite easily and has a screen size comparable to most Android phones today. The phone is also easy to operate through one hand, as your thumb can probably reach all corners of the screen. The new product lineup by Nokia also comes in pleasant colors like green, white, yellow, cyan, red and the usual black and white.Winner: Moto GDisplayBoth Motorola and Nokia have given their handsets IPS LCD screens. The Moto G's display is probably one of the best you'd find on a budget smartphone. The 4.5in screen offers a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels, a pixel density of 326ppi, meaning sharper and detailed images. Nokia X features a 4-inch IPS LCD display with a 480x800 pixel resolution, translating to a pixel density of 233ppi. The screen is good for indoor and outdoor viewing, but tends to look dull in direct sunlight. The contrast, color reproduction and deep blacks come as a welcome surprise for a device this cheap. Although the screen does not feature a Nokia ClearBlack display, it is still okay. The screen, however, does not come with protective glass and can attract scratches over time. Winner: Moto GCameraThe Moto G comes with a 5-megapixel primary shooter and a 1.3-megapixel secondary snapper. Motorola has equipped it with features like auto focus, LED flash, geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, the ability to attach location information to your snaps, focus & exposure control, HDR, panorama, 720p video capture at 30fps etc. There's also a 4x digital zoom to boot which is controlled by sliding your finger up and down the display.The 3.15 megapixel fixed focus camera on the Nokia X is disappointing. It's a super-basic snapper and the images captured in sufficient light lack clarity and are bearable at best. Images in low light are not an option as the phone lacks flash and does not have a BSI sensor. The camera is not at all a selling point for this phone. Winner: Moto GProcessorThe Moto G has a Snapdragon 400 quad-core Cortex-A7 processor clocked at 1.2GHz, which is coupled with 1GB of RAM. The phone will give decent performance as it is speedy and efficient and has no trouble even handling graphically intensive games.Nokia X has a MSM8625 Qualcomm snapdragon dual core processor clocked at 1GHz with Adreno 203 GPU. The processor works comfortably with the phone's custom-built Android 4.1 Jelly Bean software but lags behind Moto G when using sophisticated apps and graphic intensive games.Winner: Moto GStorageThe Moto G retails in variants of 8 and 16 GB of internal memory. The Nokia X only features 4GB of on-board storage, but supports external memory expansion by up to 32 GB. This means Nokia has more total memory.Winner: Nokia XSoftware and AppsThough the Moto G carries Android 4.3 Jelly Bean out-of-the-box, it is already upgradable to Android 4.4 KitKat. The moment you power it up, you'll be presented with a software update notification which will upgrade the device to 4.4.2 KitKat. The interface is basically stock and navigating through menus is as smooth as it can get. However, there are two extra apps that come bundled with the Moto G – Motorola Assist and Motorola Migrate. Motorola Assist allows you to silence your phone during night-time hours, with customisable caveats such as those ringing multiple times can get in, or selected contacts. Motorola Migrate app lets you drag text messages contacts, media and settings from your old phone to your new one.Meanwhile, Nokia had to be content with Android 4.1.2 in the X family. The OS is forked from the Android Open Source Project and does not include the Google Applications and Services. Nokia calls the software, the Nokia X software platform which is currently at version 1.0 in this smartphone. Out of the box, the Nokia X comes pre-loaded with applications and games including BBM, WeChat, Facebook, Twitter, Opera Browser, Fruit Ninja, Tetris, Bejeweled 2 and Real Football 2014. Nokia has bundled its own app store with the Nokia X which already has numerous popular apps. In addition to this users can install the 1mobile Market or the Yandex App Store to get apps. However, lack of Google apps may worry those users who depend on applications that makes use of Google technology. For Android users who have their data synced with Gmail and Google+, the absence of Google sync could be disappointing. One can setup Gmail using POP3/IMAP on the Nokia X but there are no options for contacts and calendar sync.Winner: Moto GBatteryIn this department, Moto G trumps over the Nokia X. While Moto G uses a 2,070mAh unit, offering a full day of charge, the Nokia X comes with a much smaller 1,500mAh that might not get you through an entire day.Winner: Moto GMapsThe Nokia X includes HERE Maps for location and navigation. It supports offline turn-by-turn navigation for which the user must download the map data for their desired location. The Moto G comes equipped with Google Maps. Maps can load almost instantly, and phone can easily to pinpoint my location in under a second. Zooming and panning around the map is also smooth.Winner: Moto GCall QualityMotorola Moto G offers good call quality. The phone also has a secondary microphone on its top edge to provide active noise cancellation for calls. Unlike, budget pones you won't find any major distortion issues at top volume.Nokia X too offers a decent sound quality. Winner: DrawConclusion:As evident in most departments, Moto G is the clear winner here, which is why most analysts and users are calling it the best budget smartphone available in the market. Forgiving the absence of a microSD slot and LTE radio, the Moto G scores high in terms of bright display, superb all-around performance, the latest OS, better battery life and a versatile camera despite a low megapixel count. Moto G is designed to shake up the low end of the market as it redefines just how good a budget phone can be. For a midrange phone, the Moto G is well-worth its measly price tag.