Motorola Moto G review

New Delhi: The Android budget king from Motorola, the Moto G, is finally here. For an affordable price range, Rs 12,499 for 8GB and Rs 13,999 for 16GB, you can experience what a premium smartphone has to offer. Upon first look, you might mistake the Moto G for the much-more-expensive Moto X, Motorola's flagship smartphone. Though it may look the same, it's a bit thicker and squatter. If initial sales trends are to be believed then it has got the potential to shake up the budget smartphone market in the country.Before the complete review, let us take a quick run down on specs: Display Size: 4.5 inch IPS LCD, 1280 X 720 resolution, 326 PPIProcessor: 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 400 Quad Core Processor with Adreno 305 GPURAM: 1 GBSoftware Version: Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) with Guaranteed KitKat updateCamera: 5 MP camera with Dual LED flash, with Rotating LensSecondary Camera: 1.3 MP cameraInternal Storage: 8 GB/ 16 GBExternal Storage: NoBattery: 2070 mAh battery Lithium IonConnectivity: 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, aGPS, 3.5mm audio jack, FM RadioOthers: Dual SIM – Yes, LED Indicator – Yes, USB OTG – YesSensors: Accelerometer, gyro, proximityInside the Box You'll get earphones, charger and USB cable. You can buy a Flip cover for Rs.1,599 and extra back shells for Rs. 899.Design and BuildThe Moto G takes the design cues from the Moto X, including a curved back that feels great in the hand. But unlike the Moto X, the backplate on the Moto G is removable. That means you can customize the phone with many colored backs and flip covers. The phone comes in a soft-touch polycarbonate case that's comfortable to hold and grip. It's protected by a water-repellant nano-coating. The Moto G is thicker, measuring 129.9x65.9x11.6mm compared to 129.3x65.3x10.4mm for the X. The device weighs 143 grams which is modest but slightly heavier than the Moto X (130 grams). The Moto G comes with curved edges that offer a good grip. The design of the phone features a headphone jack on top, a power port on the bottom, and power and volume buttons on the right. The front is dominated by the 4.5-inch screen and features a black strip of glass around the screen that visually differentiates the plastic front and rear panels. On the left of chrome earpiece there's a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. There are no soft-touch capacitive buttons on the front panel. The Moto G's back comes with a 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash with a speaker grille to its left. Overall, the phone offers a solid build and has its own distinctive flavour like no other smartphone in the market. ScreenOne of the highlights of Moto G is its 4.5-inch 720x1280-pixel IPS LCD screen, which works out to a density of 329 pixels per inch. Notably, the Moto G's screen is a bit sharper than Apple's iPhone 5s, which offers 326ppi. Motorola has also used Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the Moto G to protect it from scratches. Mind you the Gorilla Glass is usually found on high-end devices. Though the IPS LCD screen do not offer the best color reproduction like the HTC One or the deep blacks offered by Galaxy Note 3, the Moto G still delivers bright and vibrant colors. In addition, the viewing angles are also good, so you'll not witness any problem watching a video or movies. The screen also does not throw any problem while viewing in bright sunlight. Camera The Moto G features a 5-megapixel camera sensor. When you open the camera, you'll see there's no onscreen button to snap a photo. Rather you can tap anywhere on the screen in order to take a picture, just like on the Moto X. The camera app offers a circular control bar that pops out from the left of the screen when tapped. It has features such as 4X digital zoom, slow motion video, burst mode, auto HDR mode, Panorama and tap to focus. The Moto G's burst mode allows users to take up to 99 shots at once; users just need to long-press the camera soft key on the screen to start shooting.Photos taken outdoors in good lighting look decent but not inspiring. In indoor conditions, the photos tend to gather lots of noise. Most of the photographs you'll click seem okay to share on the social media. The Moto G's rear camera can take 5-megapixel shots in the 4:3 aspect ratio, while 16:9 shots will come out at 3.8 megapixels.Software/ Interface Moto G comes with Android 4.3 out of the box with the guaranteed update to Android's latest version (4.4.2). Motorola had rolled out the Android 4.4.2 KitKat update for the Moto G ahead of schedule in December last year. That means it is the most updated segment in this price range. The Moto G's app launcher features app icons and widgets. The device offers customizable homescreens, and lots of widgets and apps classified into preloaded and downloadable categories. The number of homescreens is limited to five in the smartphone. When you swipe between the homescreens the shortcuts for the dialer, chrome browswer, main menu and camera app remain visible. You can change wallpaper of the smartphone by long-pressing the homescreen. You can choose from still, live and custom wallpapers. The phone also comes with voice guided search feature. You can perform a voice search by saying, 'OK Google.' In addition, you get a revamped phone app which now automatically prioritises contacts based on who you talk to most often. The photos app now allows users to view and edit locally stored and Google+ images. The new Photos app features deeper integration with Google+ and can be used to tag photos. The Moto G comes with Google Drive, Keep, Play Movies, Play Movies, Play Books, Play Games, Play Newsstand and Quickoffice for creating and editing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Users can print documents through the Google Cloud Print plugin, or apps made by printer manufacturers. The phone also offers Motorola Migrate (an app to move the contents of an old Android phone to your new Moto G) as well as Motorola Assist (it allows users to silence the device while you're sleeping or driving).PerformanceThe Moto G is powered by 1.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor with Adreno 305 graphics and 1GB of RAM onboard. The device offers two storage options: 8GB and 16GB, and does not support expandable storage. . Google is offering 50GB of free Google Drive storage for two years for every Moto G buyer, which is additional to the standard 15GB available to every Google account user.The device offers a solid experience in terms of navigating through the apps, and you won't experience any lag while launching apps, playing memory intensive games and scrolling through the web pages. Besides smoothly playing apps such as Temple Run 2, Plants vs. Zombies 2, or doing web browsing, the Moto G is superb for day to day activities. The phone also offers good call quality. In terms of benchmarks, the phone scored 11,873 in AnTuTu, which is comparable to Samsung Galaxy S III and Nexus 4. The device delivers 11 frames per second in the GFXbench test, and 5627 in the 3DMark Ice Storm Extreme run-through.Battery LifeThe device comes with a 2070mAh battery which is non-removable and can deliver a mixed usage time of up to 24 hours, according to Motorola.VerdictWhat makes the Moto G a hard to resist smartphone is the kind of features it is offering in a packing that is affordable. Solid build quality, sufficient battery backup, customization, Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) with Guaranteed KitKat update, quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor, are the real reasons why someone who don't want to go beyond Rs 14,000 mark can go for this smartphone. It is stylish, offers array of colourful back shells, has wide screen, offers lots of software apps, making it the best the user can find at such a price point. However, the phone loses out in areas such as non-expandable storage and below-par camera performance.Definitely, the smartphone has got it all that will make it the game changer in the price-sensitive Indian smartphone market.