The cheapest 4G Android phone available.
The original Motorola Moto G was one of our favourite Android phones and for good reason. Despite a budget price tag of £150, its performance, battery life, responsiveness and build quality rivalled smartphones costing twice as much - making it the first budget Android phone worth buying. The Moto G has now been updated and it’s better than ever.
The new Moto G has two significant upgrades compared to its predecessor. The first is access to 4G networks (the older model was 3G-only). While 4G contracts and pay-as-you-go plans tend to cost more and offer less generous usage allowances than their 3G equivalents, download and upload speeds are significantly faster.
The Moto G’s battery life is excellent, lasting 25 and a half hours on 4G and an astonishing 33 and a half hours on 3G. In both cases we were connected to 02’s network in central London and used the phone for phone calls, photography, GPS and web browsing.
The second big improvement is that the Moto G now has a microSD card slot, so you can augment its 8GB of built-in storage, which will fill up quickly. This makes up for the fact that the 8GB Moto G 4G costs £10 more than the older 16GB version.
Otherwise the Moto G is pretty much unchanged. Its plastic casing is sturdy and well-constructed, albeit somewhat plain (although you can replace the rear cover with a more colourful version). Prising off the back cover (to replace it or to access the microSD slot) is easy, which can’t be said for all phones.
It’s a pity Motorola hasn’t taken this opportunity to improve the performance and responsiveness of the Moto G. While it’s still fast enough for now, its performance levels are starting to lag behind those of other phones in terms of loading web pages, handling 3D graphics and running multiple apps simultaneously. The latter in particular is hindered by the Moto G’s paltry 1GB of memory. The responsiveness of the touchscreen isn’t quite spot-on, sometimes lagging behind our finger gestures, but it’s still far better than other Android phones at this price.
As before, the 4.5in screen has a 720p resolution, so text is sharp and easy on the eye, although colour accuracy is merely average. The Moto G’s biggest letdown remains its camera. Photos lack sharpness and are marred by noise.
Android 4.4 KitKat is pre-installed on the Moto G 4G without any interface customisations. Motorola’s only tweaks are a pair of useful apps. The first is Assist, which lets you mute all your notifications whenever you don’t want to be disturbed (such as during a meeting or at night). You can, of course, set exceptions so phone calls and texts from family members can still get through. The second app is Alert. Once it’s configured, you can send urgent texts or pre-recorded calls to loved ones in an emergency with a single tap. The app can also automatically notify them when you leave or arrive at a particular place, so they know where you are.
The Moto G 4G isn’t perfect, but it’s still easily the best budget Android phone around. It’s great value and remains the benchmark by which we judge all other cheap smartphones.
SPECIFICATIONS: 4.5in 1280x720-pixel touchscreen • 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor • 450MHz Adreno 305 graphics chip • 1GB memory • 8GB storage • 4G • micro SIM • Android 4.4 Kit Kat • 143g • 130x66x12mm (HxWxD) • One-year warranty
VERDICT: The best budget Android phone is now even better.