New version of an old favourite
We’ve never tired of recommending the Moto G. It’s always been a very affordable phone (even without a contract) with no significant compromises. If we were being picky, it could look a bit swankier and work a bit faster. Well, now it does. This third version is the best yet, and once again a contender for top Android phone under £200.
The Moto G (Gen 3) still has a removable rear shell, so you can change the colour if you tire of it or replace it if you smash it. Fine diagonal ridges make it easier to grip, and a curvier shape (thick in the middle, slim at the edges) makes the phone look and feel sturdy but fun.
The case comes in white with a silver frame or all black, and the rear shell in black, white or any of seven colours. That’s technically a whole rainbow. If you go to Motorola’s website and pay £179 for the phone (about £20 more than shops charge), you can customise the colours and engrave your name on the back.
An IPX7 rating means the phone can safely be dropped in water and fished out again. It’s still not guaranteed to survive the washing machine, but you can browse the web in the bath without fear of drowning your phone. And you can take pictures underwater. Preferably not in the bath.
Another option is doubling the built-in storage to 16GB. We wouldn’t pay the £30 for that, because 16GB (minus 4GB for the Android 5.1 operating system) isn’t enough to store that many apps, videos and photos. For less than a tenner you could buy a standard 32GB card for the Moto G’s microSD slot. This upgrade also doubles the RAM to 2GB, which makes the device feel a lot snappier than previous models.
We tested the 2GB/16GB version. The quad-core 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor is certainly more nippy than the 1.2GHz version in a lot of budget phones and about a third faster than its predecessor. What it still can’t do is run advanced 3D games smoothly – you’ll just need a more expensive phone for that. More basic games work fine, however.
More performance doesn’t mean less battery life. We got just over 11 hours of video-watching (90 minutes more than the previous Moto G) and towards the top of the range for this price bracket. The Moto G’s 5in screen was always a strong point, and its specs haven’t changed. It’s not as sharp or vibrant as the best, but very good nonetheless, and the colour calibration seems to have been improved, though it doesn’t quite go bright enough for effective use on sunny days.
That just leaves the camera, which takes a leap up from eight to 13 megapixels. We got lots of detail, accurate exposure (plus a darken/lighten control) and good colour balance. Indoors, the two-tone flash is supposed to make colours more natural. We weren’t convinced, but even without it, the Moto G (Gen 3) coped quite well with low light.
Again, Motorola has installed the very latest version of Android and resisted the temptation to muck about with it. Where there are special features, they tend to be handy – like the ability to turn on silent mode whenever you’re in a particular place, or the option to keep the time displayed when the phone is idle.
There’s a lot more competition in the budget-phone market nowadays, and for this money, an even better processor and screen wouldn’t have gone amiss. But this is still one of our favourite smartphones.
VERDICT
It’s a shame the cheapest version skimps on memory, but this is a great phone at a reasonable price.
SPECIFICATIONS
Android 5.1 (Lollipop) • 5in 1280x720-pixel screen • 13-megapixel rear camera • 5-megapixel front camera • 8GB flash storage • MicroSD card slot • 802.11n Wi-Fi • Bluetooth 4.0 • 3G/4G • 142x72x6.1mm (HxWxD) • 155g • One-year warranty