Motorola
has returned to India - and how! The company has launched its
much-awaited, low-cost Moto G smartphone in the country, providing the
masses with an option that offers decent specifications, pure Android
software and a promise of quick software upgrades.
While the new Moto G promises a lot, is it all that it is being made out to be? We spent some time with the smartphone at the launch event to figure out if Moto G is indeed the best mid-range option in the Indian market today. Here are our first impressions ...
Motorola claims that Moto G features an edge-to-edge display, but it is not entirely accurate; the screen is surrounded by very thin bezels - negligible, but still there - on the sides. Nevertheless, this still doesn't take away anything from Moto G, which remains quite compact despite the decent screen size of 4.5-inch.
In terms of looks, Moto G is good looking, and resembles Moto X quite a lot. The smartphone gets top marks for fit and finish, and even the rear cover is of much better quality than many higher-priced models. It comes with a black back cover out of the box, but you can switch to one of the many colourful back covers or flip covers that the company is offering. Grip covers, Motorola's protective covers for the phone, will be available in some time.
The display of Moto G - one of its strengths - is the only one in this
price range from top-tier companies offering HD (720p) resolution. The
screen quality is v ery good,;it offers punchy colours and is a treat to
look at considering the price point. Sony and Samsung too offer
smartphones in the Rs 10,000-15,000 bracket, but they have (much) lower
resolutions and smaller screen sizes.
Another key feature of Moto G is the stock Android software, minus all the clutter of custom skins. Most smartphones in this price range tend to lag while performing even simple tasks mainly due to the preloaded apps that hog resources. So it comes as a refreshing change when we see a smartphone without all the clutter, providing a user experience that Android was meant to.
However, Moto G is not the only smartphone in the market with pure Android software. The likes of Micromax, Karbonn, Lava, Xolo etc usually do not invest much in software, thus giving default Android in most of their smartphones. In spite of that, Moto G feels much faster than any similar smartphone we have used in this price range. Motorola has also said that it will get the Android 4.4 update in India within next few days.
Moto G runs on the potent Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor, clocked at 1.2GHz. This processor is not the best and neither does it claim to be. Designed on the A7 CPU architecture, this chip is powerful enough to perform most tasks seamlessly, especially since there is bloatware to bog it down.
Even while it gets so many things correct, Moto G has its shortcomings too.
First is the 5MP camera. In India, you can get smartphones with 8MP camera under Rs 10,000, so 5MP doesn't really stand up to that. Of course, we all know the megapixel count doesn't matter. Plus, Moto G is a global smartphone, not meant just for India.
But the picture quality provided by Moto G is not what we expect from a device that looks so promising. In the photos we clicked, the colours looked well saturated and bright, but there was slight noise and details were lacking unless one used autofocus.
The camera app, however, is pretty great. Continuing the theme of minimalism that Motorola has followed with Moto G, the phone's camera app shows no controls at first and uses gestures instead of on-screen keys for commonly used functions; for example, swipe up to zoom in and swipe down to zoom out. Tap anywhere to click photos and tap near the edge to get all the options.
Moto G's second big problem is storage. It comes in only 8 and 16GB storage capacity, with actual data storage capacity of approximately 5.5 and 12.5GB, respectively. Moto G does not offer expandable storage via microSD card; instead you get cloud storage via Google Drive - 65GB at that (50GB free with every Drive account, additional 15GB provided by Motorola).
In mature markets, swapping cloud storage in favour of microSD card makes sense. Not so much in India. Internet connectivity is a problem in the country, and even with the growing 2G and 3G networks, you do not get seamless internet connectivity at all times. In our view, depending so much on cloud storage does not make sense for emerging markets like India - or Brazil, Indonesia etc for that matter. This choice has more to do with Google pushing its own cloud storage service in nascent markets than to benefit consumers.
Motorola promises all-day battery life for Moto G, but we would reserve comment on that until a full review is finished.
In our view, Moto G is a much-needed entrant for the Indian smartphone market. It offers a great option for those looking for a Nexus-like experience at half the price. Moreover, it will put some pressure on rivals to upgrade the screen quality and overall user experience of their smartphones. We give Moto G a big thumbs-up and will be back with more details about the device in our full review.
While the new Moto G promises a lot, is it all that it is being made out to be? We spent some time with the smartphone at the launch event to figure out if Moto G is indeed the best mid-range option in the Indian market today. Here are our first impressions ...
Motorola claims that Moto G features an edge-to-edge display, but it is not entirely accurate; the screen is surrounded by very thin bezels - negligible, but still there - on the sides. Nevertheless, this still doesn't take away anything from Moto G, which remains quite compact despite the decent screen size of 4.5-inch.
In terms of looks, Moto G is good looking, and resembles Moto X quite a lot. The smartphone gets top marks for fit and finish, and even the rear cover is of much better quality than many higher-priced models. It comes with a black back cover out of the box, but you can switch to one of the many colourful back covers or flip covers that the company is offering. Grip covers, Motorola's protective covers for the phone, will be available in some time.
Another key feature of Moto G is the stock Android software, minus all the clutter of custom skins. Most smartphones in this price range tend to lag while performing even simple tasks mainly due to the preloaded apps that hog resources. So it comes as a refreshing change when we see a smartphone without all the clutter, providing a user experience that Android was meant to.
However, Moto G is not the only smartphone in the market with pure Android software. The likes of Micromax, Karbonn, Lava, Xolo etc usually do not invest much in software, thus giving default Android in most of their smartphones. In spite of that, Moto G feels much faster than any similar smartphone we have used in this price range. Motorola has also said that it will get the Android 4.4 update in India within next few days.
Moto G runs on the potent Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor, clocked at 1.2GHz. This processor is not the best and neither does it claim to be. Designed on the A7 CPU architecture, this chip is powerful enough to perform most tasks seamlessly, especially since there is bloatware to bog it down.
Even while it gets so many things correct, Moto G has its shortcomings too.
First is the 5MP camera. In India, you can get smartphones with 8MP camera under Rs 10,000, so 5MP doesn't really stand up to that. Of course, we all know the megapixel count doesn't matter. Plus, Moto G is a global smartphone, not meant just for India.
But the picture quality provided by Moto G is not what we expect from a device that looks so promising. In the photos we clicked, the colours looked well saturated and bright, but there was slight noise and details were lacking unless one used autofocus.
The camera app, however, is pretty great. Continuing the theme of minimalism that Motorola has followed with Moto G, the phone's camera app shows no controls at first and uses gestures instead of on-screen keys for commonly used functions; for example, swipe up to zoom in and swipe down to zoom out. Tap anywhere to click photos and tap near the edge to get all the options.
Moto G's second big problem is storage. It comes in only 8 and 16GB storage capacity, with actual data storage capacity of approximately 5.5 and 12.5GB, respectively. Moto G does not offer expandable storage via microSD card; instead you get cloud storage via Google Drive - 65GB at that (50GB free with every Drive account, additional 15GB provided by Motorola).
In mature markets, swapping cloud storage in favour of microSD card makes sense. Not so much in India. Internet connectivity is a problem in the country, and even with the growing 2G and 3G networks, you do not get seamless internet connectivity at all times. In our view, depending so much on cloud storage does not make sense for emerging markets like India - or Brazil, Indonesia etc for that matter. This choice has more to do with Google pushing its own cloud storage service in nascent markets than to benefit consumers.
Motorola promises all-day battery life for Moto G, but we would reserve comment on that until a full review is finished.
In our view, Moto G is a much-needed entrant for the Indian smartphone market. It offers a great option for those looking for a Nexus-like experience at half the price. Moreover, it will put some pressure on rivals to upgrade the screen quality and overall user experience of their smartphones. We give Moto G a big thumbs-up and will be back with more details about the device in our full review.
0 comments:
Post a Comment