Motorola on Tuesday unveiled the new Moto E smartphone with a pricing that surprised everyone and has created a lot of hype around the phone.
As is clearly visible in specifications, the phone packs some decent internals for this price segment but does it really offer a great smartphone experience? Well, I spent some time with the Moto E yesterday and found the phone to be quite satisfying. Here are my first impressions.
Design and Build Quality
Motorola knows if it has to offer a smartphone at an aggressive pricing, it can’t build something that will win design awards but that doesn’t mean it can’t come up with a slightly less exciting but a useful and good design and the same is present in Moto E.
Made of polycarbonate, Moto E doesn’t feel cheap. The phone is sturdy and offers a quite nice build quality. Like Moto G, Motorola has included a curved back on Moto E too, which makes it easier to hold in your palm. The phone also supports interchangeable back covers and there are quite a few colour options available. Don’t like the Black or White backs on your Moto E, buy a Motorola Shell (Motorola’s fancy name of back covers) in a colour of your choice and snap it on the phone.
In addition, Moto E includes anti-splash nano-coating inside, which will save your phone from rain and accidental contact with water. Doesn’t mean, you can go swimming with it.
Display
Motorola has included a 4.3-inch IPS display on the Moto E with qHD (960x540p) resolution. Thanks to the smaller display size, the comparably lower resolution works. You won’t get HD like results but then you can’t expect HD at this price, at least this year. The touch-sensitivity is nice and the phone features Gorilla Glass 3 for scratch-resistance.
During my brief usage, I found the display to be adequate, offering a decent experience.
Performance
As I have only spent limited time with the phone, I can’t honestly comment on the real performance of the phone but for whatever time I used the Moto E, it was snappy and quite fast for the given lowly dual-core Snapdragon 200 processor.
Motorola hasn’t cut corners where it matters the most, so you get 1GB of RAM, which coupled with pure (almost) and optimised Android 4.4.2 works great. This will also help the company in providing future Android update(s) for the phone. Motorola is promising at least one major Android update.
Camera
There is a 5MP camera on-board the Moto E, which although is quite fast, doesn’t give good results. Outdoor shots might be decent as I only got to check out the phone indoors that too in low-lighting condition, the images were terrible.
Overall, despite the not-so-great camera, Moto E remain to be a great option in this price-bracket. The phone is well-constructed, comes with some customisation options and offers good performance. At INR 6,999, we can’t really expect more than this.
Wrong sentance formation…You won’t get HD like results but then you can expect HD at this price, at least this year. – should be
You won’t get HD like results but then can you expect HD at this price, at least this year.
and then it is Sentence and not Sentance….
It was supposed to be “you can’t expect HD at this price.” I missed “not,” anyways it is fixed now..
and.. thanks for pointing out..
Been quite nice to use the phone for a couple of days however the back cover could have been have a bit more sturdy. It moves about which is quite irritating. Overall satisfied with the purchase.