Friday, April 25, 2014

First impressions: Motorola Moto G

I picked one up from Brightstar Distributors for use in my Tour of Southern Thailand.

Why? Because I am too lazy to remove the SIM card from my HTC One X+ which is also seemingly "outdated" by today's standards.

Value for your money: the Moto G

The Moto G runs on the latest Android OS

Motorola was ailing and was bought over by Google and eventually went out on its own.

They've seemed to have lost a significant market share to Apple and Samsung.

I for one, am never a fan of both companies.

The introduction of the Moto G sparked my interest in trying out Motorola's hardware.

My main purpose is to take advantage of its data connectivity and this phone outshined most of its competitors in its class..

It has two SIM slots, a fast quadcore processor and an amazing battery life.

The pricing factor...

Back in the days, a dual-core smartphone would cost nearly RM2K. Today, you can pick up one at 1/10th of the cost. Thanks to the rapid development of microprocessors and if you factor in the specs on the Moto G (1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor), it has enough computing power to put many tasks on your hand.

And if you are a heavy Google user, the integration from desktop to your pocket is seamless. All you need to do, is to synchronize your Google account with the phone and you are in business.

The apps that does the trick is the Motorola Migrate. It transfers all your contacts and apps from your old phone to the Moto G.

Performance..

For a phone that costs less than RM800, (Even cheaper on some on-line stores), the Moto G does pack some punch.

It has a sharp 4.5" screen, lag-free transition from one home screen to the other and is able to do a bit of multi-tasking with other apps running.

The only flaw I see, is the lack of space in its internal memory (8GB & 16GB models available), but Google made good by adding 50GBs of cloud storage space with its Google Drive apps.

The camera is also pretty decent. It snaps some really good photos in daylight and has a real strong flash. Compared to the Samsungs, the Moto G's flash is commendable. The results were stunning! The only Achilles hell on the camera is the fact that it doesn't have a self-timer that you can set for selfies.

Other than that, its user-interface, effects generating capabilities are above par compared to other smartphones of its class...

Sample gallery

SummaryIt's not hard to transit to this smartphone although it lacked of certain high-end features such as the NFC, external memory slot, but the excellent performance of the Moto G pretty much made up for these little shortcomings.For a phone that costs less than RM800, it does its job flawlessly. I used it to keep in touch with the world and fed live updates on my tour in Thailand and it does just that with amazing results. What's more: you get the Android KitKat OS which is the latest and the integration of software and hardware on the Moto G is seamless and flawless. I would pack this as a secondary phone for travel without the need of switching SIM cards because it has two slots and if Motorola would come up with more good phones such as this, they are certainly here to stay...