LONDON — It’s not the most impressive phone in the world, but the Moto E, at $129 without a subsidy or contract, is a solid Android phone at an excellent price. And, unless you really have your heart set on a more expensive phone like an iPhone or Galaxy S5, it makes sense to consider a phone like the Moto E (or $219 for Motorola’s newly updated Moto G with 4G) than to pay $200 for an iPhone 5s or Samsung Galaxy S5 and get stuck in a two-year contract.
The new phone, which I got to play with at Motorola’s London press conference on Tuesday, has a solid feel, not unlike its larger and more powerful cousin, the Moto G. The display, which isn’t the highest resolution out there, is quite good — certainly good enough for what I do with a phone; and from my quick tests, it seems quite responsive.
In terms of specs, the E has a 4.3 inch, 960 x 540 pixel display at 256 pixels per inch. By comparison, the iPhone 5C — which costs $549 without a subsidy — has a slightly smaller (4-inch) but somewhat sharper 1136 x 640 pixel resolution at 326 ppi. Even with a subsidy, the 5C starts at $99 so, for slightly more, you can own a Moto E with no obligation to a carrier.
The E has a duo-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor and 1 GB of RAM. There is a 5MP rear-facing camera but, unfortunately, no front-facing camera. There is only 4 GB of storage but there is a a microSD slot that allows you to add up to 32 GB of extra storage.
The phone runs Android 4.4 (KitKat), Google’s latest operating system and Motorola is committed to offer at least one major version upgrade for the phone.
The E is 3G; there is not a 4G version, but Motorola did announce a 4G version of its Moto G.
Motorola claims that its 1,980 milliamp hour battery will last an entire day.
A few minutes of hands-on time isn’t enough to fully evaluate a phone, but I did get a pretty good sense of its look, feel and build. It feels a bit heavy in the hand, but it’s solid and slip resistant.
What I mostly like about the E and other Motorola phones is that there’s no added bulkware, skins or extra software to change the user interface. Other Android phone makers, like Samsung, have made so many modifications to Android that it’s actually harder to switch over from another phone because of changes in the interface. Also, that extra software can also mean slower performance and poorer battery life.
A Motorola spokesperson told me that this phone was being priced for “emerging markets” where most of today’s smartphones are simply unaffordable to the vast majority of people. The local equivalent of $129 or more is still a lot of money for most people in the developing world, but it’s certainly more affordable than the $700 or more than they typically have to pay for high-end phones.
Having said that, there are plenty of people in the U.S. and other developed countries who appreciate a bargain and are likely to want a lower cost phone that they own outright to a luxury phone that costs four times as much or encumbers them to a two-year contract. For that reason, I predict a decline in the current U.S. model of subsidized phones.
Email Larry Magid at larry@larrymagid.com.
