Introducing Moto E and Moto G with 4G LTE: Smart phones priced for all | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Moto E and Moto G with 4G LTE: Smart phones priced for all

motorola-blog.blogspot.com

222 pointsneduma171 comments

The big surprise for me was that they nixed the rear LED flash. Not because anybody would take pictures with that camera, but for a phone made for the developing world not having a "flashlight" is a huge knock against it.

Seriously, flashlights are a big selling point even on simple dumb phones here in Rwanda, and I just can't imagine having a phone without it When the power goes out a few times a week, having a source of light on you is a big boon. (and no the screen doesn't count!)

Seems like a misstep to me.

What do you mean that flash is needed only in developing world? Is it somehow not needed in developed countries, cause days lasts longer and Sun is shinier?

Presumably, among other things, the electricity that powers the lights in the developed world is more reliable than in the developing world.

I believe he meant this...

> When the power goes out a few times a week

I know when I visit my parents in India that candles have a very different purpose than they do here in California.

Actually California doesn't have the best track record in power reliability!

You are comparing power failure of hours/day vs minutes/year.

You have no idea how hard it is to resist posting a snarky comment here. For the love of McCarthy's parentheses, there's at least an order of magnitude of difference in terms of duration between the two!

Turns out there is a lot of variability in California, depending on the provider - here are some hard SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration) numbers.

California ranges from 60 minutes of outages (SDGE) to 931 minutes of outages (Pacificorp)

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/ElectricSR/Reliability/ann...

In this slide, http://desismartgrid.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Towards-..., for North delhi power limited (NDPL), they improved their SAIDI from 56 to 47 minutes.

So, (very ironically) - you are correct - it's not unreasonable to say that there are parts of California that are one order of magnitude worse than areas of India.

I realize that's not the point you were trying to make, but I always find it interesting to chase the data and see what it has to say.

From a bigger picture, though - California really does have notoriously bad power quality in terms of outages, not even including the rolling blackouts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis) we had back in 2000/2001 (and justified me being allowed to purchase about $500K worth of generators, Diesel Belly tanks, and UPS systems for our server room)

On my walk to work, at least once a month in the morning, I hear all of the buildings in Redwood City firing up their generators to do their monthly tests - nobody "relies" on PG&E Power for critical services, they plan for the outages.

Just as a comparison - I'm in Singapore right now, and their SAIDI is .53 minutes/year. I've yet to see a generator being tested outside of Critical Facilities like data centers/emergency facilities.

Tamil Nadu. Look at Tamil Nadu, one of the most prosperous states. Many areas there have outages longer than they have power. Chennai has shorter scheduled outages but because of the immense shortage of generation, this results in the rest of the state suffering.

New Delhi is the capital. The north has less of a shortage, but capitals (like Chennai) are usually more insulated from blackouts anyway so looking at them alone will give you a poor idea.

Also, do your figures include planned outages? Many places in TN, India have daily planned outages called load shedding.

> it's not unreasonable to say that there are parts of California that are one order of magnitude worse than areas of India.

OP was talking about Rwanda, not India. 60 minutes per year, as disastrous as it sounds for California, is hardly comparable with the outages of several hours per week they have there.

I get it, I get it, California life is hard, but seriously...

Pacific Corp serves relatively rural northern California (most of their customers are in adjoining states). Infrastructure cost per customer is high there (and a sparse layout creates situations where redundancy doesn't make a lot of sense).

Your Indian company is a quasi-government entity (or government influenced entity, I didn't dig into it very far) intended to improve quality of service in the the capital city of the country.

Wikipedia says the SAIDI for the U.S. is ~1.5 hours, so NDPL should anyway survive comparison to some more relevant U.S. providers (but I speculate that you have not found an average provider for India).

So the base feature of phone torches is backup for power blackouts. I always thought it was to be able to just use the phone for a few seconds when the light in the building switch off while you are at the stairs. Or to quickly read some note outside in the not so light place. Using phone LED instead of real battery is really poor bad, since it drains battery very quickly.

not to mention most phones have a note that says something along the lines of "extended use will damage your phone" those little LED's will still heat up if they are left on long enough, hopefully they have good thermal management.. when i took apart my S3 this weekend after it took a bath in the toilet there was nothing around the LED for the flash at all in the way of heat syncs...

What I meant was that power outages in India are much more common; sometimes scheduled.

The utility of having a flashlight on you is an order of magnitude higher in places where the electricity goes out on a frequent basis. Even if you only use it to find a candle.

Grumpy today, huh? Quote: "but for a phone made for the developing world not having a "flashlight" is a huge knock against it".

He didn't said that developed countries don't need a flash; he can't understand why phone made for developing countries lacks essential feature.

I agree it isn't ideal, but hitting that price point isn't easy. And a Moto E and a flashlight is still quite a bit cheaper than a Moto G, so I understand why they might have made that cut.

You really think that a flashlight adds more than $1-2 to the production cost of a mobile phone? They are doing this to attract more people to their premium models... The key selling point of Nokia 1100 was strongest flashlight on the market and the low price... I bought it for its flashlight phone as working as technician few years back...

At the very low end, $1-2 is a lot in terms of the production cost of a mobile phone. I'd wager that's why Nokia dropped it from the 520 as well, since they're at $70 off contract now.

It's not only for developing world. Everywhere. It's one of 10 top features.

a led flashlight isn't so expensive. if you could afford $120 for a smartphone, I think there's some room for a flashlight. I admit that led flashlight don't come with a rechargeable battery, but they last long.

and a white screen is a good substitute.

it's still a $120 device that allows you to go on the internet.

> a led flashlight isn't so expensive. if you could afford $120 for a smartphone, I think there's some room for a flashlight.

It's not about the price. It's about not having to put an extra thing in your pocket all the time.

In India, at one point of time Nokia phones sold like hot cakes for just having this one feature.

Power cuts are very frequent here. So when there is a power cut in the night and its all dark. All you needed to do was to turn on that flash light in your phone, till you could find a candle.

These days UPS have gotten cheaper and you can have a UPS at home for some thing like 17K(High end smart phones are 20K+), which will give decent back up for a ceiling fan and lighting for some hours.

But yes, a flash light would be really helpful.

noob question: why is the power always going out? Are the generating stations not making enough electricity, or is the grid in a state of poor repair?

India's overall infrastructure is pretty shoddy and there have been problems with coal shortages for the past few years. A quick Googling will turn up some good articles in The Economist and India Times about it.

Even the US has its own power issues what with major blackouts over the years, rolling blackouts in major areas like California, etc. Heck, we lost all power in our whole neighborhood in NYC for a week during the summer several years ago when the feeder lines all burned out (barely maintained by ConEd for 50 years). And we regularly have explosions of underground transformers that occasionally catch cars on fire. One of the many joys of living in NYC. Still, it's NOTHING compared to what my colleagues deal with in India.

Rolling blackouts in CA had nothing to do with infrastructure - it was a ploy by Enron to raise the price of electricity by artificially reducing supply during periods of high demand.

I live in a Boston suburb, and haven't been affected by a power outage lasting more than 30 seconds in the 8 years I've lived here. Those have always been caused by lines being hit by trees during wind storms, and supply is always restored by backup lines within seconds.

The US has a remarkably robust, high quality power grid. The biggest problem with it is that during peak demand we need to turn on coal fired power plants to supplement renewables and natural gas.

Maybe Boston has a decent power grid. It varies quite a bit from city to city. NYC is aging fast. Hence our feeder lines blowing out several years ago taking out a chunk of Queens for over a week (fun fact: ALL of our ice cream shops went out of business as a result).

Then there was Sandy that took out all of lower Manhattan when the power station near my old apartment flooded and blew up. We'll likely get hit with more of these as NYC will be more prone to flooding due to climate degradation.

Don't forget the great northeast blackout of 2003, either. Living in a 12th floor walkup with completely dark stairwells and minimal/no running water for multiple days wasn't fun.

Having lived there: basically both. Entire towns would lose power regularly due to cables being damaged, and many parts of India have rolling blackouts due to not enough power being generated.

a led flashlight isn't so expensive

That's exactly the reason why it's strange; the components needed to add one to a phone cost <$1 in the quantities they sell these at. If Motorola could afford to sell these at $120, they could afford to put one in.

One of the things that I've always found odd about most of the big smartphone brands is their feature set - especially for basic things like a removable battery, SD card slot, camera, dual SIM, and now LED flash. It seems like you can't get a model that has all these features; there's always something missing. Meanwhile, the lesser-known Chinese brands are selling full-featured smartphones at similar prices or less, so it makes me wonder about the true cost of adding those features.

maybe it's not just the price of the component, maybe there are other costs of putting such a led. anyhow, I agree that it's a nice feature to have, but I would not complain as the price is already quite nice.

the BOM cost is just one element of the true cost of any feature. Every feature adds:

-potential IP licensing costs

-the cost of sourcing, integrating, testing (both initial engineering testing and QA in manufacturing)...and let's not forget that every single component has the ability to affect the RF performance in wacky and unexpected ways. Which means more testing.

-another bit of complexity to the supply chain

Not to mention other costs not included in the overall BOM for software, marketing, logistics, legal, localization, customer support etc.

And on the other side, the $120 Motorola sells it for doesn't all go to Motorola. Much of that goes to distributors and retailers.

Turn screen brightness to max and turn all pixels white.

Now you have a flashlight.

That's a mode on Smart Tools' torch

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kr.aboy.tools

For some definition of flashlight. I use the LED on my phone for a flashlight several times a week and a white screen just doesn't cut it.

* Your hike took a bit longer than expected and now you're coming back down the trail after dusk.

* There's a rustling noise in the bushes, is it a raccoon or a burgler?

etc.

This. I used mine on a long run into the mountains last year on holiday, left super early (5am) before the sun rose and it got unbearably hot. No lights on the dirt path we were running along so the iPhone flash worked a treat.

For the 2010 earthquake (which was at 3:30 AM) electicity went off in the whole city and I didn't have a flashlight handy in the room I was living in. The only luminous thing I had handy was my cell phone screen, and no, it doesn't help very much in complete darkness in a room scattered with debris and fallen-down furniture. I'd rather have had a flashlight.

Flashlights on mobile phones are like the 'Leatherman' of the underprivileged. I've seen almost every technician / handyman put it to good use to illuminate a dark nook of your home while doing his job.

"power goes out a few times a week"..

I'm going to think about this today as I reflect upon my own #firstworldproblems

When my sister-in-law spent three months in Tanzania it was pretty much guaranteed that that power would go out every day. They spent more time without power than with it.

"First world"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis

I think that reinforces his point. That crisis involved only a small number of blackouts (four periods of 1-2 days of blackouts over the course of a year, according to that page), and this was still considered bad enough to make headlines and be labeled a "crisis".

The difference is, third world countries have these 'crisis' on a daily basis and it's a part of life. That's not a real crisis anymore for them.

I think that they're just following Nokia's lead. Nokia released the Lumia 520 without a LED flash and it has been their best seller, especially in emerging markets. The big difference, however, is that the Lumia costs half as much as the new Motorola.

> Lumia costs half as much as the new Motorola

You are mixing carrier subsidy. Price is in the same ballpark.

> big difference, however

Lumia 520 is far behind in features. It has single SIM, no Gorilla glass, smaller screen, smaller battery, half the RAM (although double internal storage)

The Lumia 520 costs $70 in the USA without a carrier subsidy and without a contract. I know this because I own one and because I just checked a few online retailers to see if they had increased the price.

And for that price difference the differences in features become irrelevant, especially when you take into account the surprisingly good build quality of the device and the fact that WP runs very well on low spec devices.

The AT&T version is actually $59 [0]. I think the advantage the 520 has going for it is that MS and WP app developers have realized that the vast majority of WP users are on 512MB devices like the 520.

So, MS has committed to excellent support. Even these low-end WP8 devices are getting the 8.1 update, and it runs really well on them. MS has every reason to support these devices throughout the complete WP8.x lifecycle.

And MS is heavily pushing for developers to make sure their apps work there. This was a huge focus at the recent MS Build conference.

Contrast this with the Moto E, which is only promised "at least one update" to another version of Android. My original Nexus 7 became quite sluggish after a couple of OS updates.

Of course, I'd rather own an Android phone than a WP phone, and app availability is just a totally different ballpark. But for a "basic" smartphone, given the price, performance, and support, I think the 520 might win for a ton of users.

[0] http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/No-Contr...

> The Lumia 520 costs $70 in the USA without a carrier subsidy and without a contract. I know this because I own one and because I just checked a few online retailers to see if they had increased the price.

Prepaid carriers often still discount phones to prices that would not be workable without the expectation of the phone being used on their network. Similar things have happened with the Moto G, which retailed for ~180 in the US, but is readily available from prepaid carriers for ~100.

Time will tell, but I expect that some will retail the Moto E for <80 once it goes on sale here.

Can you point to a reliable retailer that's selling an unlocked Lumia 520 for $70 ?

The MSRP on Lumia 520 > MSRP on Moto E. It's possible that some e-tailers might give you a good discount on 520 because it's more than a year old. The price on unlocked Lumia 520 that I see is $110. http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lumia-Unlocked-Windows-Phone/dp/...

Battery life on the 520 is pretty great. Lasts 3 days easy.

The dual-sim 630 just came out in India [0], but the price appears to be closer to $200. It has a 4.5" gorilla glass screen, but keeps the 512MB of RAM, and has no LTE support (that's in the coming-soon 635).

See my other comment on this thread for thoughts on how a 512MB WP device might provide a better long-term experience than a 1GB Android device in some ways.

I find this low-end market fascinating. Personally I use and prefer a Nexus 5, but as a WP developer it's eye-opening to see that fully 50% of our active WP8 user sessions are on a 512MB WP device (and almost half of those are 520/521).

[0] http://www.ibtimes.co.in/nokia-lumia-630-india-price-reveale...

> Battery life on the 520 is pretty great

That's not my point. You are getting better specs (higher mAh) on Moto E for the same price. That's all. Which one will last longer per charge will be out soon.

> Lumia 520 is far behind in features

Yes but to be fair the Lumia 520 is also over a year old at this point (went on sale in April 2013).

Not having gorilla glass / less RAM / smaller battery has less to do with being a year old. Nokia has always skimped on RAM for Lumia series (even for 620 & 720). Many popular games won't run on them. They have Gorilla glass on models 720 & upwards. Similar story with battery capacity. I'm not shooting down Nokia, just saying that Moto E is more value for money.

The Moto G is still pretty much the best value proposition out there, great phone at a great price.

In this crowd there's a lot of hate when the phone doesn't have an SD card slot (and I kinda wish it did), but the fact of the matter is you cannot get a better phone for the price (and even for double the price it might be hard).

Surprising... The Moto E has an SD card slot, dual sim support, and a gorilla glass screen.

I'm guessing they've got the price down by getting rid of the front facing camera, and LED flash for the rear camera, probably cheaper build quality. But... that's a a great price!

They're also using a screen that's much cheaper, I think that explains a large part of the price difference.

There's less internal storage, too, although the 4GB they saved costs them about $2 in component costs (~$4 out of retail price), since NAND flash is about $0.5 per GB now, and it's unfortunate most people don't realize this, and demand not to be ripped off on extra storage prices.

That's why the OnePlus One managed to put another 48GB for only $50 more, while still making a nice profit (~$24 in component costs), while companies like Apple and Samsung still charge you $100 more for another 16GB that costs them only $8.

For $100 more they should be offering offering another 128 GB, and it would still give them nice profits. They haven't changed their default storage prices since 2010, while prices have fallen by 30 percent per year, costing them 1/4 now of what it cost in 2010.

Both Apple and Samsung continue to optimize for costs rather than quality - Samsung by refusing to use anything higher quality than their cheap sub-$1 per unit plastic cases, for their $600 phones (I'm pretty sure even this Moto E has higher quality case than Galaxy S5), and Apple by lowering their BOM cost with each new generation compared to the last, yet still keeping the prices just as high for everything. If they keep following this trend, iPhone 10 will cost them $100 to build, but they will still sell it for $650.

My point is not that Apple doesn't keep adding stuff to their new phones or iPads, but that they are adding less than the average rate of technological progress. Ideally, a $650 device, would maintain roughly the same costs with each generation, because the company would use the best possible components and features for the same costs as last year. If they don't do that, it means they aren't properly optimizing for competitive quality and consumer value, and they shouldn't keep the retail price the same, and they should lower it accordingly.

I wish it had an SD card slot for sure, too! I was overly optimistic about how quickly 8GB would fill up.

But, it's not a big deal, and for the price? Can't think of anything close.

Edit: Oh dear, the new 4G version supports SD cards. Man, I didn't get my Moto G that long ago either. Regrets...

If you're in the UK and want to sell...

I'm in the UK (London) and just bought my Moto G 16Gb perhaps a week ago. I'd be willing to sell to update to the LTE version. Give me a shout if you're interested.

Some phones for the same price: ZTE Geek v975, Lenovo P780, Lenovo S860, Jiayu G4s, Star N9800. Faster, bigger, dual sim. And Lenovo has great battery.

... and no Android KitKat.

For me, bigger is a disadvantage.

I bought a Lenovo for my girlfriend (S820), since Moto G was sold out.

While it's a pretty decent phone, the UI has some lag and feels a bit sluggish compared to its competitors. I think the Mediatek does not deliver the same performance as other similarly specced chips.

I don't know enough to understand why, maybe the GPU is not good enough or something.

Edit: someone says that, among other improvements, Motorola uses a different and faster filesystem (F2FS) which is faster (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742608).

It does have some big advantages (much better camera for example), and the battery seems to be pretty good too.

Huawei has ever cheaper similarly specced phones, but the reviews scared me, it seems their software is extremely buggy.

If you're considering rooting / modding your phone, then maybe one of these phones is a good option.

At this point though it is not crazy to say that Motorola's (unobtrusive and thoughtful) software additions actually add value to their phones.

My Moto X is an excellent piece of hardware but the magic that really sets it apart is in Moto's actually useful software additions.

Now that Lenovo is buying Motorola, it will be interesting to see what happens both with Moto and Lenovo devices.

The Moto G LTE has an SD card slot! I'm glad to see SD having a 'resurgence' with HTC (m8) and Motorola now adding it back in.

The Moto G is still the best in its price range, and at $129 the Moto E may manage to pull the same thing in the lower than 150 dollar market.

Whatever Google changed in Motorola's approach, it's working, because that's the first two phones they've ever made that I wish to buy and recommend (including G for myself).

They say it sells very well so I hope these things are sufficiently profitable for them, we will all benefit from great phones at low price point.

(the higher priced market may be harder to breach though, since the Nexus brand is already there playing the same game)

Just don't forget that now Motorola is owned by Lenovo.

Not yet! The deal must be approved by the US, EU, etc. Until then, Motorola is a Google Company.

Which never meant much, really. Google was absent from Motorola (been there, seen it).

It did mean some in terms of marketing - Motorola being a Google company was a good endorsement and made people more confident about buying their Android phones.

On the other hand, it's a real disappointment that they only guarantee one (1) future OS upgrade, which is a real shame especially since it's basically Google.

One should tide me over until CM is stable.

I'm planning on buying myself a Moto G2 this fall/winter. I don't need a high-end phone right now, unless something great comes out of the Android Silver program (maybe a really nice Sony with a great camera). However, my next (and maybe "last") high-end phone will probably be one based on ARA, and then I'll just buy all the highest quality components I want (if it works well).

As for Moto G2, this would be my wishlist (if they're reading this):

- quad core Cortex A53 with LTE (basically Snapdragon 410)/Wi-Fi 802.11ac would be nice, too

- 8 MP camera that is at least as good as the one in Nexus 5 (but hopefully more reliable/faster with the focus)

- 32 GB version for $200 or at least 16 GB but with SD card support. 16GB without SD card support is too little, even at this price point.

- a slightly more compact size (same screen size, just more compact, as the Moto G is as big as Moto X, which has a bigger screen, but the compactness of Moto E makes me hopeful that it will be).

Go to love the way upgrades are "sold" to the customers:

"And with a guaranteed upgrade" == "The device will receive at least one software update to the current KitKat 4.4.2 operating system"

Yeah, that reads like weasel words. So does 4.4.3 count as your one update? Does an unnumbered security patch to 4.4.2?

The price point is tremendous though.

I would give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they mean one major version update plus patches.

They spell it out explicitly on their product page:

The device will receive at least one software update to bring it up to date with the current KitKat 4.4.3 operating system.

"And with a guaranteed upgrade,*2 you’ll know you’re always up to date with the best Android experience."

False advertising: obviously not "always" up to date.

Yeah, that's absurd wording. "Momentarily" would be far more accurate.

So how long will this phone get security updates for it? Just for the first bug fix?

I wish phone manufacturers would specify a support time period.

It just means that after a year or so I'll have to put Cyanogen on it. No big deal.

Still like a pretty weak statement to me: "at least one software update"

iPhone 3GS users had 4 years and 8 months of updates before they were stopped.

iPhone 4 users have had almost 4 years of updates so far, which is 3 major versions or about 29 updates if you include minor ones.

True. Whilst the updates undoubtedly add features and maintain compatibility they also worsen the overall experience. iPhone 4 is atrocious on iOS 7.

On the other hand, for the launch price of an iPhone you could get 5 Moto Es. Even if they're only supported for a year, that's 5 device-years of updates ;)

Just because the Moto E is cheap doesn't mean that people aren't expecting to keep it for 3-4 years. $129 is still a lot of money to most people in the world - particularly where they are targetting this.

it says it already runs 4.4.2

"Moto E runs Android™ 4.4.2, KitKat®, the latest version of the world’s most popular mobile platform"

and then the footnote says:

" 2 The device will receive at least one software update to the current KitKat 4.4.2 operating system. "

so are they saying you will get at least one update to the same minor version that it already comes with???

This is the first time I am seeing that a phone is priced cheaper in India. It is exclusively available online in India on http://www.flipkart.com/motorola/motoe

A friend of mine just bought one last night.

Its out of stock already!

Moto E is a nice phone, and although I haven't tried Moto G in real life, it actually looks like it has slightly better build quality for some reason, and more compact, too (for the size). But for only $50 difference, Moto G seems the better choice. Maybe my expectations were unrealistic, but I actually thought they could manage to put this one at $99, especially once I saw a rumor that it will sell for $117 in India. Moto G also started at about 17 percent in India more than in US ($210), so I logically deduced in US it would be $99.

http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/mobile-tabs/moto...

Moto G had a GREAT price at $179 ($210-$240 elsewhere), and why it became so popular in the first place. It doesn't quite look that Moto E has the same type of great price for what it offers. $99 would've been that great price that would've made everyone recommend it as the default choice for the price range.

If the rumor about the price in India was right, and it won't actually be more like $150 now there, then perhaps they are trying to have a more "global" price, where it's more or less the same price everywhere, even in US, and this way they'd make little profit on the global versions, but more profit in US.

As for the specs, I'm a little disappointed it comes with Cortex A5 instead of A7, but since it's clocked 200 mhz higher than Cortex A7 would be, maybe it's not too big of a problem, especially since they claim the general performance of the device is faster than a Galaxy S4 in many situations (like opening apps, which I think has more to do with their use of the F2FS file system, which ironically is made by Samsung, but they aren't using it themselves).

I also told my little brother if he'd want one of these, and he asked me if it has flash, and was disappointed to hear it does not. I think Motorola underestimated the importance of flash for this type of phone. The screen, size, internal storage+SD, I'm fine with. I'm just hoping that whenever Google launches Android 5.0 (hopefully this year), it will be upgraded to it.

Regarding the guaranteed upgrade: "2 The device will receive at least one software update to the current KitKat 4.4.2 operating system."

The wording there is confusing. I could see reading it as "it currently doesn't support 4.4.2, but it will." or "We'll upgrade to at least 4.4.3" or "we'll upgrade to at least 4.5"

I suspect they intend it to mean 4.5, but it is written vaguely, and that sort of promise sounds very much like marketing weasel words to avoid shipping anything more than minor system upgrades (which are INTENDED to not break functionality on devices).

They should be more explicit, why not just say a particular version number or later? Fear of the team changing the numbering scheme?

Considering the Moto X (on Verizon even) was the first non-Nexus phone to receive an upgrade from 4.3 to 4.4, I would assume it means that the Moto E will get whatever major release comes out after 4.4.

But I would also be willing to bet that the wording is intentionally vague such that if Android 5.0 comes out next, and makes it "impossible" to upgrade, that the lawyers will be happy with just a single security/bugfix update.

Why would Android 5.0 be impossible to upgrade? Looking at it from the Apple side of things, where each phone gets 2-3 years of OS updates, "at least one" seems paltry in comparison.

When you say "impossible", I see "cost prohibitive" - i.e., they can't sell a phone at this price if they want to support drivers and a newer OS for more than one release.

I guess it was a bit tongue-in-cheek, and meant more that "if the Android team all of a sudden re-architects the entire platform", then they have a way out.

In all likelihood, any Android 5.0 release will continue to be an incremental upgrade of the Android platform. But lawyers don't like committing to anything.

I own a Moto G and am not totally happy with it. I replaced a Lumia 820 with it. The big problems for me are the camera is awful, I mean really bad. It's that bad I've started dragging my DSLR with me. Also the WiFi is terribly unreliable. I'll be sitting opposite the router and it'll start "avoiding poor connections". This isn't environmental as it happens everywhere. Also exchange integration is ugly and painful. Genuinely regretting the purchase.

I'm sure someone can produce a better handset for the price.

avoiding poor wifi connections is the default, but you can turn that off in the advanced wifi settings

I'm aware of that. If I turn that off it just loses connections regularly.

You might have a faulty handset, mine picks up the signal pretty fast, no drops.

The camera might be awful compared to a phone that costs twice its price, but have you compared it to any other phones in its price range?

I have (not the OP but I wanted to buy a Moto G). If the camera is the killer feature, I recommend a Lenovo (S820 for example should be similarly priced). But it lags behind the Moto G in other aspects.

As another piece of anacdata, I have one and absolutely love it. Its not the most powerful phone I've ever owned, and you're right the camera isn't great, but for the price I really couldn't ask for much more. Its quick, its light, and the screen doesn't shatter the first time you drop it on the floor.

Well I can see you're damned here for explaining your experience with a product.

I see that Motorola is trying to get to the position where Nokia is/was. I don't think it is really really easy but at least they got the idea right.

"Moto E: Made to Last. Priced for All."

As a Nokia employee (well, still-Nokia since the phone part went to Microsoft and I'm still at Nokia) I have long thought that recent Moto phones were the most "Nokia-like" Android phones out there (Nokia X notwithstanding of course). Motos are going for that spot of fun design, high durability, global availability and thoughtful experience touches, all from a reputable and storied brand.

It's probably why the first phone I bought with my own money in years was a Moto X (I bought it the day after the Nokia-Microsoft sale was announced).

That my Moto X was made in a former Nokia manufacturing center in Texas just makes it all the more fitting :)

I'll miss you, Nokia (phones). But hopefully Moto will be a worthy successor.

Moto E & Moto G, both are very well designed, hot selling items in developing countries. They offer so much more value for that price point than ANY of the competitors. Granted you'd find pain points but the fact is, they are providing a quality user experience to the masses at a fraction of the cost.

I think a first time budget user deserves a quality UI with a great touch experience to start with. (I'm looking at the sluggish Samsung etc. models at this price point with crappy touch experience).

I know it's becoming less of an issue for others, but I wish that the current Motorola lineup had replaceable batteries.

They've been very clever with the timing on this! Bringing it out at a really affordable price just before all the new nexus/galaxy s5 mini/metal/iphone 600 come out!

So people like me, who are (desperately) due an upgrade can buy this and sit on the fence until all the shiny new phones are available and then start a new contract. Genius!

Its a shame about the lack of flash and the non removable battery but I think this type of phone is made to be short term. Its meant to be either an interim solution as I mentioned above or as a taster to get people into the smart phone ecosystem and upgrade to something better in a year or so when it starts slowing down.

At least in Canada it remains incredibly difficult to get the G or X without a plan or contract. I can't help wonder what exactly it is that makes Motorola so resistant to direct selling in the frozen north.

The single greatest thing about the Nexus 5 is how easy it is to buy the handset with absolutely no consideration about the carrier at all, and it's sad that Motorola haven't learned this from greater Google before going off to Lenovo.

Doubly sad, as the products deserve a lot more attention. I do wonder if they're concerned about them being good enough to cannibalise vast swathes of the market.

Amazon does not ship to Canada?

It just doesn't make sense to target a developed nation with high smartphone penetration that has a population of only 35 million. Moto's aiming to sell the G and E to price-sensitive first-time smartphone buyers in developing nations, probably with the plan that by building a brand now, those customers will buy higher end Moto smartphones as they gain wealth.

Where does the Moto E compare in "horsepower" to phones we currently know? It states the Snapdragon 1.4 ghz dual core processor, isn't that what's in the US domestic Galaxy S3?

It would appear to be about the same as a S3

This is great news for android developers! Maybe one day google will be able to deprecate Gingerbread! It was released over 4 years ago yet every android app must support it since it represents about 20% of users since manufacturers continue to sell phones with it in 2014. Gingerbread is a real pain to support and bloats and slows all android applications by having to include a huge support library (~5MB).

My Android 4.1 smartphone is $70 at Bestbuy. It's a dual-core 1.4ghz with 1GB ram. Half the cost of the Moto E.

Does the Moto E have slightly higher specs than my phone? Yes. But is it "shaking up" the smartphone world? Hell no. Feature phone buyers will buy phones like mine, which are half the cost of the Moto E, and fully capable modern Android phones.

Does anyone know why the maximum MicroSD capacity is listed as 32GB? 64GB cards work on my relatively old Huawei Android handset.

I suspect it has to do with exFAT drivers. IIRC, Motorola devices (like Nexus/GPE devices) don't include exFAT support (to avoid Microsoft entanglements). Unfortunately, microSD cards larger than 32GB come pre-formatted as exFAT, so they won't work without reformatting as FAT.

Rather than get into all of the various complications, I suspect it's easier for them to say 32 GB is the limit (and let people who care enough figure out the workaround themselves).

Doing some digging, it seems to be possible to format >32gb cards as FAT32 using this utility[1] (see the video[2]). Apparently the 3DS is also limited to FAT32, but accepts 128gb cards fine using similar techniques[3].

And according to Wikipedia, this appears to be within the FAT32 specs[4] - it's just Microsoft's crappy format utility that has a maximum of 32gb.

That said, I'm not going to risk $350 (card + phone) on this working until I see a few field reports...

[1] http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA9fp863d-o [3] http://nintendoeverything.com/3ds-can-accept-128gb-sdxc-card... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

"Goodbye Flip Phone" Not likely - as long as the carriers REQUIRE a data plan to buy a smart phone. Some people use a WiFi tablet and a flip phone to keep monthly costs to a minimum.

Seems you can't buy the phone outright in the UK and have to buy it through network providers. Would have been good to see an unlocked version purchasable direct from Motorola.

You can buy it from Amazon in the UK. That's where I got mine.

I suppose you mean the Moto G you mentioned elsewhere. For now, I cannot get Amazon to show me a page for the Moto E - specifically looking for "Motorola Moto E" only shows Moto G links.

The US amazon page for it says:

"Special Shipping Information: Due to federal and international regulations, this product can only be shipped within the 50 states."

Strange message. I don't believe them anyway, it's more likely Motorola restrictions.

Amazon generally won't ship electronics outside the States:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=4...

That is correct. There is no Moto E release here yet. Probably will be a couple of weeks after the carriers get it if it was like the Moto G.

Expansys ( http://www.expansys.com/ ) have pre-order placeholder pages up for non-carrier SIM-free Moto E & 4G G models in black or white. It looks like you'll be able to buy them here soon enough:

http://www.expansys.com/motorola-moto-e-black-261546/

http://www.expansys.com/motorola-moto-g-4g-8gb-black-261577/

The Motorola site has Phones4U in the Retailers drop down.

Phones4U have it listed at £89.95 SIM-free.

http://www.phones4u.co.uk/Black/p/MOTEBLCK?packageType=FTC&t...

(scroll down to "Other ways to buy")

These Moto phones would be great vehicles for getting people to try Ubuntu Touch. Why do they only provide images for the most expensive possibilities?

One reason I can think of is that the high end now will be the mid range by the time Ubuntu Touch is any kind of shippable form.

I'm a happy Moto G user, use its led as a flashlight, but as someone who has a big music collection, the external 32g sd card is really a must.

I'd still buy a smartphone without a camera. I wonder how much that smartphone would cost without a camera.

Why? I can't see a reason unless you work in a secure environment.

I assume jokoon's point wasn't that he(?) needs a phone without a camera, rather that the camera is completely superfluous for him(?) and would like an option to get a phone without a camera for a cheaper price, even if only marginally cheaper.

I actually wouldn't mind that myself. I'm never without a 'real' camera without at least an APS-C sized sensor, so the camera on my cellphones might as well not exist. If I could get even a couple dollar discount on a phone with no camera I'd take it.

Having said all of that, I realize that it makes no business sense for any phone maker to cater to me considering the costs of having a separate camera-less SKU would far outweigh any additional sales they might get by catering to the extreme minority of people like me, and having a phone with no camera option at all is just too niche to bother with.

It would be pretty inconvenient for me to have a phone without a camera now, even if I were happy to carry a separate camera. Even though I have an eye-fi card and can therefore wirelessly transfer photos from my camera to my phone, there are many use cases where it's too clunky or too impossible:

1. Scanning a barcode (e.g. a product bar code or a QR code to add a contact).

2. Sending time-sensitive photos over WeChat, e.g. my wife sent me some photos as she was standing in a fabric store in another continent, and I was instantly able to pick the one I wanted.

3. Video calling using Skype/Hangouts or similar

4. Adding a payment card to the Uber app

Both MotoG and MotoE don't have replaceable Battery. Whether this has any effect on their pricing!

What modern smartphone has a replaceable battery?

Edit: well, I'm actually quite surprised.

A Samsung Galaxy S (up to and including the S5)

I don't personally like the Galaxy series, but it is undeniably a modern smartphone that has a replaceable battery.

In fact I don't think Samsung has made any smartphone without a removable battery.

A good thing, since their batteries don't last that long. I've had to replace 2 batteries (on Galaxy Ace and Galaxy Mini 2) which had only 2 years of (admittedly heavy) use, while my Nokias sustained a lot more abuse.

Most Modern Smart Phones sold in India in this price category has replaceable battery

Edit: I was asking the question whether this has a reason behind low price?

What is it about low price phones and replaceable batteries? Is it because the extra bulk/heft is acceptable on those phones and the batteries don't need to be molded?

Well, Jolla has :)

Samsung Galaxy 4S and 5S have replaceable battery.

Samsung galaxy s5

"user-replaceable battery". If your battery died then you can replace it for 75$ (+ taxes).

Of course if you need lasting phone that is your work tool used throughout the day and you need multiple batteries then this smartphone might be simply not the right tool for your job.

For me it's not about multiple batteries, it's being able to change it after 2 years because it's the only part on the phone that degrades over time.

A battery in not $75 + taxes, it's more like $20. Granted, the Moto G and Moto E pricing somewhat make it more acceptable to change your phone every 2 years, but it's a trend that I don't like.

If you don't like that then you can always vote with your wallet and buy something with replaceable battery then. I had 10 phones and only one battery problem (12 years ago). I simply bought new phone as old one became really outdated.

Or you don't like that because you see it as bigger problem? E.g. you think that it is environmental problem.

$75 + taxes includes battery price and its replacement (citing from here https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/prod...). You can do it yourself but it is not recommended and voids warranty.

warranty expires long before or in the best case at about the same time that the battery needs replacing. battery replacements look a bit similar to buying ink cartridges for printers.

You can replace the battery easily. It requires a Torx T4 driver. Its not soldered or glued in. Just pop the back off, undo some screws, undo the battery ribbon and repeat in reverse.

Who cares about yet-another-new-phone.

What we need is 100% open-source software, hardware and firmware.

Get working on it then.

s/we need/I want

FTFY

Its better than my Galaxy S2 that I bought for more than $550 just three years ago :(

Currently Moto G has US GSM option only.

I hope all phones will adopt this feature: "Built-in FM radio"

I've been waiting for that and Built-in TV tuner for years. I don't think the carriers want that because you don't use their expensive data then. I'm on republic now, so I don't use carriers data anyway and TV would be great. Also as a special interest, allowing that FM tuner to go a little higher in frequency could pick up the aviation frequencies - every pilot would want one (that's not a huge market).

Most no-brand Chinese knockoffs have built-in TV tuners.

If they work as well as their cameras, I don't think they're what you're looking for (a coworker bought one as a temporary cell phone just to try it, and it was nowhere close to what they advertised, and was basically awful).

Just to be clear: I'm talking about chinese white-label products, some are sold here under the brand Xion for example.

http://www.zonatecno.com.uy/Celulares_Xion_XI-CE50_Dual_Sim_...

Searching, I just found out there are cheap dongles to add a TV Tuner :) for example:

http://www.elgato.com/en/eyetv/eyetv-micro

http://www.geniatech.com/tv-tuner-for-android-tablet.asp

and they apparently work reasonably well

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2094801

it does depend on headphones for an antenna. As a result I don't use it much on my moto g. It is nice though.

Most feature phones have had it for a long time now.

I wish phones had radio transmitters so I could listen to my phone on a car stereo that doesn't have bluetooth or any other way to hook up with a phone.

pretty much all my phones (smartphones included) have had this feature, it just hasn't been advertised

Moto - 1 day on battery with moderate use. iPhone - 5 days on battery with moderate use.

Moto does not cost 5 times less than iPhone.

What is this magical iPhone you have?

The moderate use is the magic. I'd like to have a Moto for a model use comparison.

Where are you getting those numbers for the iPhone?

From daily use. And I did support for a company on HTCs, which are close to Motos but not the same. Like I said, I'd like to compare on a model usage for different user profiles. Mine is modest, iPhone does 4 days (5 when was new), HTC did exactly 1 day.

I went to motorola.com, clicked "Learn More" about the Moto E, then clicked Buy Now, and the first "option" I was presented with was this:

http://cl.ly/image/3E3y0m083j2I

After that, I was shown options "US GSM" and "Global GSM", both priced identically. Why even ask me? All they did was add clicks between me and giving them money.

They have to ask you. They're two different phones and they don't know which you want.

Maybe you want a phone to use in the US. Or maybe you want something cheap for travel or for sending to a family member overseas or ...

Come on, GP obviously meant the step with the single choice dropdown was redundant

It would probably be more expensive to make a single model that could use all communications bands. Different countries use different frequencies.

According to http://forums.androidcentral.com/moto-g/338376-differnces-be...

                UMTS/HSPA+
    Global      850/900/1900/2100
    US          850/1700/1900

So unless you absolutely need that 1700MHz band for 3G from your provider, Global is probably the better option...

That 1700mhz is a tmo-licensed band for the US that offers UTMS AWS, which provides 3g at rather snappy speeds. If you're not intending to go abroad, the US edition makes sense. If else, the global model has pretty nearly every widely-deployed 3g band.

Does anyone use that band besides T-Mobile USA? I feel like there must be some Latin American country that does...

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