There are some pretty cool inclusions on the Moto E, including the rear cover which is hard to remove — and that’s a good thing — and that it can be replaced with a more colourful case. We’re not sure how much they’ll be or where you’ll find them, but Motorola’s E rear covers will mean you can add a splash of colour to an E handset, more than just the black we’re used to seeing, and bring the old Nokia 8210 covers back to the front of our minds.
Also offered in the E is a second SIM slot, an unusual inclusion for a budget phone, and one that often is used by people going abroad, as it allows them to set up phone calls being made on one SIM, while text and data is handled by the other.
Motorola Assist is also a handy inclusion, a piece of software that Motorola installs to help you out by offering to switch your phone on silent when you’re sleeping or if you’re at a meeting.
While other phones include this sort of feature in the settings, having this in an app makes everything easy to explain, which will be handy for first-time users of the idea.
Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy is also here, a surprise inclusion since other modern wireless modes are missing in action, such as 802.11ac, infrared, and Near-Field Communication. We wish those three would have made an appearance, but we’re at least happy to see more than Bluetooth 2.0 or 3.0 in the Moto E, so that’s something to cheer for.
Performance isn’t quite as positive, though, because while it’s mostly balanced, you’ll find the 1GB RAM and relatively low spec’d Snapdragon 200 just doesn’t cut it for much more than basic web surfing, texting, emails, and phone calls. As you surf, you may find some lag between the page scrolling, some delay between pressing shortcuts for apps, and some time between when the camera opens and closes on various screens.
It is, for the most part, relatively minor, and also fairly expected, since the Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 isn’t exactly a high-end processor, which is exactly what we expect from a sub-$200 phone. That said, it’s worth being aware of, especially if you’re wondering why your new phone isn’t working as quickly as you are.
Also not working as quickly as you are is the mobile broadband performance, echoing something close to what we would receive in 2009 or 2010.
In our tests, we found speeds in Sydney on Telstra ranging from 3Mbps to 10Mbps, skipping out on the 3.5G-end of speeds altogether and missing out on 15Mbps. In fact, we mostly found the speeds were consistent around 5Mbps, which is far lower than most 3G only phones we’ve seen in recent years.
We hope you weren’t hoping for a decent camera, either.
It’s not that the 5 megapixel camera in Motorola’s E is the worst camera we’ve ever seen, but it’s not the best, not by a long shot, with the bare minimum of auto-focus, pretty weak quality in both daylight and at night, and no flash to boot.
No front-facing camera doesn’t help the lack of camera quality here, and in general, the quality across the board from the rear camera isn’t all that fantastic, so we’re not really surprised.
That said, it would have been nice to have something at least usable, because this camera is the sort we’d prefer to have not existed rather than be included in a sub-$200 smartphone, especially since there have been budget handsets with much better cameras thrown in for the cost.
The ultimate saving grace of Motorola’s $179 handset is its battery, and credit to Motorola, it’s not bad at all, providing almost two full days of battery life for us with its 1980mAh battery.
You can’t actually replace the battery in this handset, but that’s no bother since you’ll find a full day easily in this handset, and as much as two, possibly three if you use the handset less than we did, and our tests have us listening to streaming music, surfing the web, making phone calls, texting, writing and checking mails, and playing the odd game here and there.
Two days in a 4 inch phone isn’t bad at all. We can’t complain about this result, and neither should you.
Conclusion
Motorola’s attempt to take on the budget market is an interesting product, culminating in a handset that you’d be happy to own provided you weren’t dependent on the lacklustre camera and lack of 4G.
Without these two aspects, the Moto E flies in, providing a solid value for anyone keen to have an up-to-date mobile handset without spending that aforementioned arm and a leg.
But if you value faster mobile broadband speeds and would prefer usable cameras all around, we’d probably add a hundred bucks more to the picture, because at that price point, you’ll start to see some better all-rounders from more than just Motorola.
