Review: Motorola Moto G 4G

Positive marks have to go to the battery, with the Moto G 4G able to pull an impressive two days from its 2070mAh battery.

That’s a result better than a lot of bigger handsets, and we were amazed by what the G 4G could do here.

Our test includes making phone calls, sending texts, surfing the web, social networking, taking photos, playing the odd game, listening to music, capturing photos, and generally using a phone, and that pulled two working days for us, or a little over 36 hours from a purely on-and-working runtime.

If you use your mobile a little more than we will, you’ll likely want to charge daily, but most people should see close to two days usage, which is relatively impressive given that this is a 4.5 inch smartphone that runs on 4G networks with 4G speeds.

Those 4G speeds were equally excellent, with download speeds ranging from 25Mbps to just shy of 61Mbps in our tests, which should be plenty fast for most people.

Even the performance isn’t bad, though it does have some niggles here and there.

From a technical standpoint, the Moto G is an improvement on the hundred dollar less Moto E, upping the chip from a dual-core Snapdragon 200 to a quad-core Snapdragon 400, but it’s not a huge shift that most will notice, and there’s still a degree of lag here and there, especially when you look at some of the 2013 phones that can be found at reduced prices that this competes against.

The software, though, is probably the best part of the performance package, because like other Motorola Android phones made in the past two years, this is pretty much pure Android the way Google wants it, with Motorola’s own stuff sitting on top.

This implementation means Motorola practically delivers the most up-to-date Android experience ever, and while some phones struggle with Android 4.3 “Jelly Bean” and others have Android 4.4.2 “KitKat” on them, this $299 Moto G 4G was running Android 4.4.4 a day into beginning our review tests.

Are the improvements minor?

Mostly, at least not the sort a general consumer will notice, but it shows you how on the ball a Motorola phone is, and if you’re at all concerned by the speed of updates from other manufacturers, those concerns can be allayed here on the $299 Moto G 4G, because the latest version of Android is what you’ll get. It really is.

But not all is great, and we take particular aim at the camera, because that’s where the Moto G just doesn’t feel as solid an experience as the rest of the handset.

Granted, there’s a flash on the back, so that’s something, but the camera quality isn’t good, at least not on the usable level that it is on the Moto X.

Here, the images are soft, blotchy, and generally lacking in light balance unless HDR mode is switched on.

At least the interface makes the camera easy to use, with the same simple camera software from both the Moto E and Moto X gracing the Moto G 4G.

But seriously, we’d only rely on it for the bare basics, because really, the camera is one of the weakest we’ve seen on a camera edging this close to the $300 mark.

Conclusion

It’s not the cheapest Motorola out there, but in terms of performance, the Moto G 4G ticks quite a few boxes, offering a great screen, fast 4G speeds, and impressive battery life.

There’s some pretty solid competition between this and Kogan’s BenQ-powered Agora 4G, a device which has half an inch on the Moto G 4G, but if you like devices small-ish and want to move from the iPhone 3 or 4 to an Android with more bandwidth, this is one phone we’d check out.