Motorola Moto G
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,742 words · ~8 min read
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I'd like to open this up by saying yeah I know I'm really late on this
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one the Corsair flash Voyager go is the
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easy way to move photos music and videos between your Android device and your PC
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click now to learn more yes everyone in North America is
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drooling over the Samsung Galaxy S5 the HTC M8 Etc but honestly the Moto G was
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never about being the best phone available in North America anyway so why
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don't we approach this from a bit of a different perspective let's consider its
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importance in another Market one that Motorola talked about back when they
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launched it India the 16 gig version
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launched earlier this month Android 4.4 KitKat rolled out there on it about a
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week ago and at the time of filming this the Moto G has 2300 user reviews on
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flipcart.com more than the Galaxy S4 and
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HTC1 combined so as interesting as the successors to those products are I would
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actually argue that even today you know 4 months latest as I am the Moto G is a
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more important product overall for the world's move towards smartphones than
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either of those two successors so the main difference
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between the Moto G and the Moto X are as follows performance is lower in every
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way slower CPU and GPU with a quad core A7 processor at 1.2 GHz and adrino 305
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GPU 1 gig versus 2 gigs of RAM n
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wireless versus AC Wireless and 3G cellular data maximum versus LTE being
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available on the X all of that though actually sounds worse than it is more on
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that later the build quality is very solid it is thicker and uses noticeably
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cheaper plastic but you do get a removable and customizable replaceable
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backing now however difficult it might be to get off it's got a regular 720p
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LCD display versus the OLED display on the Moto X that enables the display to
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power on only the pixels that are needed a great power saving feature it lacks
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the always listening voice activation and this actually bothered me a lot more
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than I expected the camera feels straight out of 2010 megapixels and
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gigapixels aside my iPhone 4 to my eyes
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anyway actually takes similar quality pictures and does it with a faster
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response on the shutter but that's me losing track of the product positioning
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of the Moto G I'm complaining the camera is competitive with the iPhone 4 but
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that still passes for Apple's value option in India that is what the Moto G
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is up against and on flipcart.com the 8 gig iPhone 4 actually costs about 50%
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more than the Moto G whose other advantages vastly outweigh that one
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disadvantage in my opinion let's talk
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physicality in everyday use she don't have many buttons C I like the top 3 and
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half mm Jack it's easy easy to pocket but I found the positioning of the
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camera lens a bit awkward for taking pictures in landscape mode the onboard
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speaker is suitably loud for watching YouTube videos in the backseat of a
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moving car which is all I really ask for but it's got that awkward positioning
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that requires the now classic Hand Cup maneuver to achieve Optimal Performance
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B the volume rocker is another thing that bothered me a fair bit throughout
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the time I use the phone it's short cheap feeling and hard to differentiate
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from the lock button when you're not actually looking at the phone when you're just trying to feel it I don't
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have much to say about the software that I didn't already say in my Moto X or
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Nexus 5 reviews it's Android 4.4 and
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it's pretty much stock Android with no real bloatware there are only a few
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things that really drove me crazy I also don't like the dialer at all dialing by
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name is something that I take for granted now and is conspicuously AC
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absent here and switching to the address book is up at the top of the phone where
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it's not really convenient to reach one-handed and finally Hangouts still
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just plain sucks as a messaging app the chip in my head though tells me that
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much like the YouTube comments our Google overlords will address it at some
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point in the future so it's a minor concern but it's definitely something
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that's bothering me for now but negativity out of the way let's get into
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the first of my top four Moto G advantages versus cheaper and even
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similarly priced phones from off Brands and other premium Brands like Samsung
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alike software updates Motorola promised
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and delivered Android 4.4 in a timely manner on the Moto G many of the devices
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in this price range are still running 4.1 or even earlier versions of Android
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and when you consider Google's focus on making their OS run faster and lighter
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with each iteration You could argue that software updates are even more important
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than getting better specs on your phone in the first place Advantage number two
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performance other stuff in this price range like the Samsung I 826
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is just plain laughable compared to the Moto G even coming from a premium phone
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games ran fine at Native res and I only notice slowdowns while multitasking or
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while installing apps in the background I also suspect that any of the stutters
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I did feel were because the flash storage was almost completely full the
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entire time I had the phone that will hamper the performance of even the
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quality flash storage in the Moto G I used an 8 gig but I would really
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recommend the 16 gig for another 20 bucks if you plan to put lots of apps or
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even a small to medium music collection on your phone Advantage number three
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that screen where most of its competitors are still advertising their
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screens as TFT LCD without even
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specifying a resolution on the product page the Moto G's 42 in 720p IPS screen
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is a design choice that even made me forget sometimes while I was reviewing
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it that I was holding a device that costs a third of my daily driver the
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HTC1 the viewing angles on it are excellent the colors are vibrant without
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seeming oversaturated and unnatural like some OLED displays and it was even easy
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to use outside nice and bright excellent contrast my only complaint here is that
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the touchcreen seemed to lack the pinpoint accuracy of some other products
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I've used which was noticeable in things like typing very quickly Advantage
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number four is well the other stuff the
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all day battery that got me almost through two light usage days last
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weekend the Gorilla Glass 3 front cover and the lip on the front of the phone
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that means I can put it down without worrying about scratches the
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customizability you can replace the backing with a color of your choice or a
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flip starting at 15 bucks and these are all little things that maybe don't Merit
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individual advantages but they add up to make the conclusion for this video very
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simple at $179 to $199 this is the only phone that really
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matters in much the same way that at $350 the Nexus 5 is the only phone that
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really matters yes you can find imperfections in both of them but the
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only way to fix those complaints is to spend more so I believe what I said
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stands I wouldn't consider recommending something else to my mother if she had
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$200 to spend which is about the strongest praise I can give a product Oh
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wait right sorry the part of a phone review where I uh talk about call
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Quality uh it's good actually better than expected the Moto G has an extra
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mic for back noise suppression which at this price point is a very compelling
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value ad just like everything else about this phone so overall great work
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Motorola oh and I also have a sponsor message too the internet sensation Dan
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board is now available as a portable battery charger for your mobile devices
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you know like this one when you need more battery life on the go and while
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cuteness is subjective price to Performance is not at the moment this
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version with a massive 10,400 mamp
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battery and five-star r is available for 35 bucks on amazon.com it includes both
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a 1 amp and a 2.1 amp charging port which can be used separately or even at
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the same time an LED battery level indicator and automatic shutdown
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functionality for when the battery of your device is finished charging so you
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don't overcharge it there's a 6,000 mamp model too that's similar other than
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being physically smaller and replacing the more standard battery life indicator
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with get this colorcoded LEDs in the
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eyes anyway they're both available on amazon.com and I'm including a clickable
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link for those of you with annotations enabled as well as a link in the video
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description for those of you who are on your phone or have them off or for
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whatever other reason so take a moment to check it out because without our
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sponsors and thank you chiro for supporting us on this video it would be
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very difficult for us to keep making videos so guys especially this one very
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very compelling value right now anyway thank you for watching my Moto G review
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like this video and share it if you liked it dislike it if you dislike it we
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do value your feedback leave me a comment and let me know if you'd like to
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see more coverage of lower-end devices like this one or if you'd prefer I just
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stay in the realm of sexy drool worthy Flagship phones instead I would actually
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love to hear what you guys think about that and as always don't forget to
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