We don’t get our hands on enough Motorola phones at Stuff Towers. That’s because, surprise surprise, they more or less have to be imported though you can now get them through a certain online store that rhymes with orange. Wait…
Anywho, that’s how I got my hands on the Moto E, the basic Android 5.0 smartphone from Motorola. And if this review was being done just a little bit sooner, it might have turned out different. But the Xiaomi Redmi 2 appeared in our offices at about the same time and… well… that race got extremely close.
A Slightly Grainy Texture
It’s just not terribly attractive or inventive. The curved, textured back is non-slip and the 4.5-inch 540 x 960 display is more utilitarian than pretty. There’s a single charge port at the bottom of the phone, a headphone jack on time and the power/volume keys on the right-hand side (also textured). Basic, what you see is what you get, and it gets the job done. This will become a theme later.
Lacking In The Specs Department
There’s a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 410 inside here, as well as 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. Theoretically, anyway, the operating system chews up a big chunk of the storage space. It’s a good thing that there’s a microSD slot tucked away with the SIM card slot under the backplate. Limited to a 32GB upgrade. Aw, bugger.
Better In Some Places
The internet connectivity is another area where the Moto E and the Redmi 2 are close. Both of them pack LTE and they’re equally as fast so the crown has to go to the Moto E by a whisker. Just ‘coz of that AnTuTu difference, really. I like to think of it as a photo finish.
Not So Great In Others
The other deficient areas have already been addressed, the display could have been less blinding and Motorola’s storage claims are a little misleading but I can deal with that for LTE without paying all the money for it.
Verdict
The Moto E isn’t the world’s best phone. It’s not even in the top 100 unless you’re looking at a balance of features that offsets its ability to run Android Lollipop relatively hassle-free, access LTE networks and run for ages on a charge (Oh, yes, it does like to do an Energiser Bunny impression). There are sacrifices made to get it to this point while keeping it cheap. And the price is arguably the best thing about the Moto E. A sub-R2,000 phone with LTE and Android 5.0? I’ll take two. Not entirely sure what I’ll do with all those phones but no matter.