Verdict
Motorola
has improved on its already impressive low-end handset by boosting the
battery and processor while also adding 4G. The price is still low and
Android Lollipop is on board; what more could you need?
Motorola just sent us through a box of goodies
the company has been teasing for a while now. We predicted it may come
with the long rumoured launch of the Moto E (2015) and low and behold we
were correct.
The new Moto E arrived in a little presentation box with a unique website showing off the real announcement of the phone.
But you don't want to hear about a box - you want to know what the phone is like, surely?
Don't
expect much to blow your mind on the new Motorola Moto E, a lot here is
very similar to the phone we reviewed back in May last year. But that's
a phone we gave a four out of five to, so how does this re-release hold
up?
Design
All round the design is pretty similar to what
we saw on the original Moto E. It's still got a plastic body with a
round body feel to it. All the buttons remain in the same places with
the unlock and volume rocker on the right hand edge of the phone.
The headphone jack sits in the middle at the top and the microUSB slot continues to sit in the bottom middle of the handset.
On
the back it remains emblazoned with the Motorola logo indented into the
body and the main camera sitting above it. This time the rim around the
camera has had a bit of an upgrade with a much nicer looking thick
silver rim around the edges.
But
there isn't a removable back panel this time - instead there's a
plastic rim that you take off to get to the SIM card and microSD slots.
It can be a real struggle to get the plastic edging off the phone and
once I actually I thought I'd broken it off. I hadn't, but it's pretty
flimsy.
On
the front there is now the front camera (the original E didn't have a
forward facing snapper) sat next to the earpiece along the top but the
4.3-inch 540 x 960 resolution display remains in the middle.
The display looks good in a variety of different lighting areas and is a great size for the average user.
Performance
The
new Moto E comes with an upgraded Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core
processor clocked at 1.2GHz. That comes alongside 1GB of RAM and should
give it a bit of an upgrade under the hood but isn't going to blow
anyone away particularly.
It is still an impressive feat to get
such a good chipset into such a low price handset and in our small
amount of time using the handset we didn't notice anything worrying in
terms of performance.
Battery
One of the positives on the
original Moto E was its strong battery life, and we're hoping things
will be even better on the new Moto E as it's been upgraded from 1980mAh
to 2390mAh.
Considering there isn't particularly anything
different here to power we'll likely see even better battery life on the
new Moto E (2015).
Check back for our full review where we'll give it a proper test and really put it through its paces.
The essentials
One
of the biggest benefits of the Moto E is it comes with the latest
Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system on board in its purest stock form.
It means all the latest features from Lollipop are here, and it's an
impressive feat on a low end handset.
Arguably
the biggest benefit is the addition of LTE in the new phone meaning
you'll now be able to get a 4G signal and swift download speeds with the
Moto E (2015).
This is a feature we felt was potentially held
back from the original Moto E just for this update but it is good to see
such a low end handset get what a couple of years ago was considered a
top end feature.
Camera
The 5MP rear camera remains on the
Moto E. We didn't get much of a chance to play around with it during
our hands-on but it was one of our biggest criticisms of the handset.
It's a shame to see this hasn't been upgraded on the new phone but Motorola has seen fit to add in a front facing camera.
It's a VGA shooter so don't expect anything impressive but it's better than not being able to take selfies at all.
Verdict
Motorola
all new Moto E will launch at £109.99, $149 (around AU$180) making it
potentially the cheapest handset on the market running Android Lollipop
out of the box.
It offers an impressive amount of features
considering the price tag and has upgraded on a few already strong
features for adding in a bigger battery and an even more powerful
processor.
The biggest benefit comes from the addition of LTE
connectivity meaning it's one of - if not the cheapest phone on the
market offering super-fast internet speeds at such a low price point.
Camera
wise the addition of a front-facing selfie snapper is a welcome one but
it would have been good to see some upgrades to the poor main camera.
But
for that price, can you really judge Motorola? At such a low price
point it's impressive to have half of these features and if you're
looking for a low priced handset you really couldn't go wrong with the
new Moto E
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