The improved specs and same price as the last year's model may make
the new Moto E a desirable upgrade, but do these enhancements make it a
worthy contender to offerings from rivals in the same price segment?
We got to spend some time with the successor to the original Moto
E that made its way to India on Tuesday and will go on sale from
Wednesday. Here's our first impressions of what is the cheapest new
Motorola phone in India.
Unlike the new model, the original Moto E had a removable rear panel
concealing the SIM card and microSD card slots underneath. However, the
battery, as in the new model, was non-removeable.
Another noticeable improvement in the new Moto E is the ribbed
pattern beautifying the swappable band that also helps offer a better
grip in combination with the curved back. The phone's rounded edges add
to its ergonomics and make it nestle in your palm easily.
Though the phone comes with a tad bigger display than the
predecessor, the difference in their screen sizes appears to be
negligible. At 540x960 pixels, the resolution of the screen remains the
same as the old model. The touch responsiveness on the display is good
and it's smooth to navigate on it, but the colours it produces and the
viewing angles it offers are only of acceptable quality.
Given the competition and offerings available in the sub-Rs 7,000
smartphone segment today, the display on the Moto E fails to live up to
expectations. The similar display on the original Moto E last year
earned better ratings than what the new Moto E would get.
The placement of the front camera in the upgraded version of the
Moto E isn't really the upgrade we had been looking for. The quality of
the front VGA camera is poor and the competition can easily score. The
rear camera, on the other hand, manages to capture only satisfactory
results in both soft and bright light conditions. Though we are yet to
put it to extensive use. Quite like the last year's model, the camera
app on the new Moto E offers very basic options to customise settings.
What you would appreciate in the new model is the increased
internal storage. The built-in memory in the new Moto E has gone up from
4GB (in the old model) to 8GB (with around 5GB user-accessible). The
microSD card slot for additional storage supports a card of up to 32GB.
Powered by a faster engine, the chipset in the Moto E has four
cores as against two cores in the first-gen Moto E. Also, the phone is
claimed to come with a better battery. But the actual performance of the
phone can only be determined after putting it to different real-world
tests.
The speaker positioned at the front produces only satisfactory
audio results - both in terms of loudness and clarity. Running Android
5.0 Lollipop, the phone is not pure Android, but it does not come
pre-loaded with heavy bloatware like what we see on phones from other
smartphone makers, though it does include pre-installed Motorola apps.
Priced at Rs 6,999, the new phone comes in two colours - black
and white. The black-coloured model appeared better looking to us than
the white.
The new Moto E, undoubtedly, has some key improvements over the
predecessor, but it may lose to similar offerings from Asus, Lenovo and
Xiaomi. Wait for our full review of the new Moto E to know where it
actually stacks up against the competition.
