The new Motorola
MotoG is now available with 4G, an unbelievable deal that thrusts way over its size
and is still the best buy around
Ever since the Moto G
launched last November, it's continued to annihilate every other budget
smartphone out there, making it a steadfast presence in our Best Mobile Phones list. It's now been succeeded by the
superb new
Moto G, but Motorola's strange decision to make the second
generation of its unstoppable budget handset a 3G-only phone means the 4G
version of the old Moto G still has plenty of life left in it - particularly
since Motorola has also confirmed that it will be receiving an Android Lollipop update as soon as it becomes
available.
Of course, 4G contract prices do get a lot more
expensive once you start adding more data, but regardless of which network you
want, the 4G Moto G is still the smartphone to buy for everyone who isn't after
a flagship model. The 4G verison also comes with a microSD card slot to expand
the phone's 8GB of internal storage - something that the 3G Moto G sorely lacked.
The Moto G is a solid, no
nonsense handset, it's not fancy but it's not ugly either
In every other aspect, the 3G and 4G versions of the
old Moto G are exactly the same. It may not be the kind of handset that
immediately jumps out at you, but its build quality is superb for such a cheap
phone. At 130x66x11.6mm, it's not the slimmest handset either, but the
bezels are small and it's fairly compact considering its 4.5in display. At
143g, though, it does feels a bit weighty in the hand.
You can easily add a bit of colour to your phone thanks to
Motorola's snap-on rear covers, available in seven colours for £13 each. There
are also tough shell cases with front flip covers that stay shut thanks to
magnets and automatically turn on the phone when you open it. They cost £25 but
look to be well worth the extra expense, given the protection they provide.
There's also a Grip Shell with a rubber frame for extra grip and impact
protection.
The Flip Shells are tough, textured plastic on the outside
...
... with a soft finish on the
inside of the screen cover
Speaking of protection, one feature that has made the
transition from previous Motorola handsets is the splashproof coating. This
means that it should survive anything short of a complete immersion in water,
we spilt a pint over the first RAZR with no ill effects. It also has Gorilla
Glass 3 to protect its screen from scratches.
MOTO
G ANDROID 4.4
Of
course, what you see onscreen is arguably more important than what surrounds
it. The 4G Moto G comes with the latest version of Google's operating system, Android 4.4, but the 3G Moto G
still ships with the slightly older Android 4.3. Fortunately, an update to
Android 4.4.4, has now been released for the 3G Moto G and you should update
your phone immediately if required - just go to App tray, Settings, About
phone, to check the version number.
Motorola
has left Google's OS, largely untouched, just adding a couple of useful
features and tweaking the camera app. The Assist app makes your phone more
intelligent, for example you can set the hours you usually sleep for and the
phone will automatically go silent, or only allow favourite callers, or those
who call twice in succession through. It will also go on vibrate if you have a
meeting in your diary. Both could be useful, though they're still a little
inflexible for our liking.
Motorola has also expanded what you can do with photos
from within the gallery app. You can apply a wide range of filters now to
photos you shoot, add frames around them, crop them in various ways, and even
write (or draw) on the screen with your finger in any colour you like. You can
also print photos straight out of the gallery to services such as Google's
Cloud Print.
Android 4.4 also supports the new version of Hangouts
which combines your instant messaging and SMS apps into one, though you still
need to switch between these two streams to keep track of all your conversations
via both.
The lockscreen now also show the appropriate album art
for the music you're listening to and includes basic playback controls, so you
don't have to unlock the phone to pause or skip tracks. You also get immersive
mode, where the status bar and controls go away, allowing apps to go full
screen until you swipe from the top.
The new Lock Screen will
delight music lovers
Slightly faster browsing is another bonus, with the
SunSpider JavaScript browser benchmark recording a score 1,297ms, a small but
appreciable improvement over its score of 1,410ms when we first tested it.
Other benchmarks were unaffected by the change, though Google claims that
memory use is improved, the handset is more responsive to touch and
multi-tasking is now quicker.
MOTO
G MIGRATE
Motorola has made it easy to move from another Android
handset to the Moto G. You do this by first installing the Motorola Migrate app
from the Google Play Store on your old handset. Once done you connect the two
phones directly via Wi-Fi, which requires nothing more than pointing the camera
on your old phone at the QR code displayed on the Moto G. The transfer then
starts automatically.
For once, it's actually as easy
as the promotional video makes it look
The app will pull across call logs, text messages,
pictures, movies and music on the old phone. We got a warning that all the data
may not be transferred (but then we were testing with a 16GB Samsung S3 and an
8GB Moto G). It takes a while to complete the transfer, but you can use the
phone for other things at the same time. In our case it transferred the call
logs, pictures and music fine, but text messages didn't come across and it ran
out of space copying the videos (a sensible choice to leave).
Contacts and emails will be transferred anyway as they
are part of your Google account, so this is just Motorola tidying up the things
that Google hasn't dealt with. It's very neat, very clever and should relieve
the worries of those who don't want a clean slate on a new handset.
