Motorola Moto G 4G review: Going fast

Introduction

The Motorola Moto G was so close to perfection - beautiful design, reasonable speed and performance, excellent display, capable camera and the pure Android experience at a bargain price. And we mean the kind of price that makes any quirk or omission easily forgiven. Like limited storage or a poor camera. By throwing in LTE and a card slot, the Moto G 4G makes sure there's a lot less to forgive.

If we were to name a smartphone to get an upgrade and handpick the specs, the Moto G would've been on the shortlist. And pretty high there, too. Glad it made sense to Motorola as well.

Motorola Moto G 4G official pictures

To be fair, the Moto G was fine the way it was. Screen quality well above the pay grade, a good enough chipset, reasonable battery backup, no heavy skin. Bottom line, one of the best packages for the money just got better, with the right touches at the right places.

Key features

• LTE connectivity
• 4.5" IPS 720p capacitive touchscreen of 329ppi, Gorilla Glass 3
• Android 4.4.4 KitKat on a fast track update program
• 1.2GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU; 1GB of RAM; Adreno 305 GPU; Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset
• 5MP camera, LED flash, 720p video capture, 1.3MP front-facing camera
• 8 GB of built-in memory, expandable via the newly added microSD card slot
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated microphone
• 2,070mAh battery
• Optional battery covers

Main disadvantages

• Non-user-replaceable battery
• Camera could've used an upgrade too
• No FullHD video recording

One thing that could've seen some extra work as well is the camera. The original Moto G's still image quality was middling at best, and the lack of 1080p video recording isn't as easy to get away with as it was last year. That said, the Moto G 4G had to stay within budget, there's no argument there.

We'll try and see whether 4G network support will take its toll on the battery life. There're a handful of smartphones, including fairly recent releases, that count on a Snapdragon 400 to power both a 720p screen and an LTE radio, so we're not expecting any unpleasant surprises.

Motorola Moto G 4G live pictures

We guess we can safely cut the introductions short. After all, it's highly unlikely that you may've missed the original Moto G. Either way, we'll be covering its 4G-enabled successor in depth. Our hardware tour begins right after the break.