Motorola Moto E review: Have a break!

Have a break!

GSMArena team, 14 June 2014.

Introduction

Motorola has done it again. The Moto G made quite the stir in the midrange and the story continues. The next one's up - and this time it's even cheaper. With a 4.3" display of qHD resolution, a dual-core processor, 5MP camera, and a solid 1,980mAh battery, the Motorola Moto E may as well be the ultimate budget phone. One that will probably sell by itself with a €100 price tag.

Back with the Moto G, Motorola managed to disrupt the market for quite a while, making otherwise solid competitors look overpriced and underequipped. Built to a budget but delivering above, the Moto G was one of the unlikely heroes of last season - and continues to exploit the winning formula with new versions adding extra stuff like memory expansion and LTE.

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Motorola Moto E official pictures

The Moto E launches straight on Android 4.4 KitKat, which is optimized to run on even modest hardware. A phone of the Moto E's caliber is probably what Google had in mind when designing the KitKat update and little wonder, the Moto E is one of the first entry level phones to take advantage. Even though Motorola is soon to be ex-Google's.

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Motorola Moto E official pictures

Motorola is also offering the Moto E in dual-SIM flavor plus you can buy whatever colorful rear cover you like and freshen up your phone anytime. Before we continue with our detailed review, let's take a look at the Moto E key features.

Key features

  • 4.3" LCD, 540 x 960px, 256ppi; Gorilla Glass 3 with ambient light sensor
  • Android OS v4.4.3 KitKat with a promise for timely updates
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 chipset with dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A7 CPU; Adreno 302 GPU and 1GB RAM
  • 5 MP fixed-focus camera, FWVGA video recording @ 30fps
  • 4GB of built-in storage, expandable via the microSD card slot
  • Active noise cancellation with a secondary mic
  • 50GB of free Google Drive storage
  • 1,980 mAh battery

Main disadvantages

  • Non user-removable battery
  • Camera doesn't have auto focus and produces low-quality photos and videos
  • No camera LED flash
  • No front-facing camera
  • Comes without a wall charger or a headset

You didn't expect top technology in a £89 smartphone, did you? Of course, the Moto E is bound to lack a feature or two, but that was expected. Motorola never intended to give you a top of the line handset, but the basics are all covered - making calls, texting, emails, social integration, media playback, taking pictures and access to most of the Play Store apps. Android KitKat will make sure it's a smooth ride (most of the time, at least).

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Motorola Moto E at ours

So, the Moto E is a snappy budget phone of attractive design and the latest OS version. What could go wrong, right? Our traditional hardware inspection follows right after the break.

Reader comments

  • Anonymous
  • 08 Jul 2024
  • Sq6

Moto E (1st Gen) Pros: Upgradeable to Android 5.1 Lollipop 4.3" screen, 540 x 960px (256ppi) 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex-A7, 1GB RAM 5MP camera, 480p video Cons: Fairly thick and heavy for its size

  • Kasper1Snowy2
  • 16 Feb 2020
  • QwE

Reset is done by holding the power button down for a few then it will open to the SAFE mode. Hope it helps you.

  • xfd
  • 13 Aug 2017
  • U{7

unable to conference calls