Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen) review: E for Evolved

Performance

Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen) is an affordable smartphone and it won't be nowhere near the top droid beasts out there. It was designed to be powerful enough, beautiful and unique, yet cheap enough to get your attention. The new Moto E is running on the Snapdragon 410 chip with a quad-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A53 processor, Adreno 306 GPU and 1GB of RAM.

There is another model, which lacks LTE connectivity, based on the dated Snapdragon 200 chip - a quad-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, Adreno 302 GPU and 1GB RAM. For our review we had the Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen) 4G LTE flavor.

Note that the Cortex-A53 cores in the LTE version are 64-bit capable, but Motorola opted to install the 32-bit version of Android 5.0 Lollipop. Whether this is to unify it with the 3G-only version (which uses 32-bit A7 cores) or to reduce memory usage (64-bit apps are slightly bigger than identical 32-bit versions), you can't run apps in 64-bit mode.

This isn't an issue for now and with the large install base of 32-bit phones - practically any pre-2015 Android - we don't think it will become one soon. But it's something you should be aware of in case 64-bit Android is important to you.

Naturally, we kick off our performance routine with the GeekBench 3 test, which gauges the multi-core CPU performance. The Moto E (2nd Gen) does very well here, outperformed only by the 1.5GHz-clocked Sony Xperia E4g.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia E4g
  2111
• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  1486
• HTC Desire 510
  1471
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  1460
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1175
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  1171
• LG G2 mini
  1123
• Motorola Moto E
  611

The compound AnTuTu 5 test puts the Moto E (2nd Gen) on top of its competitors, though the difference isn't that big.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  22761
• Sony Xperia E4g
  22043
• HTC Desire 510
  20756
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  20616
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  18245

The BaseMark OS II 2.0 is quite intensive benchmark, which puts to the test CPU, GPU, memory, system and browser performance. The Moto E (2nd Gen) got beaten by the Sony Xperia E4g, which has a more powerful processor and graphics accelerator.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia E4g
  621
• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  546
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  511
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  497
• HTC Desire 510
  448

The single and multi-core CPU breakdowns from the BaseMark OS II 2.0 once again put the faster Xperia E4g on top, but the Moto E is quite comfortable at the runner-up spot.

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia E4g
  2278
• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  1954
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  1806
• HTC Desire 510
  1749
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  1562

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia E4g
  9618
• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  7659
• HTC Desire 510
  7114
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  6421
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  6362

Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen) comes with Adreno 306 GPU in charge of graphics. Our previous tests indicates it's as good as the previous Adreno 305 unit - which means not that good. Luckily, the Moto E has a qHD resolution screen, so it shouldn't be a problem to run even a newer graphic-intensive game title.

The 1080p offscreen performance on the other hand is quite disappointing, but that's to be expected.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G 4G
  5.8
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  5.8
• LG G2 mini
  5.8
• HTC Desire 510
  5.3
• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  5.2
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  5.2
• Motorola Moto E
  4.5

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  1.8
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  1.8
• HTC Desire 510
  1.8
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1.7
• Motorola Moto E
  1.4

The onscreen performance naturally gets better as the resolution drops to 540 x 960 pixels. While the Moto E (2nd Gen) won't break any performance records, it is OK for the class and will do the job for the occasional arcade games and 1080p movies.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia E4g
  17
• HTC Desire 510
  15.5
• LG G2 mini
  14.9
• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  12
• Motorola Moto E
  11.2
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  10.8
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  10.8
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  9.6

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia E4g
  8.7
• HTC Desire 510
  8.3
• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  6.3
• Motorola Moto E
  4.9
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  4.1
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  4
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  3.9

Finally, the web browsing experience, courtesy of Chrome, turned out just great. The Moto E is a champ in its class and offers smooth and hassle-free experience.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Sony Xperia E4g
  11359
• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  13623
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  13694
• HTC Desire 510
  14171
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  15988
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  16118
• Motorola Moto E
  17213

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  1136
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  1085
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  911
• Sony Xperia E4g
  834
• HTC Desire 510
  832
• Motorola Moto E
  784
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  549

The new Moto E (2nd Gen) delivers fluid system experience, great web browsing and you'll do fine with various games too. Yes, the Moto E isn't a benchmark champion, but it offers a lot more than we hoped for.