Motorola Moto M review: M for Midranger
M for Midranger

Telephony
The Moto M is a dual SIM device - there's no single SIM version. As usual, it lets you select in settings which card does what by default, or you can leave it on a case-by-case basis. It can also select the card based on who you're calling so it can optimize your expenses.
The dialer should be quite familiar. It's split into three tabs - favorites (with big thumbnails), call log and all contacts.
Favorite contacts • Call log • All contacts • Smart dialing
Loudspeaker
The Moto M has just the one speaker on the bottom, but it pumps out enough decibels for a Good rating in our test. That's pretty much where most of the competition falls too.
Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing | Overall score | |
66.2 | 64.8 | 66.8 | Below Average | |
66.0 | 64.3 | 70.1 | Below Average | |
66.5 | 64.6 | 71.7 | Average | |
63.2 | 69.5 | 71.0 | Average | |
64.5 | 71.0 | 68.9 | Average | |
64.0 | 70.4 | 73.0 | Average | |
64.2 | 67.2 | 76.9 | Good | |
64.7 | 70.8 | 72.8 | Good | |
66.5 | 66.6 | 75.8 | Good | |
68.1 | 71.8 | 69.4 | Good | |
64.5 | 72.9 | 72.0 | Good | |
62.9 | 70.3 | 77.0 | Good | |
64.3 | 71.5 | 76.1 | Good | |
70.5 | 70.5 | 78.2 | Very Good | |
66.4 | 72.2 | 84.1 | Very Good | |
75.7 | 73.5 | 79.5 | Excellent | |
88.9 | 79.3 | 82.7 | Excellent |
Messaging and text input
The Moto M comes with Google Messenger pre-installed (it's the default SMS app) as well as Hangouts. Messenger behaves a lot like a modern IM app. You can snap a photo and send it in seconds or send short audio recordings, emojis and so on.
Text input, naturally, is handled by the Google keyboard. It's fast, it's accurate, it's reliable, and it has plenty of configuration options. You can enable one-handed mode by long-pressing the comma key, adjust the keyboard height, the layout (e.g. you may want QWERTZ), enable additional symbols on long-press and change the theme. Typing, swiping and voice dictation are available.
Google Messenger • Google keyboard • One-handed mode • Swype input
Other pre-installed apps
Now this is going to be one short section of the review. Being Android at its most basic, the Moto M's OS has few apps outside of the standard Google suite. And 'few' here stands for 'none', really.
Perhaps the sole noteworthy app is the file manager, which sorts files by category or time of accessing and also supports batch actions.
You also have the stock Google calculator with a swipe-out advanced actions pane in portrait. The Google Calendar is also on board, conveniently syncing with your, well, Google Calendar with highlights for birthdays and holidays as well.
Among other things, the same suite also brings things like Google Docs and Spreadsheets to the table so you have your document needs covered out of the box.
Reader comments
- Anonymous
Waste of money, it has very poor battery backup
- 06 Oct 2019
- DkA
- R B
Very Very Very Very worst phone. I brought this phone for Rs 17000/- With in the first few months itself iys motherboard got down, I got it replaced then after some months its data cable got damage and also got replaced. After some months itd ba...
- 28 Dec 2018
- ypc
- Anonymous
Moto m is waste phone Fully charged only 4 hours 15% charge sudden just 1 minute phone off
- 05 Dec 2018
- D0d