Motorola was the first company to bring cellular mobiles. In 2011 when Google bought Motorola, It was said that Google may suffer loss from Motorola, but as we all know, Google completely reformed the company and launched their two phones, Moto G and Moto X. Both these phones were similar to the Google Nexus devices and they clearly made the consumers rethink about a budget phones. After the success of the new Devices, Lenovo, A chinese Giant bought Moto from Google. A lot of people including me thought that Lenovo won’t launch similar products but Lenovo proved it wrong. Moto is still following the same trend by which it grew.
That was a lot of History, Now lets talk about the present. After the success of Moto G 2nd Gen, Motorola launched the new Motorola Moto G 3rd gen two month back. So today I would be reviewing the Motorola Moto G 3rd Generation 2015 and will see whether it has the Same potential of what its predecessor had.
Moto G 3rd Gen Review
Design
Motorola’s design concept is a little different from other companies. Motorola has a same shape of all there phones, Curvy on the sides, has small form factor, has a curve on the back etc. What they change is the minor aesthetics of their phones in every generation. This year Motorola has a layered design. When seeing from outside, we can see three layers of the phone, the screen, the frame and the back cover. The middle frame is a polished plastic lining which gives a kind of premium look to the phone and also gives further protection.
The Motorola Moto G has a Power button and a Volume rocker on the Right, a 3.5mm jack on the top and a micro USB port on the bottom. Personally I never had liked the quality of the buttons on the first and Second Gen. This time Motorola has done a fantastic job in refining the quality of the buttons. The power button has a kind of texture which distinguishes it from the volume rocker. The buttons feel hard enough and does not wobble at all. The button placement is also idle for a 5″ phone, with the power button above the volume rockers.
The Moto G 3rd Gen does not has a speaker on it’s back but rather the primary speaker is on the front, just below the Screen. The top speaker is just an earpiece and can’t be used with the primary speakers. This is something which Motorola should look at. Unlike the Moto G 2nd Gen, The Moto G3 has a textured back cover which makes the phone less slippery and also makes it look more premium. The back cover does not attracts any dust particles and the texture is fine enough that even if you get some dust. It can be easily removed.
Also Read – Zenfone 2 Review – The Best but not perfect
Overall the design of the Moto G 3rd Gen is elegant. Things like the power button and back cover are well designed which is often neglected by other such companies. The Ergonomics of the phone is also pleasant and is Ideal for single handed use.
Built
Motorola phones as always have great built and the Moto G 3rd Gen also follows it it. I have dropped the phone 4 times till now from a hight of around 3.5/4 ft and it is still working like a charm, I can just see little scrath on the side of the frame which can’t be even felt. Personally I am really impressed with the build and is very much comparable to Mi4i. One thing which I didn’t like about the phone was its weight, I felt it a little heavy when compared to other phones in this range with weighing around 153 gm.
Display
Coming to the display now. If we see phones at the same price range or even lower like Lenovo k3 Note, Yu Yureka plus, Mi4i, Mi4 etc, All these phones have a full HD 1080p display which is far better than a 720p display. Motorola has been providing a 720p display from the Moto G 1st gen and even after 2 generations you have the same 720p display. I would have liked it if we were in 2013 but we are not and this is 2015. Seeing the Indian competition, I don’t really think that 720p is enough. However the screen quality top mark, It has a great TFT panel with high contrast levels and good brightness levels too. The phone has a ppi density of around 294. The advantage of the 720p screen is that the battery will have to power up less pixels by which you are going to save around 20% battery.
The Screen is protected by corning gorilla Glass 3 which provides a good protection to the phone against scratches.
The viewing angles of the phone was excellent and had no problem. The thing I noticed was that on the upper right hand corner you can view the pixels more clearly than the other part of the screen. It is most probably with all the devices as I have two Moto G 2015(Black and white) and in both the phones I could see the pixels. Let me make it clear, you can’t see the pixels by just looking at it, If you concentrate a bit on the screen and see it from very near, You might see some. Let me know if you are also able to see some pixels on your device in the comment section below.
Another thing which is disappointing is the lowest brightness level. I have used all the Moto Gs but this one has the brightest lowest brightness. If you are using your phone in Dark than you might have to use some app to lower the brightness else it would strain your eyes. I always like phones with low brightness when lowered but I don’t understand why it remains bright enough which causes pain. Here is the picture of the lowest brightness level of Zenfone 2 laser and Moto G 3rd Gen 2015-
Overall I would rate 7 out of 10 to the display of Moto G. It has great viewing angles and the contrast and saturation is also up to the mark but the fact that it is just 720p is the downside.
Performance
The Motorola Moto G 3rd Gen is powered by a Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor with cores clocked at 1.4Ghz. There are two versions of the Moto G and I have the superior one, that is, 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. The Specs doesn’t seems a lot comparing to other phones in the market but specs is always not proportional to Performance. The Moto G is running stock android which is not at all power-hungry, So you get a well performing device overall.
Motorola has fine tuned the processor making it more capable. The Moto G can handle any game you throw at it which is not the case with either Redmi 2 or the Yu Yuphoria. I have played every intensive game like Asphalt 8, Real Racing 3, Nova 3, Modern Combat 5, Fifa 15 and even some small but graphic intensive games like Leo fortune. The Moto G runs them smoothly no questions asked. You may need to tune the settings further but after that you get a smooth and lag free experience. Performance without Benchmarks? Not Possible!
Antutu
Geek Bench 3
As you can see from Geek Bench 3, the phone performs fair enough and is very similar to the Nexus 4. I don’t know whether I should take it as positive or as negative as the Nexus 4 is more than 3 Year old while the Moto G is for 2015 and most probably for 2016 too. Anyways If we see other benchmarks we see some great hope. If we see Antutu, we get a score of 22000+ which is a great score keeping the price of the phone in mind. I don’t want to stretch the performance sector too much as not even 20% of the mobile users are mobile gamers and this phone works like a charm for others.
Camera
I did a separate Camera Review of the phone where you can find the sample shots, UI, features and every other aspect of the camera. You can click here or on the button below this test.
Camera Review (Opens in New Tab)An abstract from the Article –
The images above were all taken in ample of light. Even though it was taken in a bright sunlight, hats off to Moto G for delivering such a colour corrected image. The auto white balance does the job really well in close by shots.
Overall in the daylight the phone performs well, but you still get minor grains on the images. The crispness which phones now a days delivers is lacking. Now if we shift it to Landscapes, the picture comes out to be really wonderful. The colours are vibrant and there isn’t those gains which are there at other times. I would be having the full resolution pictures at the end of this article, you can check that out too.
UI
I have been saying the term Stock Android for a lot of times in the article so first let me tell you what really it is, Android is an Open source Operating system that means that anyone can edit it and make it however they like it. If you have used a Xiaomi device, it has hundreds of customization options and is very colourful, It is because they modified the Android code. You can find similar skins on many phones. Stock Android is that un-modified Android which is provided by google and is straight away ported to the phone. Motorola has added a few apps but it makes the phone better and no worse. Having Stock android gives a lot of advantages like You don’t get any bloatware nor you get any skin. You also get the new released Android update in this case Marshmallow before the other phones do as the manufacturer doesn’t have to work that much on the new Android Update.
The Moto G is based upon Android 5.1 which is the latest Android version available. Here are some screenshots of the UI.
Features
Chop Chop
Chop-Chop is a feature introduced by Moto this year with the Moto E. You have to just have to shake your phone twice and the flashlight will turn on. To Turn the flash off, just shake the phone again! This Gif will help you :p –
Twist
This is another delightful feature of this phone, You just have to turn your phone twice and the camera will open, You can turn again for switching to the front camera and turn again to go back to primary camera. This Gif again will help you :p
Active Display
The Moto G 3rd Gen does not have a notification light rather it has Active Display by which you can view your notifications by just holding the ring which comes on the screen. This was first introduced on the Moto X which had Amoled display. In Amoled display the black part doesn’t used to glow so it made complete sense as it saved a lot of your battery. In Moto G, No doubt the Active display is a great feature but you might have to compensate on battery a little as whenever there is any movement on the phone, the Active Display glows to show you the Notification. However you can always turn it off thanks to Motorola!
Battery
Phones with great battery life always impress me. The Moto G just Rocks the show with its battery life. On the launch day, I was asked by a Moto spokesperson that what was the thing I didn’t like about the Moto G 3rd Gen. I told him ” Everything is great but I am concerned about the battery” he replied ” I am sure you won’t be disappointed when you use the device” and well he was definitely right. The 2470mAh battery does not seems to be that big on paper but it really is badass when it comes to usage. I generally sleep for 6-7 hours and I have never noticed a battery fall more than 3% in the night. Day before yesterday the phone had 2% charge when I was about to sleep and when I woke up it was 1% with an Alarm enabled. That is something you never expect from a phone priced at 13,000. I always envy the battery life of Mi4 and OnePlus One but this phone has far better battery life then those two.
Waterproof!
Though waterproof is also a feature and should have come in the Features section but it deserves a separate section :p. There is no phone under Rs. 15,000 which is waterproof except the Motorola Moto G. The phone is IP x7 certified that means that it can survive upto 3fts or 1 meter in water for around 30 minutes; That is around a size of a bucket.
The phone does not has any rubber flaps on the ports but there are a couple of flaps on the back over to prevent the water from going into the sim tray. I also noticed that the upper speaker has a kind of waterproof layer while I can’t see the similar layer on the bottom speaker. Overall in my testing the water proof feature has been great and has not given me any problem. Here is a video in which I check its waterproof feature.
Verdict!
Overall the Moto G has been a delight. The Motorola Moto G has an excellent Battery Life, Great software and an Awesome Camera. Overall I would recommend this phone to anyone looking to buy a phone under Rs. 15,000. I used to use a Mi4 and I am sure I am not getting back to it. If you need a phone which can do all your daily tasks seamlessly without any hassle than this the phone to buy! Don’t expect it to perform like a flagship but Moto G 2015 justifies the price you are paying.
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Wondering what to watch? Watch this Review by Akshay!
