Motorola Moto E (2015) review: Best budget smartphone yet

Motorola made a comeback into the smartphone market after a long time, albeit with a bang. After being ping-ponged between Google and Lenovo, Motorola has finally surfaced back and managed to maintain its name and trust. Motorola re-entered the market with the Moto G, a budget smartphone, built for the masses and to win the trust of its old fans. With the introduction and success of its first smartphone, Motorola stepped in to cater the next two segments around the Moto G and introduced the Moto X for the mainstream smartphone hunters and the Moto E for those hunting on a shoe-string budget. Moto E, Moto G and Moto X soon became successful products with consumers getting what they wanted—value, and a trusted brand.

Motorola later upgraded the Moto G and Moto X with second-generation handsets for each segment, so that new fans can get a better performing handset with updated hardware and software. The tech giant has not ignored the low-budget segment either. Early in March, Motorola announced and launched the 2015 edition Moto E and has surprisingly managed to keep the price similar to the older handset, when launched. The Moto E has a unique face-lift with marginal changes, but with a huge impact.

The Moto E has received a good facelift—the display is larger, the hardware is faster, the software is better and the experience is definitely improved. If you own the first generation Moto E and are looking for a better experience, you should check out the Moto E second generation handset. Compared to the older model, the new Moto E has a larger display screen, upgraded from 4.3-inches to 4.5 inches. The display is also superior with an IPS LCD panel as compared to the regular on the older model, but the resolution stays the same at 540x960 pixels. The glass protecting the display is also the same—Corning Gorilla Glass 3, but this time with an oleophobic coating.

Diving deeper, the hardware has received an upgrade, though not a huge one. The Moto E 2015 is powered by Snapdragon 210 chipset (quad-core 1.2GHz) clubbed with an Adreno 302 graphics engine and 1GB of RAM. The earlier model sported an SD300 chipset and a dual-core processor. We also need to inform you that the Moto E will also come in another variant, sporting 4G LTE networks. The difference will be the chipset and other small minor changes. The LTE version will sport a Qualcomm Snapdragon 306 chipset.

Moving ahead, the internal storage is upgraded to 8GB (as opposed to 4GB on the older variant), but the storage expansion stays the same at 32GB. Sadly, the rear camera did not receive any upgrades and stays at 5MP. But Motorola has provided a VGA front camera on the 2015 model—a great option for budget users who can now take casual selfies and also make video calls. Motorola has kept the rest of the specifications unchanged, but has upscaled the battery with a 2390mAh Li-Ion to give you more than a day of battery life.

What’s more, you may ask! Motorola has made a few aesthetic changes to the 2015 Moto E too. The new baby has a fixed rear panel (unibody) but has opened options for a changeable outer ring (bands) on the frame and additional sleeves (grip shells), available in different vibrant colours to match your taste and style. Bands are available in colours such as Turquoise, Purple, Raspberry, Red, Blue and Yellow, while the grips are available in Golden Yellow, Charcoal, Turquoise, Blue and Raspberry. These are completely user-replaceable and easy to install. Moto E grips are available from Rs 200 onwards, but the bands are pretty expensive and start from Rs 999.

Motorola has also coated the entire smartphone with a water-resistant coating. This is great news for those who are bothered about using their smartphones in various environments as the water resistant-coating will keep your smartphone safe. Do note, this is a water-resistant nano coating and not to be confused with a watertight body. Water can enter the smartphone, but will not damage the internal electronics.

The Motorola Moto E has a great build quality. Similar to the older one, but even superior, the Moto E has a great grip too. The Moto E is great for one-hand use—thanks to the conveniently sized display. Users usually are hunting for larger display handsets, but a standard display size gives you a very convenient user experience with easy to reach corners and portions.

The Moto E sports a 4.5-inch display with a completely black and glossy front panel. The top sports a chrome grill for the earpiece as before, but now adds a front camera to the right. The bottom chrome grille from the older design has been taken away. The power and volume buttons are conveniently placed on the right side. The audio jack and micro USB port placed on the top and bottom of the handset respectively. The rear panel has a rubberized finish with the 5MP primary camera. The Moto E measures 12.3mm at the largest and weighs just 145 grams.

The display is the same as the 2014 variant, but is crisp and clear. Though the readability and sensitivity of the screen are good enough, you may lose out on HD content playback quality, but it shouldn’t really matter as much. The user interface is fluid and sporting Android Lollipop out of the box, the experience of using an Android smartphone is great. Thanks to the upgraded chipset on the 2015 Moto E, the quad-core processors an handle almost all your regular tasks, such as browsing, multimedia, social networking and alike, pretty smoothly. Though you can use the handset for gaming, high-end games are not recommended.

The earpiece doubles up as a front-facing speaker and the audio quality is good enough for enjoying casual audio and videos. The audio is clear and loud and we have no complaints here. The bundled earphones are slightly above average in terms of build and audio quality, but we suggest that you switch to a better pair of your choice if you want to enjoy good quality music.

The rear camera is almost similar to the older 2014 Moto E with a 5MP sensor. The photo quality captured by the rear camera is above average and can be greatly used for casual photography and social network sharing. However, while testing the camera, we did notice that the 5MP rear shooter performs pretty well. We won’t voice out our verdict immediately and leave you to judge. The photos in the article are shot from the Moto E’s rear camera and you can take a look at them yourself. To get a closer look at the photo quality, download the images to your desktop and check them out full screen—you won’t be disappointed. The only issue we faced was the focus in macro mode, which was a little too fast and does not manage to focus on the subject. Motorola has also left out the flash for the camera and low-light or indoor photographs and night shots are average. Overall, the camera is good for day and brightly lit subjects. The front camera has a standard VGA (0.3MP) sensor and don’t expect good selfies here. The front camera is very basic and just good enough for video chats.

On the user interface front, the Android Lollipop 5.0.2 operating system is fast and fluid. Motorola has also included a few features to make the user experience of Moto E a little better. The UI, though stock, has been slightly skinned. Motorola should be upgrading the handset to Android Lollipop 5.1 soon.

Some features added onto the Moto E are Moto Assist (keeping the smartphone silent when you prefer not to be disturbed), quick launching camera (simply twist your wrist to deploy the camera straight from the locked screen), quick notifications (though the display is on standby, it gives you glimpses of the time and notifications if any), and a few others. The features are added in order to keep the power usage at the lowest to enhance the battery life.

To sum up the whole, the Moto E is a great smartphone for those hunting a low-budget entry-level handset. It features a good balance of features and performance for the price it offers. With additional features such as Gorilla Glass 3 protection, water-resistant nano coating for the entire smartphone and convenient display size, the Moto E is a great smartphone for just Rs 6,999. At present, Moto E has a price competition from rivals such as Xiaomi, Lenovo and a few others in the same segment. But with a blend of a trusted brand name, good build quality and assured OS upgrades, the Moto E stands amongst the most trusted and recommended handsets. The Moto E also has an LTE variant, which will be launched in a couple of weeks. However, Motorola has not yet announced the final price for the same.