Introducing Moto G: An Exceptional Phone At An Exceptional Price

[Theodores]

"All day battery" - that really is the top selling point! Imagine that, a phone that works all day, no babysitting needed! People will flock in vast hordes to buy this baby, and just for this one feature.

'web' rather than 'mobile' version of page:

http://motorola-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/introducing-moto...

[vitobcn]

To be honest, I don't understand why manufacturers are still optimizing CPU performance instead of battery life. Who really needs a 4 or even 8-core mobile device? Most people I know with a smartphone, barely make it through the day and I often see them charging their phones at work.

In my opinion, companies should follow Lenovo's lead and address battery life concerns. A phone like the P780, with a 4000mAh battery, is spec'd to last for 36 talking hours [1] and it can easily be used for 2-3 days without charging.

I don't believe it is directly commercialized in the US, but the price point is not far from this Motorola, as it can be acquired from China for around 230-250 USD (e.g. through aliexpress).

[1]: http://shop.lenovo.com/ae/en/smartphones/p-series/p780/

[zmmmmm]

Are sure that isn't a euphamism for "if you unplug at 9am you can probably make it until 5pm before it powers off due to dead battery"? Unless you're seeing something I"m not there's nothing really there that tells us anything solid about the actual battery life.

[YeahKIA]

Wait. What? I thought this problem was already solved. My Lumia 920 easily lasts through the day without requiring a charge and is already almost a year old.

[wiredfool]

FM radio for 'free' music? Where's the business model in that?. Don't tell me it's going to be ad supported.

[DanBC]

BBC Radio One, Two, Three, and Four are transmitted on FM (and others). They are free to receive, and funded by the BBC licence fee. They do not carry ads.

[thaumasiotes]

Interestingly, a music radio station might not necessarily need to be ad supported, except that payola was for some reason made illegal.

[mtgx]

FM Radio support is very common in Europe and a lot of people use it.

[computeloops]

Frequency Modulated radio stations are free in India. It comes with traditional broadcast ad.

[raleec]

Where is FM mentioned?

[blisterpeanuts]

$199 for an unlocked (or unlockable), contract-free 16 gig device? That's really outstanding. This may even cut into Nexus 5 sales. This may be the adrenaline shot that Motorola needs to get back into the game.

I hope this leads to a whole slew of similarly priced medium-to-high performing handsets. And assembled in the U.S., too. Congratulations to Motorola!

[programminggeek]

Wow, this is sort of like the Lumia 520 of the Android world. Awesome.

[turing]

Truly impressive specs/build for the price. Can anyone shed light on whether $179 off-contract is low enough to be successful in its target markets (Brazil, Europe, Asia)?

[dudus]

This is the price for US. It actually starts at US$280 in Brazil.

[Juha]

There are phones with similar specs on that price range in Asia. I got a Lenovo A820 about half a year ago from China for around 140$ (http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-A820-Android-core1-2GHz-Smartph...). It has very similar specs with 4.5" screen and 1.2Ghz quad-core. I think it all depends on how hood build quality Motorola manages to achieve.

[hershel]

I think so. For example thl sells the w100(cheapest phone they make) at $154 and it offers lesser specs, and it's targeted for the Chinese market.

$179 is just a bit more expensive, with better specs, so it could succeed.

[frooxie]

$179 in the US means that it'll probably sell for around $400 in Northern Europe. At least, someone in Norway wrote that the $350 Nexus 5 was marked up to $780 (the Swedish price seems to have gone down to $600 from $660).

[jqueryin]

I was very interested until I got to the part of no LTE support. That's a deal breaker for me. I had a Samsung S3 that I busted and opted for the Samsung S3 Mini at one point, and the lack of LTE cost me dearly. I literally couldn't browse the internet unless I was on Wifi.

[blisterpeanuts]

I'm curious - isn't 3G the fallback speed when LTE is unavailable or when your phone doesn't have LTE support? Or is LTE a separate band that may exist without 3G at all in some regions?

My wife's Nexus 4 (3G) seems to get internet just as often and approximately as fast as my Galaxy Nexus (LTE). Then again I don't stream videos that often over data networks, because it sucks to hit the limit and get choked back to 2G on T-Mo.

[Spittie]

You can't use 3g? It's plenty fast for internet browsing (Right now from my phone I get a ping in the range of 60/120ms, ~10mb down and ~1mb up).

Or there are other problems?

[rubiquity]

I wonder if you'll be able to put Firefox OS on these. I've been wanting to play with that OS but the current devices offered for it are very underwhelming to try and push its limits.

[supergauntlet]

It's an unlocked bootloader, assuming you can get the needed device drivers installed into FF OS I don't see why you wouldn't.

[imaffett]

I have a ZTE Open and a Geeksphone.

The 1.1 release was a huge upgrade, but they still have some ways to go. There are problems with the HTML5 Canvas element and positioning DOM nodes/scrolling.

[disdev]

Exceptional?

How about "A decent phone at a decent price."

[mkaziz]

WANT. I think I just found my next phone.

[lnlyplnt]

I'm worried that Moto might find itself in HTC's shoes: Making truly great phones that nobody buys anyway.

[homosaur]

I don't think customers soured on HTC because their phones weren't awesome but because of their shoddy support and updates. The HTC One is the best phone I've owned since their Nexus One (probably the best phone I EVER owned) but they are laggards in getting software updates out. They're smart enough now not to set deadlines they'll break but not setting deadlines is maybe not a great solution to the problem long term.

[prlin]

So.. what did they do to bring the price down? Take a hit and lose money on each phone sold to get gain relevance?

[wmf]

Cheaper SoC, cheaper cameras, no LTE, less RAM, less flash storage, etc.

[turing]

The Verge article claims that they still make a profit on each phone[1].

1. http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/13/5096680/motorola-moto-g-a...

[mcintyre1994]

I'm really impressed, this is exactly what Google should be working toward. I remember them saying they're looking toward the next billion phones, and putting products like this and the Nexus 5 in their respective price points definitely looks like a move in the right direction.

[xioxox]

Interesting, but this review shows there's no SD card, so I won't be buying it. http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/motorola-moto-g/4505-645...

[dudus]

Motorola Brazil seems to be down right now, probably updating for this phone.

motorola.com.br

I'm very anxious to see how much they will charge. The Moto X goes for R$ 1499.00 unlocked or US$ 645.

Electronics arrive here at ridiculous prices unfortunately.

The Playstation 4 will be released at a US$2,000.00 price point.

[dudus]

Here are the prices for the Brazilian version.

    8GB single chip: R$649 (US$280)
    8GB dual-chip: R$699 (US$300)
    16GB dual-chip with 3 covers: R$799 (US$344)
    16GB dual-chip in a package that includes a headphone: R$999 (US$430)

For someone in the US it seems a lot, but it's actually very well priced IMO.

Source: http://www.techtudo.com.br/noticias/noticia/2013/11/moto-g-d...

[dschiptsov]

Come on, big screen with low resolution, weak CPU/GPU, reduced RAM - Samsung's approach to sell cheap phones which look like Galaxy S III/IV.

Is this what is called innovations nowadays?)

[Pxtl]

I wonder why they skipped the Xmas launch in the USA? Either way, I'm happy to be Canadian for once, this is seriously tempting.

[anigbrowl]

Probably not to undermine sales of the Nexus 5. Anyweay I'm waiting until January, this looks like a nice phone that does more than enough of what I want.

[arunoda]

Anyone knows the soundtrack of the youtube video?

[spudlyo]

I wondered that myself, to my ear it sounds a bit like Blackalicious, one of my favorite underground hip-hop acts. Turns out it's Wax Tailor's Positively Inclined.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv44r3q6zgo

Dope!

[Ricapar]

How would this compare to an HTC One?

[s3bast0m]

Half the specs, quarter of the price.

[essersteven]

I have the nexus 4 right now, this might have to be my next phone.

[wmf]

Why? Isn't it equivalent or worse than the N4?

[markbernard]

Won't buy a phone that does not have an SD or microSD slot.