Motorola is going to announce the next iteration of its succesful Moto G smartphone on May 17, tomorrow. There are rumors, renders and a lot of information about the phone doing the rounds on the Internet, and you may not have heard even half of it. Some rumours suggest that the phone may have a larger 5.5-inch display, while some point towards a better camera. All things considered, it is more than likely that the upcoming smartphone will be priced under the 20K price point, and will be available via Amazon India exclusively. Here is a recap of what we know so far about the Moto G4 aka the Moto G (4th Gen)
First of all, it is rumoured that Moto may actually announce two variants of the Moto G, including the Moto G and a Moto G Plus variant. Rumours suggest that the two phones may have similar design and form factors, but the Plus may feature a little stronger hardware. So, instead of calling the better equipped phone Turbo, it would be called Plus.
Looks
From all the leaked images and renders we have seen so far, the design of the G4 looks similar to the Moto G (2nd Gen), rather than the Moto G (3rd Gen). However, rumours suggest that the phone may feature a metal frame around the display. Leaked images suggest that the camera module will have a metal ring around it as well.
Display
Both the Moto G and Moto G Plus smartphones may have 5.5-inch displays, offering 1920 x 1080p resolution. Currently the Moto G and the Moto G Turbo have 720p display only. In fact, Moto G devices have so far always had 720p displays. Hence, a 1080p will be good update to the lineup.
According to a recent Geekbench sighting, the Moto G4 will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 SoC. This the same SoC that HTC uses on its One A9 smartphone. It is a powerful SoC, but may fall short of the Redmi Note 3’s Snapdragon 650. The leaked benchmark also suggests 3GB of RAM. In terms of storage, the device is likely to be unveiled in 16GB and 32GB storage variants. Motorola is already teasing that the phone will be fast and will handle the most resource intensive games.
Motorola is also teasing the camera of the Moto G4 on its Twitter page. Rumours suggest that the Moto G lineup will also get an upgrade in the camera department. The device is expected to have a 13MP rear camera, and the G4 Plus is expected to have a 16MP rear camera. Motorola has been teasing that the new phone will have better resolution, better auto-focus and more. We can expect a newer camera module and laser autofocus to boot. The company is even touting the front facing selfie camera this time.
https://twitter.com/Moto_IND/status/731777774466310144
Battery
The battery of the G4 has remained a mystery till now. There are no indications whether the phone will have a similar or larger battery pack as its predecessors. According to various tweets by Moto itself, we can assume that the phone will have a larger battery. Currently, the Redmi Note 3 features a 4000mAh battery and the Meizu M3 Note features a 4100mAh battery and both are priced under the 10k price mark.
https://twitter.com/Moto_IND/status/731348341116653571
OS
Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box is almost a certainty, given that this is a Motorola device. It will be layered underneath Moto’s own UI, which is very similar to the Google launcher. We can also expect the phone to be highly optimised, to derive the best performance out of the Snapdragon 617 SoC.
From all that we've seen till now, the Moto G4 should have a fingerprint scanner. Going by the leaked images and renders of the phone, the fingerprint scanner should be on the front, doubling up as a home button. The device is more than likely to have dust and water resistance, just like the Moto G (3rd Gen) and Moto G Turbo.
Rumours suggest that the two variants of the phone should cost about €240 and €280, which is roughly Rs. 18,100 and Rs. 21,100 respectively.
If you want to catch the phone/phones being launched live, here is the link.