Motorola recently revamped its Moto E smartphone, which was once the king of the budget smartphone segment. The company had earlier updated its Moto G and Moto X devices and has now completed its complete range with the Moto E smartphone. Motorola also launched the Moto Turbo in India.
The new Moto E comes in both 3G and 4G variants, although Motorola has launched only the 3G version right now, with a promise to launch the 3G variant within a couple of months. The device is priced at Rs. 6,999 for the 3G variant and we can expect a Rs. 1,000 price bump for the 4G variant when it is launched.
Build
The first noticeable thing about the Moto E is the overall build quality. There's no denying that Motorola has done well on this. Although the upgrade is incremental, the Moto E feels better than its predecessor.
Design
The overall shape and size remains more or less the same, with a small bump from 4.3 inch to 4.5 inch in the display department. The overall feel of the Moto E (2nd Gen) is very similar to the 2nd Gen version of the Moto G. The back is slightly matte-ish, but with a rubberised feel on it.
Front Camera
The addition of the front camera would have been significant, but not many would appreciate a VGA front shooter. Motorola's choice is rather surprising here, since selfies have been in vogue for a while now. Many would say putting a VGA camera on the front is as good as not putting one.
Display and UI
The display size is slightly bigger, but what's more important is that it retains the premium touch feel with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The display is nice, albeit a little reflective. That could be a result of light conditions at the launch though.
Software
The most significant update to the Moto E is in the Android version. This is the only device in the budget segment, which runs Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box. It doesn't do much to offset the other dissapointments though.
Processor
The Snapdragon 200 quad-core SoC in the 3G variant is a big let down. Motorola says its enough for the Moto E and won't compromise on performance, but we're not really hopeful. Demo devices didn't look very bad, but with the 64-bit Snapdragon 410 SoC in the 4G variant, things don't add up. The Rs. 6,999 price tag seems a bit too high now.
Rear camera
The rear camera remains at 5MP and the image quality doesn't differ much either. Of course, we can not be sure, given the unfavourable light conditions at the launch event.
Bottomline
Overall, the new Moto E seems to be a let down, something that we hadn't expected from Motorola. We wouldn't be surprised if the sales numbers don't match its predecessor.
Motorola's motto used to be that the consumer doesn't have to compromise for their first smartphone. The new Moto E though seems to be a pretty big compromise, especially when taking the Xiaomi Redmi 2 or Lenovo A6000 into consideration. The lack of a new generation SoC is rather disappointing.