Motorola has announced that they will be manufacturing a low end, cheaper alternative to their smartphone line called the Moto G. Priced at $179 (unlocked/no contract), the Moto G smartphone will offer reduced, yet extensive features.
The brand has been attempting to really establish themselves as a high quality smartphone maker for some time. But their unsuccessful sales, despite intensive marketing, have never managed to quite make it into the annals of the great manufacturers.
Now they are trying a new tactic, creating a low end smartphone that provides less power than competitors for less money. The Moto G is that phone, and it will act as the little brother to the higher capability Moto X.
Technical Specs
You can look at the Moto G as being a modern high quality smartphone cut in half. For example, it features a a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processing chip, rather than the standard 800 of other brand’s models. It will also feature the Adreno 305 GPU, a decent match up that should at least give it some speed.
How well it will allow media streaming is yet to be seen, though the display itself is impressive for a low end device. The resolution is the same 1,280×720 as the Moto X. The screen size is 4.5″, which is larger than the current iPhone 5s.
Storage won’t be a problem for most, as it has both an 8 GB option for those who don’t need a whole lot of space, and a 16 GB for those who need a bit more. There are no announced plans for a 32 GB version, but given the price range, that isn’t surprising. One major downfall is that it won’t have a microSD slot to expand your storage, so most will want to opt for the 16 GB. No word yet on whether it will be compatible with any cloud storage apps.
Motorola Moto G has already been launched in Brazil, a few regions in Europe, and all over the UK. It will be released in the US in January, but oddly there are no plans to launch it in China. Given how large the market for low end smartphones are there, it is a bold move to exclude the country where it could find its widest sales.
It could be a sign of a further rift between Motorola owner Google, and the Chinese government. Currently, China is seeking to isolate their smartphone market and develop their own alternative, especially sans Android OS.
Source: The Verge
