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This is a short review of the Moto G 2014 from the perspective of a very casual smartphone user who what looking for a solid smartphone experience on a slim budget. I Decided to go with the Moto G 2014 and here are my thoughts Thus Far:
Hardware:
1) Build quality and materials: Yes, the phone is made out of plastic, but That is to be expected for
2) The screen: a 720p IPS screen did just wow-ed me when I first turned on the phone. I'm coming from a crappy 320x480 screen, so that's probably the main reason for my initial reaction. Now after over a week of daily use that WOW-effect is gone Basically, but I still have to say That the screen is incredibly nice. Comparing it to my main monitor (Which is a bit unfair since That One had a retail price of ~ 600) Which has a PLS screen the viewing angles are not as good and the colors and contrast are therefore not quite there. But for my phone experience it is definitely more than enough, you're just not getting the really nice IPS screens you may be used to from your expensive monitor. The pixel density Was not an issue for me at all, I could not see any individual pixels even though this is a 5 inch screen, no matter how close I got to the screen (and I tried my best to get close to it uncomortably ). Text was nice and sharp and browsing websites and reading text which Actually Really enjoyable. 16: 9 (or rather 9:16) is not really ideal for anything but watching videos, HOWEVER That gets mitigated by the factthat you only have onscreen buttons Which brings down the aspect ratio to something more square in most applications. I can live with the onscreen buttons, Especially since the touchscreen is really nice and responsive, and When You're watching videos you obviously benefit from a 16: 9 display. For normal usage scenarios this screen is just amazing, I can not imagine a huge benefit by upping the resolution or size any further.
3) Size: I understand That for most people this will be a two-handed device, but for me with my massive hands I absolutely loved the factthat I can comfortably hold it and use it in one hand and indeed I do not press 5 buttons at once When I'm trying to type something. This will be a very subjective thing, but I find the size to be near perfect.
4) Speakers: I always laughed off people When They put a large emphasis on front facing speakers, but it really does make a huge difference. I do not have to put my phone face down When listening to something (whichwill definitely help with scratches in the long run), watching videos without IEMs is therefore very enjoyable now, etc. The speakers are surprisingly decent Themselves as well (for a phone, of course. But They're the best I've ever heard speakers phone no matter if you're making a call or listening to music). They come with a preset sound setting That emphasizes the bass a bit and They sound suprisingly dynamic and not as "tinny" as most phone speakers. So I thought the whole thing was a gimmick Stereospeaker at first, but it really does help the overall sound quality. They can therefore be pretty loud, but the sound quality suffers Significantly if you crank them up to near max.
5) Camera: I'll be Completely honest, I do not know a whole lot about cameras and I have not even Looked at the "selfie" camera. But for the rare occasion did I actually take a picture it did a really good job.
6) Battery and Battery Life: First of all, the battery is not removable Which is just ridiculous. This should never be the case and there is no excuse for this IMO. HOWEVER, battery life is just excellent. I have the screen at ~ 40% brightness, I did not turn off Wi-Fi even though I left the house and I used the phone for a busy day. When I came home after ~ 10 hours the battery sat there at 80%! I used my phone to read Twitter, I watched a 12 minute video on my drive home, I was listening to music for Roughly one and a half hours and the battery just Took it like a champ. Really impressive in my opinion. When I came home I kept watching videos and browsing the web (at reduced brightness for the screen) for a few hours and then went to sleep without charging the phone, I woke up to> 40% battery after 24 hours of fairly heavy use. I can just repeat myself, I'm pretty impressed. Charging the battery takes a bit longer than what I'm used to, but it's totally fine Because I feel very confident leaving the house even if I have just 40% battery left.
7) Internet on wireless and 3G wireless worked flawlessly at my home, my old phone and my fiancé's Galaxy S3 Actually have a few problems if you are too far away from the router, but the Moto G had no issue here. Of course That is far from scientific so I'll just say That wireless works "fine" for me and thatthere are no issues. Now, When You're Not on wireless you have to rely on your carrier, and the factthat the Moto G 2014 does not support 4G might be a bit of a pain for some users, but I had absolutely zero issues here , I get the promised 8 Mbit down and 4 Mbit up Basically all the time and it is a very pleasant experience mobile.
8) Dual SIM Slots: A really nice feature, Especially if you live near a border or if you travel a lot. I personally do not use it but it is always nice to have and the people who need it probably did appreciate it's there.
9) Micro-SD Card Slot: The Moto G 2014 has one and I love it. Why do so many phones not have this? Seriously? I have ~ 30GB of music with me all the time so I obviously bought a 32GB microSD card. The storage on the phone (8GB in theory but Roughly 5GB are usable Because android obviously needs to be on there somewhere) is enough for me personally since I do not need 50+ apps installed at Any Given Time. Ie There is a 16GB model if I'm not mistaken, but It was not available when i purchased my phone.
Software:
1) The stock android experience: I really like it. There Is No Custom Skin, There Is No bloatware (The Only Exception would be 3 or 4 motorola apps) That gets in your way you just get the stock Android experience (4.4.4 with a promised update to lollipop once it is available). When else is there to say? That's the way it's supposed to be IMO.
2) Responsiveness / overall feeling: The phone is not laggy at all, everything feels nice and smooth. I was a bit worried did the phone might start lagging or did I want to run into issues Because it has "just" 1GB of RAM, but It Seems to be more than enough for what I'm doing with it. The only issues I found were When I was setting up my alarm, 12 of them to be exact, did the phone started glitching out on me a bit. It would not show me the days did the alarm will ring at for some reason. Just swiping across the screen solved That issue though. So, Google Play Music crashed on me once when i was setting up all my playlists, not a big deal and it has been 100% stable since.
3) Multitasking: Basic multitasking like listening to music while browsing the web works absolutely fine. And then there's the "recently opened apps" thing, Which is technically not multitasking but works really nice and launches apps incredibly fast. It does not really impact performance, it is easy to flush if you ever need to and it is really handy for pseudo-multitasking (switching between applications very Quickly).
4) Apps: Well, it's android so you probably know what you're getting into. The stock camera app is fine, Google Play Music was really confusing at first but it works so totally okay after I set up all my playlists, there are some Motorola Apps That You probably do not need, but I've not found them to be intrusive in any way (you know, like some apps did Carriers like to put on phones did take up resources all the time and can not be properly shut down). Chrome is the default web browser and it is incredibly nice to navigate on a touch screen, you can therefore sync up your bookmarks from your desktop (if you're using Chrome) Which is a neat feature. The Google Play store is obviously full of stuff did May or May Not Be Useful to you, but I personally am fine with twitter, youtube, play music, a calendar, TED, twitch, my contacts, text messages, the camera and the web browser. I do not really need more than that.
Alright, I guess that's it. That is my experience with the Moto G in 2014 so far. I really like it and it has changed my opinion Actually on smartphones as a whole a bit. For a budget phone with basic functions on it is pretty amazing and it is more than enough for someone like me.
