First Look: Moto E is an excellent affordable smartphone, but the front camera disappoints

Motorola has officially launched its new budget smartphone, the second-generation Moto E in India for a price of Rs 6,999 and the smartphone will go on sale on Flipkart, like all other phones from the company. The Moto E sale will start on 11 March midnight and for now India is only getting the 3G version of this smartphone. Interestingly Motorola has promised that the 4G LTE version will come to India soon, but it has not specified the price or date of the launch. Priced at Rs 6,999, the second-generation Moto E is the new budget offering from the company for first-time smartphone buyers in India and given the phenomenal response that the company has seen with the last couple of devices, it’s likely that the Moto E will be a success in India. We spent some time with the device during the launch and here’s our first impression. Design, Screen: Moto E has a slightly curved back and a design similar to the Moto X (2nd generation) with a giant M logo in the back. It also has side bands which can be removed and Motorola is offering coloured bands which you can replace. For instance, you can add blue or yellow or purple coloured bands to the side of your black or white Moto E device and it actually looks quite different and refreshing from the regular old, boring black and white phones. The battery though is non-removable like with the old Moto E. [caption id=“attachment_258262” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] The Moto E will come in black and white along with the option of colourful bands on the side.[/caption] The Moto E comes with a bigger 4.5-inch qHD display, although let’s not forget that the Moto E first generation came with a 4.3-inch screen, so really it’s not that much of a difference. The screen resolution is 540 x 960 pixels, which is the same as the earlier Moto E. The screen is Corning Gorilla Glass 3, again the same as the earlier version of Moto E. [caption id=“attachment_258269” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] The settings menu on the Moto E.[/caption] Motorola also said they’ve added anti-smearing layer to screen, although the phones we saw were quite susceptible to smudges and smears. Where design and screen are concerned, it’s a slight change but let’s not forget that the market now has plenty of options in this budget range with a higher screen resolution. For instance, the Lenovo A6000 which is a 4G smartphone, has a 5-inch HD screen, available at the same price. [caption id=“attachment_258263” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] Moto E has a 4.5-inch screen with qHD display. Tech2[/caption] Storage, Processor: The Moto E comes with 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 32-bit processor and a 400MHz Adreno 302 GPU. It also includes 1GB of RAM. The LTE version has a 1.2GHz quad-core 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor and a 400MHz Adreno 306 GPU. The new Moto E also has more internal storage at 8GB that can be further expanded up to 32GB via microSD card slot, which is good news. On the phone we saw that around 4.68 GB of space was available, so we’re guessing that a microSD card will be a must with the new Moto E if you wish to download a lot of apps, music and take photos. [caption id=“attachment_258264” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] The Moto E from the side. Tech2[/caption] Moto E was pretty sharp and responsive, and there was no noticeable lag, but of course we’ll need to spend some time with the phone in order to give a stronger verdict on its performance. However given that Motorola has bumped up the processor, the new generation phone should be faster. Camera: The Moto E still has a 5 megapixel rear camera, with the ability to shoot HD videos with auto focus sensor and features like geo-tagging, panorama, and HDR. This time Motorola has added a front camera with VGA resolution. Frankly the front camera is disappointing and again there a lot of budget options with high-resolution front cameras. For instance, the Lenovo A6000, Asus Zenfone 5, Micromax Unite 2 all have a 2 megapixel front camera. [caption id=“attachment_258267” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] The Moto E has a five megapixel rear camera. Tech2[/caption] While the Unite 2 is priced at Rs 6,500, the Zenfone 5 is Rs 7999 and the Lenovo A6000 is the same price as the Moto E. In short, if you’re first-time buyer who wants a decent front camera, the number of options aren’t limited anymore. OS and other features: The biggest plus of the Moto E is the Android Lollipop 5.0 which really gives the smartphone another outlook. Material Design, which is a feature of Android Lollipop, plays out quite well in the smartphone and the OS looks refreshing. Motorola has also introduced features like Moto Display for notifications and updates on the locked screen, Moto Assist to show alerts, etc, Moto Migrate to transfer contacts. [caption id=“attachment_258241” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] Moto E runs Android Lollipop out of the box. Tech2[/caption] If you don’t want a cluttered OS and don’t care for themes and everything else, Moto E is the best option since it is promised regular updates and has pure Android. Given how security on smartphones, especially Android is an issue, the Lollipop experience is good choice to make for a first time user, since with Moto E you’re not getting any bloatware. [caption id=“attachment_258261” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] The Moto Assist, Moto Display feature on the Moto E. Tech2[/caption] Motorola is all promising all-day battery and the Moto E has a 2390 mAh battery. We can only comment on this after reviewing the device extensively, although in our review of the first-gen Moto E , we had noted that the phone easily gave a full day’s worth of usage and that the battery barely dropped even after hours of inactivity. Conclusion: Is the new Moto E the best device in the market? Well for starters, the number of options for first time buyers have increased drastically since the launch of the first Moto E. From Xiaomi to Asus to Lenovo, the number of players from abroad offering a variety of features at similar prices is now much more. What the Moto E still has in its favour is a great design and smartphone at a budget price. Whether this will be enough to convince users this time also remains to be seen.