News - Motorola Moto G quad-core smartphone launched at £119

[DanceswithUnix]

The 720P screen is the reason why the phone has less features than a £200 S3 which has an SD card slot.

I think that is my beef with it.

I think my One-X is too big, this is slightly smaller. Will happily take a reduction in resolution to get the size down.

I want to dock a phone in my car and play music via bluetooth to the stereo, which is very common these days. 16GB is marginal for that, and I don't want to pay for unlimited data to spool it from the cloud.

Have been looking at the Xperia M as a present for someone, but that is nearly as big.

One size really does fit no-one in phones

[Saracen]

....

Yet,the people complaining are using vastly more expensive devices.

You get what you pay for,and for the price there are going to be short cuts. Perhaps again,look at the price breakdowns of the parts for such a phone. Really please look at them. The screens cost a lot.

The previous cheapest phones at launch to have them were the Nexus4 and the LG Optimus 4X,which were £250 price range phones. They were considered "cheap" to have quad core SOCs and 720P screens.

Its amazing that a large company has managed to put this in a £120 phone. This phone will eventually hit £100. This is the first phone at launch in the UK to have a 720P screen and cost well under £200.

The 720P screen is the reason why the phone has less features than a £200 S3 which has an SD card slot. The S3 was insanely expensive at launch and probably is not made NOW.

Hence,the £200 pricing is EOL pricing.

However,that £200 pricing also fits into the inflation adjusted price for some of the cheapest iPaq models too.

Well, speaking just for myself, I'm not complaining. Merely responding to a news piece with why, FOR ME, it's of no interest .... but would have been with expandable memory.


As for quad-core SOC and 720p screens, as I said in my first post, good spec and good price. But it could be Oct core and 1440p (if it existed screen), and £20, and I still wouldn't be interested. It doesn't do one of the few things I actually need from any phone I was to buy. Are quad core and good screen desirable? Yup. But it's be like buying a guard dog with no teeth, or claws and that won't bark .... it looks good, but can't do the job I want.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think that is my beef with it.

I think my One-X is too big, this is slightly smaller. Will happily take a reduction in resolution to get the size down.

I want to dock a phone in my car and play music via bluetooth to the stereo, which is very common these days. 16GB is marginal for that, and I don't want to pay for unlimited data to spool it from the cloud.

Have been looking at the Xperia M as a present for someone, but that is nearly as big.

One size really does fit no-one in phones

You have that Acer from Pixmania no??

I agree about the size,to some degree. The smaller phones can be made thicker too and stronger which helps,and smaller phones are more useful for people who don't have big pockets and the like.

However,thing is you are not the market for a £120 phone,as the One X is a very expensive phone in its own right.

So are so many here,who have silly expensive phones. I get the feeling the next upgrades many will do will be £200+ anyway.

Sony has a tendency to lock stuff as when one of my mates tried to update there phone a while back to a newer version of Android,so they could run Ingress. It transpired you need to mod the hardware to do this.

BTW,for £200 you can get this:

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i819..._mini-5033.php
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5189005.htm?CMPID=GS001&_$ja=cgid:8710646702|tsid:41408|cid:177979502|lid:47487827582|nw:g|crid:3179 8812422|rnd:20758792101185347426|dvc:c|adp:1o1

Well, speaking just for myself, I'm not complaining. Merely responding to a news piece with why, FOR ME, it's of no interest .... but would have been with expandable memory.


As for quad-core SOC and 720p screens, as I said in my first post, good spec and good price. But it could be Oct core and 1440p (if it existed screen), and £20, and I still wouldn't be interested. It doesn't do one of the few things I actually need from any phone I was to buy. Are quad core and good screen desirable? Yup. But it's be like buying a guard dog with no teeth, or claws and that won't bark .... it looks good, but can't do the job I want.

That is why it lacks the card slot. They would need either a more expensive case moulding if it were externally available,or a more complex PCB for an internal one. Its basically a cost cutting measure. It could be quite possible the phones in another year or two will have it once 720P becomes standard.

Heck,that Acer at £150 has it now,but Pixmania are not so good.

[Saracen]

....

One size really does fit no-one in phones

Exactly.

Some people will rule out a phone because it's Apple. Some will rule one out because it isn't. Some because it's too expensive, and some because it's not expensive enough () to be a status symbol. Some want, or need, the ultimate powerhouse. And I want a relatively low cost phone, from a brand I'm comfortable with, that does what I want of it and I really don't care about 720p, or for that matter, quad core.

Horses for courses. And for me, no slot eliminates this from consideration, regardless of other spec, or whatever the price is. If Motorola gave it to me, it'd only be useful to sell or give on. It isn't useful to me.

[ChinesePate]

no NFC?

[Saracen]

....

That is why it lacks the card slot. They would need either a more expensive case moulding if it were externally available,or a more complex PCB for an internal one. Its basically a cost cutting measure. It could be quite possible the phones in another year or two will have it once 720P becomes standard.

Heck,that Acer at £150 has it now,but Pixmania are not so good.

Well, maybe. I don't know. I'm sure it would add to the cost, but how much, per unit, I've no idea. For a phone that may well become the "budget" phone to have, I'd have thought the per unit impact to be minimal, given that it sells enough.

As for a year or two, yeah, eminently possible. It's the way of things. And I may well still be thinking about what, if anything, to get by then.

[Saracen]

no NFC?

Oh I sure as hell hope not.

[DanceswithUnix]

However,thing is you are not the market for a £120 phone,as the One X is a very expensive phone in its own right. Sony has a tendency to lock stuff as when one of my mates tried to update there phone a while back to a newer version of Android,so they could run Ingress. It transpired you need to mod the hardware to do this.

The One-X wasn't the phone I wanted, it was just the best I could find at the time. It was too big, but smaller phones were 16GB which was almost the storage I already used so right on the edge and that isn't good at the start of a 2 year contract. It came down to the One-X or Razr, not sure I made the right call but here I am

But as I said, this would be for a present, so I am most certainly in the market for a low end Android phone. Sony is a bit of a red flag, but Tesco sell them unlocked and I have some vouchers which they will double the value of on the phone which would really help, so hence I was tempted by that one. There is a lower end Sony which is about the right size, but 512M of RAM isn't enough for 4.1 that the phone ships with and Sony have a reputation that says it will never get 4.4 to help with that.

Oh, and I get the impression that phone companies used to get a lot of support calls due to really cheap flash cards going flaky and causing the phone to do odd things, so removing the slot saves them in support costs.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well, maybe. I don't know. I'm sure it would add to the cost, but how much, per unit, I've no idea. For a phone that may well become the "budget" phone to have, I'd have thought the per unit impact to be minimal, given that it sells enough.

As for a year or two, yeah, eminently possible. It's the way of things. And I may well still be thinking about what, if anything, to get by then.

Generally the majority of people who need large amounts of storage(as opposed to what I gather you want is for security purposes),is to store hundreds of CDs or 720P movies(which are over a 1GB in size each) and TV shows to watch on their phone. Funnily,enough I don't see that very often even among geeks and considering that I play Ingress I certainly bump into enough smartphone toting ones.

So given the market,I suspect Google think that is why they were OK with cost cutting by removing the SD card slot.

Well TBH,Google has started to make Android more efficient anyway. I use an older smartphone too,but Android 4 is faster than older versions from my own experience,and the latest version is even meant to work better with older phones since it is optimised to work with 512MB of RAM.

The G300 probably would be fine.

[wasabi]

Looks promising but I'm not jumping just yet. Will hold fire till Kitkat is in the wild and positive reviews are singing praises. Also confirmation that it is rootable, and quite possibly will wait till third party chunky mega-batteries are available too.
Till then will hold fire on my trusty if sluggish U8815.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Review of phone:

http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/...-35831726.html

[kompukare]

Slightly more complex moulding or more complex PCB being too expensive? I don't think so. Those couple of pence is not the reason why Google devices (phones, tablets) no longer have SD cards. This is about removing choice to try and promote cloud storage.

And like when Oracle tried to remove choice by promoting Network Computers, or as Apple keeps doing with their stuff, I and lots of other people will not buy something where choice has been removed.

Unfortunately, lots of other people will buy stuff with built-in obsolescence as can be seen by the continuing popularity of Apple stuff. Some people either don't care or are willing to put up with anti-consumer things like soldered-in batteries. I know that all electronics I buy will become obsolete far too fast, so I avoid anything which deliberately makes that even worse.

So, yes IMO any phone/tablet without SD card slot is not for me.

If anyone else is also worried about this trend, check out ifixit.com's Self-Repair Manifesto:
http://www.ifixit.com/Manifesto

Unfortunately, probably a loosing battle but that's no reason to give in without a fight.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Slightly more complex moulding or more complex PCB being too expensive? I don't think so. Those couple of pence is not the reason why Google devices (phones, tablets) no longer have SD cards. This is about removing choice to try and promote cloud storage.

And like when Oracle tried to remove choice by promoting Network Computers, or as Apple keeps doing with their stuff, I and lots of other people will not buy something where choice has been removed.

Unfortunately, lots of other people will buy stuff with built-in obsolescence as can be seen by the continuing popularity of Apple stuff. Some people either don't care or are willing to put up with anti-consumer things like soldered-in batteries. I know that all electronics I buy will become obsolete far too fast, so I avoid anything which deliberately makes that even worse.

So, yes IMO any phone/tablet without SD card slot is not for me.

If anyone else is also worried about this trend, check out ifixit.com's Self-Repair Manifesto:
http://www.ifixit.com/Manifesto

Unfortunately, probably a loosing battle but that's no reason to give in without a fight.

Phones for you then:

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/smartphone...=1&merch=1
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...er/5189005.htm

The choice is not removed. If you want an SD card slot,pay for it.

Moreover,really now with the Nexus4?? A phone with that specs at launch was easily £100+ more. It was a bargain and if you want an SD card slot and better build quality,then you could have paid more. It meant so many companies had to depress their pricing for phones.

I have owned smartphones for 11 years and NEVER have I ever needed 16GB to 32GB of storage.

Smartphones for £120?? They used to cost well over £500 in the past.

You don't see me complaining just because cameras that I like cost more,than the crap budget I have.

There are plenty of us who don't care about storage E-PEEN. Considering the number of geeky smartphone users I bump into when playing Ingress and the like,a surprising number. That includes quite a few Nexus4 owners,I would say over 12(easily) IIRC. They all seem fine and many of them are computer geeks too.

The vast majority of the people complaining are those spending hundreds of quid on phones already,and none of them buy £100 to £120 phones for themselves.

I can see them ditching their phones for new ones every 18 months to 24 months anyway.

Heck,if you want an SD card slot,an S3 will cost you £200 on EOL pricing.

Also,it is about cost. How many phones have launched at under £150 with a 720P screens from a major company?? None. Screens are the most expensive part.

Its even splashproof too.

Unlike you I have bothered to look around the market and I see none ATM.

This phone has brought serious specifications to a very low price on the market.

Its a revolution of sorts,which will urge others to do the same.

If it annoys you and others that much then spend 67% to 100% more and get a phone with an SD card slot.

[DanceswithUnix]

The Samsung S3 Mini is about the right size, but my boss has one and I never heard him shouting at HTC support the way he laid into Samsung

Tesco has it 95p cheaper http://www.tesco.com/direct/sim-free...e/291-5491.prd

[djsarcher]

This phone has brought serious specifications to a very low price on the market.

Its a revolution of sorts,which will urge others to do the same.

I hope it prompts responses from other companies. The problem is whether manufacturers can make a profit from it. Google can afford to bankroll Motorola for a while to build the Android userbase, whether htc/Sony/etc can, I'm not sure.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I hope it prompts responses from other companies. The problem is whether manufacturers can make a profit from it. Google can afford to bankroll Motorola for a while to build the Android userbase, whether htc/Sony/etc can, I'm not sure.

Agreed,but it shows you how hard it is to hit such a price point.Only Chinese companies like Huawei have a chance IMHO.

Maybe,they will launch an upmarket version of the G300 at £120 to £130 too.

However,I would expect even if it matched the specs of the Moto G with an SD card slot at the same price,people would move onto:
1.)Only 1GB of RAM
2.)No removable battery
3.)Not waterproof
4.)Cannot play loud music on it
5.)Cannot compress their DVD collection on it
6.)Its a crap make
7.)Too thick
8.)Too wide
9.)Colours are not nice
10.)Its not metal
11.)Too expensive
12.)Cannot trust the Chinese companies due to their Chinese government links
13.)Not enough pre-installed storage
14.)No free 32GB SD card
15.)No NFC
16.)No 4G
17.)Its 0.1 of an edition of Android behind,ie,the one that launched 2 minutes ago
18.)Camera has not enough MP or the sensor is not 35MM frame sized
19.)Not waterproof to 10M
20.)Cannot be used as a weapon against a charging Polar Bear
21.)Cannot work at -20C
22.)Cannot work at +75C
23.)SD card slot internal not external
24.)SD card slot external not internal
25.)Does not use full size SD cards

Etc,when compared to £200 to £500 phones.

Moto G specs

Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad core
Screen: 4.5" 720p edge-to-edge display protected by Gorilla Glass
Cameras: 5-megapixel rear facing camera capable of 720p
recording with 1.3-megapixel front facing cam
Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, HSPA+ (but no 4G)
Storage: 8GB or 16GB
OS: Android 4.3 Jelly Bean
Interchangeable back cover options
65GB free Google Cloud storage

It also has a water repellent coating and 1GB of RAM.

The battery is 2070 mAh.

Look at the previews of the device:

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pho...c=rss&attr=all
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/smart...eview-hands-on
http://www.geek.com/android/moto-g-v...c-war-1577160/

Maybe I just have low expectations of £120 phones it seems.

The crappier Acer from Pixmania seems to cost more,and if you want a quality phone with an SD card slot,you have the £200 S3 and S3 Mini phones. How much would a MP3 player cost?? Add the premium onto the Moto G and there you have something like the S3 then.

It probably has better sound reproduction too,but then many phones are not really made for that I suspect.