Motorola Moto E tipped for May release to replace Moto G(worse than Moto G!!)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Looking around it appears the Moto E dual SIM version is being sold in India(with 13% GST) for the equivalent of £70. The South East Asian market is generally not that cheap for phone hardware,which shows you how relatively expensive the Moto E is being priced here.

Plus the whole 4G LTE is a bloody con too. In most countries it is massively expensive and with limited allowances and coverage,which is a moot point for someone wanting a £100 phone anyway. But I suspect they needed to increase the margins on the Moto G as Lenovo is a hardware company. Google could leverage money made from services and ads to make the phones cheaper - Lenovo cannot. Hence,they need to raise the price of the Moto G and plonk in a cheaper to make model to replace the Moto G 3G 8GB.

Its to be expected and fair enough they need to make their money. However,it means you might as well grab the Moto G 3G 8GB and Alcatel while they are still cheap!

[DanceswithUnix]

Cat, you seem to be betting on electronics goods going up in price? Historically that isn't a good bet

I do think the market is shaking up though. Lots of low end rubbish phones make some people want to upgrade. Lots of expensive phones make other people (like me atm) wonder if they are worth the money and perhaps should go downmarket. I can see a swelling middle ground at the expense of high end devices, along with the usual rush-to-the-bottom attempt to be the first with a $20 smart phone regardless of quality.

Or put another way, I already have a phone so I need a new feature to make me want to upgrade it. I won't pay too much for what is basically one feature.

There is some vague evidence that HTC will be making a new Nexus device. I think the timing is about right, Google need to release a 64 bit Android soon and that will probably require a reference device. Perhaps after that they will be done with Nexus.

http://www.zdnet.com/android-4-4-3-c...on-7000029319/

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Cat, you seem to be betting on electronics goods going up in price? Historically that isn't a good bet

Google lost $6 billion+ from the Motorola purchase,operating losses and subsidising the Nexus line,and their Android Silver phones,indicates a move away from subsiding phones.

It is estimated the Moto G 3G 16GB at full RRP,was making Google a 5% profit margin:

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Moto-...profit_id50098

Samsung was making around 20% in comparison on their phones.

However,the Moto G has only been on sale for a short period,so its hard to say how much it affected Motorola financials.

At least Google,could subsidise the price as it makes money mostly from data services,ads and apps,but Lenovo is mostly a hardware company. Hence they will need to raise the profit margins to be able to have a functional business.

The Moto E has probably a much lower BOM than the Moto G - the screen alone is a major saving I suspect.

If anything the 720P screen is what made the Moto G so unique,and before that the Nexus 4. High resolution displays were the preserve of the super high end phones.

At its current price the 8GB model is a bargain,but the price is starting to rise now.

I suppose it was good while it lasted.

I do think the market is shaking up though. Lots of low end rubbish phones make some people want to upgrade. Lots of expensive phones make other people (like me atm) wonder if they are worth the money and perhaps should go downmarket. I can see a swelling middle ground at the expense of high end devices, along with the usual rush-to-the-bottom attempt to be the first with a $20 smart phone regardless of quality.

Or put another way, I already have a phone so I need a new feature to make me want to upgrade it. I won't pay too much for what is basically one feature.

There is some vague evidence that HTC will be making a new Nexus device. I think the timing is about right, Google need to release a 64 bit Android soon and that will probably require a reference device. Perhaps after that they will be done with Nexus.

http://www.zdnet.com/android-4-4-3-c...on-7000029319/

The major move will be at the under £50 market - for most of the world £100 is way too much money. Something like a £20 to £30 smartphone is where it is at.

At the moment the market seems to be moving towards £200 to £300 highish end phones - the Oppo and One2 ones are around this price range and the Nexus 6 if it appears.

The thing is there is a big price difference between these two,and for some one considering a £100 phone,even £130 to £140 is a massive increase in price.

However,the Nexus/Google branded phones put real price pressure to push features into cheaper phones. If they are gone,we might be back to square one with each company not wanting to push each other.

We saw that with the ZTE Blade.

It came in and really revolutionised the lower end market. Yet,the moment ZTE put less pressure,all the companies just regressed,and put out basically the same phone every year for the same price,until the Moto G appeared.

It will need someone like Huawei or ZTE to actually release a budget phone with a 720P screen to maintain the pressure.

None of the big companies want to really innovate under £200 it seems. It took either Chinese OEMs like Huawei or ZTE,smaller mobile phone companies like Alcatel or even Google itself to really try and innovate.

Samsung,HTC,LG,Sony,etc just repackage the same rubbish year on year with miniscule improvements.

[DanceswithUnix]

Google lost $6 billion+ from the Motorola purchase,operating losses and subsidising the Nexus line,and their Android Silver phones,indicates a move away from subsiding phones.

Nah, have kept the patents and enough shell company to allow a $700M tax break every year until 2019. Overall the patents may have cost them $1B, and it looks like rather than just asset stripping Motorola they did at least put some effort into turning the company around before getting rid : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01...y_lenovo_sale/

ARM say that $20 smartphones will be out this year. I will watch with interest, and yet disinterest as I know I won't be in the market. What I like about the Moto G is that it feels like a quality phone, not like something at the bottom of the market with every possible corner cut. I know there were corners cut in there, but none seem to hurt the experience too much. If the Moto E gives the same quality feel then it should do OK.

[watercooled]

TBH the existing cheap Android phones, going by my experience of the Ace and a Wildfire S, seem to have some forced obsolescence; with the *forced* Google Play updates eating more and more on-board NAND and RAM, the phone gets significantly more unusable over time. It's easy to get back factory performance with a reformat, but of course as soon as you let it connect to the Internet it will pull the bloated update again.

[scaryjim]

... None of the big companies want to really innovate under £200 it seems. ...

Perhaps they do want to, but the market just isn't there. The fuss you're making about the Moto E shows what happens when a company tries to release a profitable handset at < £100 - people complain that it's not as good as a £130* handset!

Perhaps the reality is that innovating in the < £200 market simply isn't profitable? There's no benefit to being seen as innovative if you lose money doing so. Perhaps the Moto E is the best spec that can be released with an SRP < £100. If Tesco apply similar subsidies to the Moto E as they do the the G, it could potentially be available for as little as £60, but it'll be down to retailers to make that happen - not the phone manufacturers.

*Yes, the Moto G is a £130 handset. The £100 pricing is only available due to a £19 network subsidy and a £10 voucher (which could equally be spent on groceries, or any other phone). The handset itself (from the same retailer) costs £129, and that's the price we could be using to compare to the SRP of the E...

[kalniel]

Amazon phone will probably come out in the same price range, and also be relatively basic. So there is competition there, but you aren't going to get the same as elsewhere in the market range.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Nah, have kept the patents and enough shell company to allow a $700M tax break every year until 2019. Overall the patents may have cost them $1B, and it looks like rather than just asset stripping Motorola they did at least put some effort into turning the company around before getting rid : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01...y_lenovo_sale/

ARM say that $20 smartphones will be out this year. I will watch with interest, and yet disinterest as I know I won't be in the market. What I like about the Moto G is that it feels like a quality phone, not like something at the bottom of the market with every possible corner cut. I know there were corners cut in there, but none seem to hurt the experience too much. If the Moto E gives the same quality feel then it should do OK.

They lost $4 billion after patents are included:

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-e...214150173.html

Just how much did Google (GOOG) overpay for Motorola Mobility when it agreed to buy the phone maker for $12.5 billion in 2011?

Shareholders will have to figure that out after Google announced on Wednesday that it is unloading the money-losing subsidiary on Chinese electronics maker Lenovo Group (0992.HK) for $2.9 billion.

Sure, Motorola had $3 billion of cash on its balance sheet when it was acquired and Google later sold a set-top box division for $2.4 billion. But that still leaves Google CEO Larry Page left to explain why he’s only getting $3 billion for the remaining net investment of $7 billion. "Patents," he'd likely reply.

Analysts speculated all along that Google made the hasty deal only to get control of Motorola’s vast trove of about 17,000 patents. At the time, Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) appeared to be waging an intellectual property war to beat back the Android challenge. Many of those battles continue and intellectual property attorneys are split over whether the Motorola patents have helped Google much, if at all.

Still, Google said it would retain "the vast majority" of patents from Motorola in the sale to Lenovo.

That would leave the company with a still significant patent stash and a net outlay, after all the wheeling and dealing, of about $4 billion. Of course, Google also reported operating losses for Motorola as its owner, including $645 million in the first nine months of 2013 and $1.1 billion in 2012. A portion of the losses consisted of non-cash charges for stock-based compensation and other items.

So even if you take the value of the patents into consideration,there is still a $4 billion upfront loss from the sale.

They totalled $1 billion in 2013 and does not include this year either. So that is at least $2 billion in 2012 and 2013,and perhaps more in direct operating losses.

So that is $6 billion they are done on the sale. Even if the tax breaks existed for 7 to 8 years,they will have lost at least half a billion dollars to a billion dollars from all of it,and that is after the estimated value of the patents are included.

Plus,it is uncertain whether they will be able to keep those tax breaks for that long,especially with the way things are going in the US ATM. If the economy does not recover,they will probably start going after companies so they can recover the billlions back in tax.

On top of this with Google moving to Android silver,yes it does appear they are moving away from subsidising phones.

The Nexus devices were subsidised by Google to show off the latest versions of Android without OEM modifications. Android silver does the same thing,but Google is not handling the sale of them.

Perhaps they do want to, but the market just isn't there. The fuss you're making about the Moto E shows what happens when a company tries to release a profitable handset at < £100 - people complain that it's not as good as a £130* handset!

Perhaps the reality is that innovating in the < £200 market simply isn't profitable? There's no benefit to being seen as innovative if you lose money doing so. Perhaps the Moto E is the best spec that can be released with an SRP < £100. If Tesco apply similar subsidies to the Moto E as they do the the G, it could potentially be available for as little as £60, but it'll be down to retailers to make that happen - not the phone manufacturers.

*Yes, the Moto G is a £130 handset. The £100 pricing is only available due to a £19 network subsidy and a £10 voucher (which could equally be spent on groceries, or any other phone). The handset itself (from the same retailer) costs £129, and that's the price we could be using to compare to the SRP of the E...

The Alcatel One Touch Idol S is £99 in EE stores(I just checked my current one when I was in town),and the Moto G is £99 to £110,without any vouchers at all. The Alcatel is a 4G LTE phone with a microSD card slot.

The Moto E is £80 at least with a network subsidy. Nobody really cares what the RRP might,but the street price is only £20 difference with network subsidies. For all the builds lists we do,does anybody care what RRP the parts are?? Nope.

So maybe the Telcos priced the Moto G too low?? I dunno.

For that difference the Moto E is worse in every way looking at previews:
1.)Worse screen with lower resolution and worse viewing angles
2.)Worse CPU performance
3.)Worse GPU performance
4.)Less onboard storage(if you want to add more storage the microSD card slot is useful but you need to buy a card)
5.)Smaller battery
6.)No Front camera
7.)No flash on rear camera

Plus in the UK it is one of the more expensive markets for the phone. In India,the unlocked dual SIM version with 13% GST included is around £70.

Here is the kicker - in South East Asia network subsidies are rare!

So even with a "network subsidy" we are paying more in the UK for an inferior version,ie,only single SIM.

This is why the current price of the Moto E pisses me off. Heck,if the dual SIM version was £80 unlocked here,it would at least make it more unique,and I would be less critical of it.

Once the Moto G 3G 8GB and Alcatel One Touch Idol S start running out,they will just keep the Moto E at £80 to £90 as some poor replacement.

Moreover,I said £200 and under for a reason.

There are many decent budget SOCs from companies like Allwinner and the like,powering quite powerful budget phones in China.

Cheap 720P phones first appeared in China,and you only have to look at the specs and the price of the highish end Chinese phones(like the Oppa ones) to realise how little effort the large OEMs are making,even in making decent good value high end phones.

They could quite easily make a profitable £200 smartphone with 2GB RAM,etc,but they are used to the old model of charging £500+ for a decently specced phone.

It took companies like ZTE and Huawei to initiate the last wave of decent budget phones - remember the ZTE Blade??

It will most obviously need to be them for the next wave.

I am incredibly fedup with the ripoff prices of high end phones.

It used to be you could pay £25 to £35 a month for 12 months to get a high end phone.

Now the contracts are that much for two years. You are paying double the amount.

Plus looking at the profits of the telcos 10 years ago,it was not like they were instantly struggling on average.

Yet looking at the prices of the high end phones without subsidies,not much has changed(they have actually probably got cheaper),IIRC from 2003.

Now you know why companies like Apple and the like are making so much money. Also,inb4 they are companies and have a right to megaprofits,as a consumer I also have a right to also complain too.

Things like laptops have gone from like £800 a decade ago for a basic one to like £200 to £300 for one. Yet,companies like Lenovo are doing well selling cheapish laptops.

I remember paying like £280 in a one-off sale for my prosumer Pentax Optio 450 compact in 2004 (was a £450 one at normal street prices so it was a good price). Yet my Canon S95 8 years later had a street price of £200 to £250(nearly half that) and I paid well under £200 for it. At least at that time(2012) Canon was still doing fine.

There are far more people owning smartphones,and there are massive economies of scale involved,even compared to 10 years ago. Making decent budget phones expands the market massively to billions of people,not mere millions.

Many more people can afford a sub £150 phone than a £200 to £300 one,just like a £300 laptop against a £600 one,or a £5000 car against a £10000 one.

Ultimately,I think some of the larger OEMs might have problems in the next few years,if they ignore the lower end of the market. Just like Korean OEMs like LG and Samsung came from nowhere to challenge the traditional large phone OEMs from the US,Japan and Europe,I see the Chinese OEMs doing the same thing.

The same goes with SOC makers. Companies like Allwinner have come from nowhere TBH,and are willing to do volume at low margins,but at the same time have reasonable offerings. Qualcomm,etc might need to watch out in a few years too. Maybe even Intel and AMD.

[DanceswithUnix]

They lost $4 billion after patents are included:

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-e...214150173.html

Really, they are guessing and we won't know for very many years how that deal shook out. I think we can assume that from track record that Google are not idiots, and they probably had an exit strategy formulated before the end of due diligence given how long that takes.

Is that Alcatel any good? They used to do stuff that was plain cheap rather than good value, people I knew with their phones tended to be rather unhappy with them overall. That was a while ago though, would hope they have improved.

[DanceswithUnix]

Have we seen real prices for this yet?

Was at Tesco at lunchtime, and they had a display stand with some cheap looking Samsung Android smart phone for £30 if you buy a £10 T-mobile top up. My last feature phone cost that much.

[scaryjim]

£79 on Tesco Mobile, use the £10 off £50 voucher for £69, so £31 cheaper than the Moto G 8GB - or, to put it another way, almost a third cheaper.

£79 on network seems to be the standard cost for it, tbh. I guess there's an absolute limit to how low you can price a smartphone.

[DanceswithUnix]

£79 on Tesco Mobile, use the £10 off £50 voucher for £69, so £31 cheaper than the Moto G 8GB - or, to put it another way, almost a third cheaper.

£79 on network seems to be the standard cost for it, tbh. I guess there's an absolute limit to how low you can price a smartphone.

That is about what I was expecting. Looks like Motorola have been talking the talk about a smartphone cheap enough to kill off feature phones, but £30 is walking the walk.