Review: Motorola Moto E

Introduction and design

The Motorola Moto E seems aimed at cashing in on the success of the Moto G, a phone which combined mid-range specs with an eye-catchingly low price tag and went on to sell by the truck-load.

The approach taken by the Moto E is much the same, except that rather than being mid-range it's an entry level handset with a truly bargain bucket price.

So it's not set to replace the Moto G, rather it's intended to bring its cut-price charms to a whole new audience who don't want, or can't afford, to spend upwards of £100 on a phone.

And it really is very cheap, coming in at just £89 (around $150, AU$160) SIM free. That's about as affordable as a smartphone gets right now and puts it roughly in line with the Nokia Lumia 520 and the Samsung Galaxy Fame.

On paper it stands up well to both those phones, thanks to a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM, while the Lumia 520 and Galaxy Fame each only have 512MB of RAM and the latter is even stuck with just a single core processor.

The Motorola Moto E also has a 4.3-inch screen, which is a decent size for a bargain handset and with a resolution of 540 x 960 it has a pixel density of 256ppi, making it the sharpest display 'in its category'.

So on paper it's arguably stronger than the closest priced competitors in a lot of ways. However it exists in the shadow of the Motorola Moto G, which is only around £30 more expensive and far higher powered.

The EE Kestrel isn't much more either and includes 4G connectivity, a feature which the Moto E is very much lacking.

While the Moto E isn't likely to win any design awards, it isn't a phone that you're going to be embarrassed about.

It feels solidly built and at 142g it's got a pleasing amount of weight to it, maybe even slightly too much weight as it feels heavier than you might expect for a handset of 124.8 x 64.8 x 12.3mm, but I quickly got used to it.

That's better than it feeling like a toy and nor is there the sense that it's going to break or scratch at the slightest provocation.

It is a little on the chunky side, but its small size and curved back ensure it fits comfortably in the hand. The back is a little slippery, which makes it harder to get a good grip.

Speaking of the back, the Moto E is plastic, as you'd expect given the price, and it's also fairly plain and featureless, aside from the 5MP camera lens.

My review handset came with a black cover, which gives the phone a smart, classy look. But there are nine different shells available, so if black's not your thing there are other options.

As the cover is removable you can also swap it for a new one at a later date if you ever want a change or if yours gets damaged, though as plastic covers go it feels fairly sturdy. I did find it slightly tricky to get off, so it's a good thing that you shouldn't need to do so very often.

Under the cover you'll find the micro SIM slot and a microSD card slot with support for cards of up to 32GB. The 1920mAh battery is also visible, but it almost felt like it was taunting me as despite being able to get to it the power pack isn't removable.

There isn't much in the way of buttons or sensors to be found on the Moto E. The right edge is home to the power button and volume rocker, which are both easy to hit and have a pleasing metallic look.

The top edge has the headphone jack, while the bottom has a micro USB charging port. On the front you'll find a speaker below the 4.3-inch IPS screen, while the earpiece and a notification LED are above it.

You might have noticed that I haven't mentioned a front-facing camera and that's because there isn't one. The 5MP snapper on the back is all you get.

The screen is reasonably decent considering the Moto E is under £100. It has a resolution of 540 x 960, giving it a pixel density of 256 pixels per inch.

That's not super sharp and you will notice pixels if you go looking for them, but it's comfortable to use and actually comes out as the sharpest display in its category.

The screen isn't super bright, even when at its maximum setting, and the colours could stand to be more vibrant too.

It does feel churlish to level such complaints at a bargain handset however; for the most part it's nice to use and the lack of brightness only really becomes a problem in bright sunlight.

Viewing angles could be better. When viewed straight on it's obviously fine, but when sat to the side of me on my desk the screen looked dark and washed out. Again though, this is a £90 phone we're talking about and considering the price tag I was pleasantly surprised.

It's also coated in Gorilla Glass 3 to help it resist scratches and it has an anti-smudge coating, though still seemed to pick up a lot of fingerprints, far more so than my (admittedly much more expensive) HTC One.

The bezels to the left and right of the screen are nice and small, but the top and especially the bottom bezel are rather larger.

Presumably it's space that's being used internally but from the outside it looks wasted and betrays the low cost of the Moto E.

Still, that aside the Moto E is a decent looking device and with its solid build, scratch resistant screen, replaceable covers. It also has the added bonus of being water resistant, so overall it should prove pretty durable.

Which combined with its low price makes it a phone that you can safely use in places where you might not want to use a bank-breaking handset. Whether you're camping or clubbing the Moto E is a good choice.

Key features

Let's not beat around the bush, by far the key feature of the Motorola Moto E is just how cheap it is. At £89 SIM free it is remarkably affordable.

It's not the first smartphone to cost under £100, after all the Vodafone Smart 4 Mini is even cheaper at just £50 and we've seen other low price handsets in the past too.

But almost without exception you get what you pay for, which in this price range means a clunky, barely functional phone with a screen that you have to squint to see.

Not so with the Moto E. It may be basic, lacking fancy 4G and NFC, let alone gimmicky fingerprint unlocking and there's not even a front facing camera. But it does the basics and it does them well.

The screen on the Moto E is large and sharp enough to use comfortably, it's powerful enough to cope with basic tasks, it looks ok and it comes with the latest version of Android.

In other words it works and can tick more or less all the fundamental boxes you'd expect from a smartphone, which at this price is quite a feat and should strike fear into the hearts of feature phones everywhere.

It seems it could be among the first of a new breed, as the Nokia Lumia 630 is about to hit the market with similarly impressive specs and a similar price tag. But the Lumia 630 is not quite here yet and when it does arrive it will be running Windows Phone 8.1, not Android.

The Motorola Moto E's 4.3-inch 540 x 960 display may not sound like it's worth shouting about but at this price it's certainly worth a mention. According to Motorola it's the sharpest screen in its category. While it's debatable what Motorola means by 'its category' it's certainly sharper than equivalently priced handsets.

Even the brand new Nokia Lumia 630 is lower resolution, while the slightly more expensive EE Kestrel has a screen of the same resolution, but as it's slightly bigger it's not as sharp.

All of which wouldn't mean a lot if the screen on the Moto E wasn't up to much, but while it's not pin sharp it's pleasant enough to look at and large enough to comfortably use.

While the Moto E is undeniably a basic smartphone it's also got more to it than just a low price tag. It's built to last too. The screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 3 to guard against scratches, while the phones construction feels solid and there's even a water-resistant splashguard, so it can survive getting a bit wet.

Plus the back cover seems quite durable but if it ever does get damaged you can replace it with a new one, rather than having to replace the whole phone.

This all ties back into the low price too, because not only is it built to last but if something does happen to it then you haven't lost £500 worth of electronics.

All of this makes it a good choice for those with more adventurous lifestyles, or as a backup phone for when going somewhere that you wouldn't want to risk your main handset, or for anyone's first smartphone.

Interface and performance

The Motorola Moto E's interface doesn't stray far from stock Android, which given that it's running the latest version (4.4.2 KitKat) isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It's fairly plain and basic with little in the way of fancy features, but everything is where you'd expect and works as you'd expect.

There is an app drawer at the bottom of the screen, quick toggles (such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and brightness) available from the notifications screen. The three software buttons- home, back and recent apps, handle just about everything that a tap or a swipe won't.

The Moto E has five homescreens, all of which are enabled from the start and you can't add or remove any, so initially you'll have a lot of empty space, but that can quickly get filled up with apps and widgets.

If things start to get messy you can create folders by dragging one app on top of another. You can slide down the notifications bar at the top to view any updates, missed calls, calendar events or, well, anything else you might have expected to be notified of.

A tap of the recent apps button at the bottom will let you quickly flip between the apps you're using. The main settings screen can be launched from the home screen or quick toggles screen and has all the standard Android options you'd expect, such as the ability to change the font size, set up Wi-Fi connections and manage applications.

It's also worth noting that Motorola has committed to upgrading the Moto E to the next major version of Android when it arrives, so it may be a cheap phone but it's not going to immediately become outdated.

Performance could be better. The Moto E has a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon 200 processor, 1GB of RAM and an Adreno 302 GPU, so it's to be expected that it wouldn't be great.

I found that swiping between home screens was smooth enough and the touchscreen was responsive, but launching apps was often slow. Most would only take a few seconds to load, but when all you want to do is read a message the wait can be annoying.

Once you actually get into an app though it normally runs fine, the only real exception being if you're downloading something.

As soon as you start doing that the whole phone screams to a halt to the point where I even experienced lag when typing on the keyboard.

I should emphasise though that the whole thing is perfectly useable and when not downloading anything it runs fine, which is an admirable achievement for such a low cost handset.

It might not top the benchmarks, in fact with a GeekBench 3 score of 609 it most certainly does not, coming out only a little higher than the Vodafone Smart 4 Mini and well below the EE Kestrel. But it works and it doesn't feel like a chore to use, which is a key thing at this price point.

Battery life and the essentials

Tucked away behind the plastic shell of the Motorola Moto E you'll find a 1980mAh battery. Yet while you can remove the shell the battery itself is locked firmly in place, so there's no opportunity to swap it out when it runs down.

Motorola claims that you can get up to 24 hours of life out of it with mixed usage. As mixed usage is hard to quantify I can't really dispute that but I'm not sure I'd want to anyway as if anything that sounds like a fairly conservative estimate.

Using the Moto E all day, mostly on Wi-Fi with a bit of 3G, with emails and social network updates pushed to the handset, an hour or so of calls, a couple of hours of web browsing, half an hour of music and a handful of texts sent the battery was on around 35% when I went to bed at midnight and had only dropped a few more percent by morning.

By around midday it was down to 10% and I plugged it in, as a flat battery isn't useful when you're trying to review a phone. But in other words with mixed usage along those lines you can expect to get around a day and a half out of it.

When using the Moto E primarily on 3G rather than Wi-Fi I found that it was hovering around 10% when I went to bed. So in that case you'll probably only get a day, but you still shouldn't be in much danger of running out of juice before you can get to a charger.

Videos and gaming were two of the biggest battery drains. Angry Birds didn't give it much of a hit but it dropped 15% after around 35 minutes of Dead Trigger 2.

While running our favourite 90 minute NyanGareth video at full screen brightness (with a score of 320 lux) caused it to drop from 100% to 72%, so if you plan to watch a lot of videos or play a lot of games you might want to carry a charger with you.

Even then it marginally outperformed the Moto G and EE Kestrel, so while it won't be giving the LG G2 a run for its money the Moto E compares well with other low cost handsets.

If you do find yourself in need of extra juice there's also a Battery saver mode. This isn't as advanced as the ones found on recent flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S5 or HTC One M8, but it restricts background mobile data to keep the Moto E going a little longer.

The essentials

The Moto E might be a fairly basic smartphone but for the most part it gets those basics right. Out of the box it's well equipped for web browsing, with Google Chrome pre-installed.

It works well and if you already use Chrome on any other devices then you can easily sync your bookmarks by signing in. Though of course there are other browser choices available from Google Play.

Whichever one you choose it's a fairly pleasant experience. The screen is a decent size and sharp enough that you won't get eye strain, while browsing over Wi-Fi is impressively speedy.

Obviously things slow down a bit if you switch to 3G, but it's not noticeably any slower than phones such as the Nexus 5 and HTC One. However there's no 4G connectivity, so speed freaks may want to look elsewhere.

One other thing that hampers web browsing slightly is the keyboard. While it's not terrible I found that it sometimes wouldn't register a tap or that I'd hit the wrong key, so typos were a common occurrence.

Typing also seems to be one of the first things to start slowing down once you've got apps running or downloading in the background.

The keyboard also supports Swype style inputs, which are fairly accurate if you can get used to it.

The keyboard issues did push me to make greater use of Google Now than I otherwise tend to. While this doesn't really vary from handset to handset it's worth noting that it quickly and accurately responded to voice requests.

Aside from the aforementioned keyboard issues messaging is handled fine, with the default Android messaging app pre-installed, alongside Hangouts, Gmail and Email all of which should be familiar to most Android users.

These all work well, though don't offer any stand out functionality. The messaging app is quite attractive though, with contact pictures presented alongside each message to add a splash of colour.

The rest of the app selection is mostly composed of Google offerings too, such as the standard Android calendar app, Google Maps and Google Drive. There are a few Motorola made additions though. The first of these you'll likely come across as soon as you set up the phone.

It's called Migrate and it lets you transfer messages, contacts, photos, videos, music and call logs from another Android phone over to this one. You can even transfer contacts and calendar information from an iPhone to the Moto E.

Then there's Motorola Assist, which can check your calendar for meetings and automatically silence your phone or auto-reply to missed calls for the duration. You can also set the hours when you'll usually be asleep and have it automatically silence the phone during that period.

Finally there's alert, which can be set to activate an alarm at the push of a button. Once activated it will also text an emergency contact with your location and a short message saying that you're in danger. Or it can be set to call a contact or the emergency services at the touch of a button.

The functionality is fairly basic, but it can certainly give you that extra peace of mind.

No phone is complete without the ability to make and receive calls and the Moto E gets the job done here too. On the O2 network signal was variable but generally seemed quite strong going by the signal bar.

Both inside and outside reception seemed good, with no instances of dropped calls and few occasions where there was any difficulty in hearing the other person. The only times that happened at all was when the phone was reporting just one bar of signal.

The call interface has the standard features you'd expect, including the ability to mute the microphone and a speakerphone.

Camera

I'll save you some time and make this clear from the start: if you want a good camera on your phone, don't buy the Moto E.

If you're still with me and want specifics on why it's so bad then for a start how about the fact that it has no flash, there's no front facing camera, no autofocus and the main snapper is only 5 megapixels.

When you come to actually taking photos you'll find there aren't many options or modes to play with either. Swiping in from the right of the screen will launch the gallery, while swiping in from the left reveals a dial with the few options the camera does provide.

These take the form of HDR mode, panorama, adjusting the exposure, adding location data, choosing whether to shoot in 16:9 or 4:3 and choosing whether to save photos to the phone or microSD card.

It's not a terrible selection of options for a budget smartphone, but there's no scene modes other than the aforementioned panorama and HDR, no editing tools and no ability to change the white balance or ISO.

I will at least say that having it on a dial that you swipe to access keeps the screen free of clutter. But that's a small positive point amongst a sea of negatives.

There's no dedicated shutter button so you take a photo just by tapping on the screen and as there's no autofocus it doesn't matter where you tap.

That simplifies the act of taking photos and goes some way to making up for the absence of a front-facing camera, since you can easily just point the camera at yourself and tap the screen to take a picture. But it also means you can't focus on a specific subject and you can forget about close-ups.

One nice feature is that you can rapidly take multiple photos by holding your finger on the screen. Though while I say rapid the shutter isn't the fastest out there and when using HDR mode it becomes noticeably slow.

At least launching the camera is quite fast. As well as there being an app for it you can also start it straight from the lock screen by swiping in from the right. That speed is the only thing it really has going for it though, because unless every second counts you'd be far better off grabbing your compact.

It's unreasonable to expect a great camera for this money, but the Nokia Lumia 520 and EE Kestrel both best it, as do most other smartphones.

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Media

With its reasonably large and crisp 4.3 inch 540 x 960 display the Motorola Moto E is a solid choice for enjoying media on. Obviously it's never going to replace a TV or tablet, but movies look good (as long as you view them straight on) so why wouldn't you?

Audio isn't bad either. The phones speaker can reach some impressively loud volumes, but it tends to sound a little muffled when you crank it up, so you're best off sticking with headphones.

Out of the box the only video apps are YouTube and Play Movies. Play Movies is heavily geared towards getting you to buy or rent things, but will play local media too and navigating and controlling it is easy enough, with a simple menu to switch between the store and personal content.

Music, similarly, is limited to a basic FM Radio app and Play Music. The latter is an app that I've always been a fan of, what with its ability to let you store music in the cloud for free and the inclusion of a lock screen widget to easily pause or skip the track.

But for both music and video there are plenty of alternative options available on Google Play.

Gaming is a real surprise though. With just a dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 200 processor and Adreno 302 GPU I really didn't expect much out of it but it actually held its own quite well.

Angry Birds Star Wars exhibited faultless performance as you'd hope, but even Dead Trigger 2 ran fine for the most part. The first minute or so of gameplay was a little jerky and occasionally there'd be a bit of lag when looking around, but in general it ran fine, even when blasting multiple zombies.

The Moto E's real Achilles heel, at least as far as media is concerned, is its storage capacity, as there's only 4GB built in and just 2.21GB of that is available for applications to use.

Thankfully there's also a microSD card slot with support for cards of up to 32GB, and with so little built in storage investing in a microSD card is pretty much essential. This adds to the price and in doing so detracts a little from one of the Moto E's main selling points (the fact that it's so cheap).

It also doesn't totally solve the problem as increasingly apps can't be installed on an external card, so while it gives you leeway with videos and music you might still find you can't install as many apps and games as you'd like.

Comparisons

Motorola Moto G

The Motorola Moto G is the current cut-price king and while the Moto E isn't positioned as a direct competitor to it (it slots just below it in price and specs) it will likely be a consideration for many potential Moto E buyers.

Prices for the Moto G start at around £120, so roughly £30 more expensive, but you get quite a lot more for your money, with a 4.5 inch 720 x 1280 display, a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, up to 16GB of built in storage and a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, alongside a Moto E matching 5 megapixel rear camera, albeit one with a flash, which the Moto E is lacking.

On the other hand the Moto G doesn't have a microSD card slot, unless you plump for the more expensive 'Moto G with 4G', so not everything about it is better, but I'd argue that it more than justifies the extra £30 if your budget can stretch that far.

• Read our in depth Motorola Moto G review

Nokia Lumia 630

The Nokia Lumia 630 is another quite compelling alternative to the Moto E. At £89.95 SIM free it's almost exactly the same price and it matches the Moto E's 5 megapixel camera as well as having a similarly solid build.

It even has a 1.2GHz quad-core processor. That's coupled with just 512MB of RAM. It runs Windows Phone 8.1, which is a more lightweight OS than Android, so it still feels fairly snappy.

In fact the operating system is the main difference between them. It's also worth noting that the Lumia 630 comes with 8GB of built in storage, which is double what the Moto E has. But while its 4.5-inch screen is slightly larger, at 480 x 800 it's also slightly lower resolution and by extension has a lower 218ppi pixel density.

Vodafone Smart 4 Mini

The Vodafone Smart 4 Mini is just about the cheapest smartphone you're likely to come across, as it's available for just £50. But being locked to Vodafone is the least of its problems.

Its 1.3GHz dual-core processor is encouraging but it's coupled with just 512MB of RAM, while its 4-inch screen is a little smaller than the Moto E's and it has an utterly underwhelming 3.2 megapixel camera.

For £50 it's not a total waste of time, but it's somewhat lacking compared to the Motorola Moto E.

• Read our in depth Vodafone Smart 4 Mini review

Verdict

The Motorola Moto E is a no-frills budget handset. There's no 4G, no NFC, no fingerprint scanner and a severely compromised camera.

But with the exception of the camera it does the basics and it does them well. All for just £89 (around $150, AU$160).

We liked

The Moto E doesn't look or feel like a sub-£100 handset. It's well built, has a fairly good 4.3-inch screen that delivers reasonably crisp visuals, runs well for the most part and has better battery life than most low cost phones.

It even manages to pack in a couple of extra features, like a microSD card slot and a water resistant body.

It has a dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM, which is fairly impressive given the price. You won't be mistaking this for a high-end handset but nor does it feel like an entry level one. Whether you're browsing the web, using apps, playing games or watching videos it's up to the task.

It's amazing that Motorola has managed all that while charging so little for the phone and it could well sound the death knell for feature phones.

We disliked

The camera is far and away the worst thing about the Moto E. It has one on the back, but you're not likely to want to use it. With just a 5 megapixel sensor, no flash and no autofocus picture quality it is pretty poor.

While if you're a fan of selfies then the Moto E is an even worse fit as there's no front-facing snapper at all.

There's also only 4GB of internal storage of which only 2.21GB is useable, so a microSD card will be an essential purchase. I wasn't totally convinced by the accuracy of the keyboard either and while performance is generally fine it can slow to a crawl when downloading things.

Verdict

The low budget smartphone market is starting to get interesting as some genuinely good phones, such as the Moto G and EE Kestrel, are coming out at low price points. But while both those phones are cheap they're still more expensive than the Moto E.

For £90 or less there are very few compelling options and when it comes to Android handsets at that price I'd argue that there's nothing else out there as good as the Moto E. It's undeniably basic but it looks good, has a decent screen and it runs well. At this price you can't ask for more than that.

Yet it delivers more than that thanks to solid battery life and a durable build. If you're after a good camera then look elsewhere, and if you can stretch your budget by another £30 or so I'd argue that you get more for your money with the Moto G.

But for anyone else this is a great option and is especially good if you're on a tight budget, buying it for a child or elderly person or just want a reliable yet expendable phone that you can throw in a rucksack and take backpacking.

First reviewed: May 2014

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