At their event this morning in São Paulo, Brazil, Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside announced their newest handset the Moto G. The phone according to Mr Woodside is definitely aimed at the lower end of the handset range.
The Moto G is focusing on giving a great experience to customers who can’t afford the highest end handset or want a smaller handset. Mr Woodside says the ‘Moto G offers a premium experience at less than one third of the price of high end devices’.
Hardware
Charlie Tritschler, Product Manager Motorola Mobility, listed off the specifics of the device starting with the Waterpoof Nano-Coating included in the phone to help make the device a bit ‘life proof’. The phone still contains high quality components including a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Quad-Core SoC, 1GB of RAM with a 4.5″ 720p HD Display right up front with a 5MP Camera on the rear.
- 4.5″ 1280×720 HD 329 ppi display
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor with 1.2 GHz quad-core CPU
- 1GB RAM
- 8/16GB Storage with Two years 50 GB storage free on Google Drive(65GB total)
- 5MP Rear Camera with 1.3MP Front-Facing Camera
- GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSPA+ up to 21 Mbps as well as CDMA/EVDO Rev A
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/GLONASS
- Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean)
- 129.9×65.9 mmx6.0-11.6 mm (curved) @ 143 grams
- Built-in rechargeable 2070 mAh lithium-ion battery
Notably as you can see, there was absolutely no mention of 4G/LTE support on the Moto G, making the HSPA+ the only option for the Moto G in Australia. The phone will be SIM unlocked when made available and come in Single and Dual-SIM configurations in certain markets.
Meet Moto G
Customisation and Accessories
The Moto G will not be as heavily customizable as the Moto X that was introduced to the US earlier this year but will include 19 customization options including Removeable Backs called ‘Motorola Shells’ available in 7 colours – Black, White ‘Chalk’, Cherry, Lemon Lime, Turquoise and Violet, coloured Flip Shells which are smart covers for the Moto G as well as Coloured ‘Active Grips’ which are bumper like accessories.
They are also going to be offering accessories such as wired and un-wired earphones, wireless speaker from JBL and Motorola power packs for charging on the Go.
Software Features
Punit Somni Software Product Management, Motorola Mobility listed some of the software features of the device which unfortunately didn’t list Moto X specific features such as the Active listening, or the wrist gesture Quick Capture to activate the camera, nor did the phone seem to come with Active Notifications, what he did spruik was the fact that the Moto G comes with Android 4.3 but with a guaranteed upgrade to Android 4.4 which he promised will be delivered to handsets by January 2014.
Features such as the Motorola Migrate software which will help you to migrate your settings and contacts from other phones as well as Motorola Assist a service to help personalise your software.
The Moto G will also come with 50GB Google Drive on top of the 15GB standard Google Drive space that all users receive giving a total of 65GB in total.
Price and Availability
The Moto G will come with two options for storage 8GB or 16GB all at the low price of US$179 for the 8GB version and US $199 for the 16GB version, no local pricing has been announced for the device at this stage
Availability for the Moto G seems to concentrate on markets less travelled with the Moto G available in Brazil and parts of Europe from today and then in Latin America, Europe, Canada and parts of Asia in the next few weeks.
The Moto G will then expand availability to the US, India, the Middle East and more of Asia in early January for a total of more than 30 countries with 60 partners by 2014.
As you can see from the above screen capture, Australia and New Zealand appear to have been listed in the second batch, so we will see the Moto G on Australian shores in early 2014 if you’re interested in the Moto G.
Are you interested in the Moto G?
