Motorola Moto G 4G review: Going fast

Synthetic benchmarks

Motorola Moto G 4G is running on an LTE-enabled mid-range Snapdragon 400 chipset. It offers four Cortex-A7 CPU cores, Adreno 305 graphics and 1GB of RAM. We've already seen the chipset in action on lots of smartphone, including the original Moto G, so it's clearly a quite popular choice. And rightfully so as it delivers a snappy performance in everyday use and quite acceptable gaming as well.

Starting off with the CPU benchmarks, the Moto G 4G posted a great result on the multi-core GeekBench 3 cross-platform benchmark. The Moto G 4G matched the performance of the Moto G, LG G2 mini and even bettered Xperia M2.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• HTC One mini 2
  1526
• HTC Desire 816
  1510
• Sony Xperia T3
  1373
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  1359
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1175
• LG G2 mini
  1123
• Motorola Moto G
  1120
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1106
• Sony Xperia M2
  1074
• Motorola Moto E
  611

AnTuTu is a compound benchmark, which also takes into account RAM and GPU performance. The Moto G 4G numbers are quite good, slightly better than the Moto G, LG G2 mini and HTC One mini 2.

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 816
  21580
• Sony Xperia T3
  20282
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  19896
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  18829
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  18047
• HTC One mini 2
  17883
• Sony Xperia M2
  17808
• LG G2 mini
  17362
• Motorola Moto G
  17214
• Motorola Moto E
  12880

Basemark OS II is another all-round benchmark. It gives an overall score along with single, multi-core performance, math performance and more. We focus on the overall score and the dedicated CPU scores. The Motorola Moto G 4G overall rating is OK - on par with the competition. The singe-core and multi-core performance put it very close to the Snapdragon 400-powered HTC One mini 2 an Sony Xperia M2.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto G
  559
• Sony Xperia T3
  535
• HTC Desire 816
  520
• HTC One mini 2
  517
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  495
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  452
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  434
• Sony Xperia M2
  298
• Motorola Moto E
  116

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 816
  1739
• Sony Xperia T3
  1465
• HTC One mini 2
  1304
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1192
• Sony Xperia M2
  1164
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1131
• Motorola Moto E
  1110

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• HTC Desire 816
  7071
• Sony Xperia T3
  5759
• HTC One mini 2
  5182
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  5012
• Sony Xperia M2
  4927
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  4887
• Motorola Moto E
  2637

The graphics benchmark results did come OK. The GFXBench tests - both off-screen and on-screen variants - reflected above average performance. It did better on the off-screen tests but falls behind the lower resolution devices on the on-screen tests such as the Sony Xperia M2, M2 Aqua and LG G2 mini.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  6
• Sony Xperia T3
  5.9
• Sony Xperia M2
  5.9
• HTC Desire 816
  5.9
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  5.8
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  5.8
• LG G2 mini
  5.8
• HTC One mini 2
  5.8
• Motorola Moto G
  5.6
• Motorola Moto E
  4.5

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  15.5
• Sony Xperia M2
  15.4
• LG G2 mini
  14.9
• Motorola Moto E
  11.2
• Sony Xperia T3
  11.2
• HTC One mini 2
  11
• HTC Desire 816
  11
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  10.9
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  10.8

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia M2
  1.9
• Sony Xperia T3
  1.8
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  1.7
• HTC One mini 2
  1.7
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1.7
• HTC Desire 816
  1.7
• Motorola Moto E
  1.4

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia M2
  6.9
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  6.9
• Motorola Moto E
  4.9
• Sony Xperia T3
  4.2
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  4.1
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  4
• HTC Desire 816
  3.9
• HTC One mini 2
  3.8

The BrowserMark 2.1 tests HTML 5 performance, while Mozilla's Kraken 1.1 is JavaScript-centric. The Motorola Moto G 4G managed a great score in BrowserMark and came on par with its siblings on Kraken.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• HTC Desire 816
  13564
• Sony Xperia T3
  13738
• HTC One mini 2
  15684
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  16118
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  16129
• Motorola Moto E
  17213
• Sony Xperia M2
  18047

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia T3
  978
• HTC One mini 2
  945
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  911
• Sony Xperia M2
  903
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  883
• Motorola Moto E
  784
• HTC Desire 816
  774

Moto G 4G and its Snapdragon 400 chipset offers good overall performance. It may not top any charts, but what's really matters is real-life usage and it is great. The Android OS is as smooth as butter with no lag whatsoever, while most of the popular games run just fine.