Motorola Moto E review: Have a break!

Introduction

Motorola has done it again. The Moto G made quite the stir in the midrange and the story continues. The next one's up - and this time it's even cheaper. With a 4.3" display of qHD resolution, a dual-core processor, 5MP camera, and a solid 1,980mAh battery, the Motorola Moto E may as well be the ultimate budget phone. One that will probably sell by itself with a €100 price tag.

Back with the Moto G, Motorola managed to disrupt the market for quite a while, making otherwise solid competitors look overpriced and underequipped. Built to a budget but delivering above, the Moto G was one of the unlikely heroes of last season - and continues to exploit the winning formula with new versions adding extra stuff like memory expansion and LTE.

Motorola Moto E official pictures

The Moto E launches straight on Android 4.4 KitKat, which is optimized to run on even modest hardware. A phone of the Moto E's caliber is probably what Google had in mind when designing the KitKat update and little wonder, the Moto E is one of the first entry level phones to take advantage. Even though Motorola is soon to be ex-Google's.

Motorola Moto E official pictures

Motorola is also offering the Moto E in dual-SIM flavor plus you can buy whatever colorful rear cover you like and freshen up your phone anytime. Before we continue with our detailed review, let's take a look at the Moto E key features.

Key features

• 4.3" LCD, 540 x 960px, 256ppi; Gorilla Glass 3 with ambient light sensor
• Android OS v4.4.3 KitKat with a promise for timely updates
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 chipset with dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A7 CPU; Adreno 302 GPU and 1GB RAM
• 5 MP fixed-focus camera, FWVGA video recording @ 30fps
• 4GB of built-in storage, expandable via the microSD card slot
• Active noise cancellation with a secondary mic
• 50GB of free Google Drive storage
• 1,980 mAh battery

Main disadvantages

• Non user-removable battery
• Camera doesn't have auto focus and produces low-quality photos and videos
• No camera LED flash
• No front-facing camera
• Comes without a wall charger or a headset

You didn't expect top technology in a £89 smartphone, did you? Of course, the Moto E is bound to lack a feature or two, but that was expected. Motorola never intended to give you a top of the line handset, but the basics are all covered - making calls, texting, emails, social integration, media playback, taking pictures and access to most of the Play Store apps. Android KitKat will make sure it's a smooth ride (most of the time, at least).

Motorola Moto E at ours

So, the Moto E is a snappy budget phone of attractive design and the latest OS version. What could go wrong, right? Our traditional hardware inspection follows right after the break.