Motorola Moto M review: M for Midranger

Telephony

The Moto M is a dual SIM device - there's no single SIM version. As usual, it lets you select in settings which card does what by default, or you can leave it on a case-by-case basis. It can also select the card based on who you're calling so it can optimize your expenses.

Dual SIM settings

The dialer should be quite familiar. It's split into three tabs - favorites (with big thumbnails), call log and all contacts.

Favorite contacts • Call log • All contacts • Smart dialing

Loudspeaker

The Moto M has just the one speaker on the bottom, but it pumps out enough decibels for a Good rating in our test. That's pretty much where most of the competition falls too.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)	66.2	64.8	66.8	Below Average
Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)	66.0	64.3	70.1	Below Average
Meizu m3 note	66.5	64.6	71.7	Average
Lenovo K6 Note	63.2	69.5	71.0	Average
Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016)	64.5	71.0	68.9	Average
Moto G4 Plus	64.0	70.4	73.0	Average
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4	64.2	67.2	76.9	Good
Lenovo Moto G4	64.7	70.8	72.8	Good
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3	66.5	66.6	75.8	Good
Xiaomi Redmi Pro	68.1	71.8	69.4	Good
Moto M	64.5	72.9	72.0	Good
Moto Z Play	62.9	70.3	77.0	Good
Oppo R9s	64.3	71.5	76.1	Good
Huawei Honor 8	70.5	70.5	78.2	Very Good
ZTE Axon 7	66.4	72.2	84.1	Very Good
Meizu MX5	75.7	73.5	79.5	Excellent
Sony Xperia XA Ultra	88.9	79.3	82.7	Excellent

Messaging and text input

The Moto M comes with Google Messenger pre-installed (it's the default SMS app) as well as Hangouts. Messenger behaves a lot like a modern IM app. You can snap a photo and send it in seconds or send short audio recordings, emojis and so on.

Text input, naturally, is handled by the Google keyboard. It's fast, it's accurate, it's reliable, and it has plenty of configuration options. You can enable one-handed mode by long-pressing the comma key, adjust the keyboard height, the layout (e.g. you may want QWERTZ), enable additional symbols on long-press and change the theme. Typing, swiping and voice dictation are available.

Google Messenger • Google keyboard • One-handed mode • Swype input

Other pre-installed apps

Now this is going to be one short section of the review. Being Android at its most basic, the Moto M's OS has few apps outside of the standard Google suite. And 'few' here stands for 'none', really.

Perhaps the sole noteworthy app is the file manager, which sorts files by category or time of accessing and also supports batch actions.

File manager

You also have the stock Google calculator with a swipe-out advanced actions pane in portrait. The Google Calendar is also on board, conveniently syncing with your, well, Google Calendar with highlights for birthdays and holidays as well.

Calculator • Google Calendar

Among other things, the same suite also brings things like Google Docs and Spreadsheets to the table so you have your document needs covered out of the box.