Motorola Moto G

Available now
13th November 2013

We haven't seen much in the way of new announcements from Motorola recently except for the Moto X which is a US-only device, and in fact it has been over a year since the announcement of the RAZR i which was designed for European markets. So, Motorola fans will be relieved to see the new mid-range Motorola Moto G which is designed to pack as many features as possible into a device with a relatively modest price.

On the front is a 4.5" 720 x 1280 pixel display with a 1.3 megapixel video calling camera, on the back is a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p video capture. Inside is a quad-core 1.2GHz CPU with either 8GB or 16GB of internal storage but there is no mention of a microSD slot. The Moto G also has an FM radio.

This is an Android 4.3 device with an upgrade to Android 4.4 promised early next year. In the past Motorola have been pretty poor at providing timely updates to their phones, but hopefully this will change now that the company is more firmly under the control of Google. Motorola also indicate that the Moto G will be unencumbered by add-ons skins and other cruft and should offer a pretty pure Android experience.

Motorola are selling this device on price - in the US the basic 8GB version will be just $179 SIM-free (about £135 in the UK) or $199 for the 16GB version. Compare this with a whopping $549 for a 16GB SIM-free iPhone 5C and $450 for an 8GB iPhone 4S and you can see that Motorola clearly offer a lot more bang for the buck. In order to keep costs down there is no charger or headset in the box as standard, but it does come with a USB cable, and you should be able to re-use your existing USB charger and headsets instead.

There are 19 different customisation options including interchangeable shells and covers in several different colours, although the handset itself comes in black only at the moment. All the usual features are here including GPS, GLONASS, WiFi and HSPA+, but there is no LTE or NFC support. The Moto G measures 130 x 66 x 11.6mm and weighs 142 grams.

Motorola say that the Moto G will ship to Brazil and part of Europe this week, followed by Latin America, Europe and parts of Asia during Q4 and then the US, India, Middle East and other Asian markets from January onwards. Motorola say that it should be available in 30 countries on 60 networks from 2014.

The Moto G certainly has some shortcomings, mostly the non-expandable memory and lack of full HD video recording, but it certainly offers a lot of phone for the money and it may well be better than the Android in your pocket right now. But the Moto X hasn't been the sales success that Motorola were hoping for, so Motorola will be hoping that the Moto G will capture the public imagination rather better.