5 ms·

The Moto G is still pretty much the best value proposition out there, great phone at a great price. In this crowd there's a lot of hate when the phone doesn't

by rtpg 12y ago

The Moto G is still pretty much the best value proposition out there, great phone at a great price. In this crowd there's a lot of hate when the phone doesn't have an SD card slot (and I kinda wish it did), but the fact of the matter is you cannot get a better phone for the price (and even for double the price it might be hard).

Alterlife 12y ago
Surprising... The Moto E has an SD card slot, dual sim support, and a gorilla glass screen. I'm guessing they've got the price down by getting rid of the front facing camera, and LED flash for the rear camera, probably cheaper build quality. But... that's a a great price!
- sspiff 12y ago
  They're also using a screen that's much cheaper, I think that explains a large part of the price difference.
  - higherpurpose 12y ago
    There's less internal storage, too, although the 4GB they saved costs them about $2 in component costs (~$4 out of retail price), since NAND flash is about $0.5 per GB now, and it's unfortunate most people don't realize this, and demand not to be ripped off on extra storage prices. That's why the OnePlus One managed to put another 48GB for only $50 more, while still making a nice profit (~$24 in component costs), while companies like Apple and Samsung still charge you $100 more for another 16GB that costs them only $8. For $100 more they should be offering offering another 128 GB, and it would still give them nice profits. They haven't changed their default storage prices since 2010, while prices have fallen by 30 percent per year, costing them 1/4 now of what it cost in 2010. Both Apple and Samsung continue to optimize for costs rather than quality - Samsung by refusing to use anything higher quality than their cheap sub-$1 per unit plastic cases, for their $600 phones (I'm pretty sure even this Moto E has higher quality case than Galaxy S5), and Apple by lowering their BOM cost with each new generation compared to the last, yet still keeping the prices just as high for everything. If they keep following this trend, iPhone 10 will cost them $100 to build, but they will still sell it for $650. My point is not that Apple doesn't keep adding stuff to their new phones or iPads, but that they are adding less than the average rate of technological progress. Ideally, a $650 device, would maintain roughly the same costs with each generation, because the company would use the best possible components and features for the same costs as last year. If they don't do that, it means they aren't properly optimizing for competitive quality and consumer value, and they shouldn't keep the retail price the same, and they should lower it accordingly.
sliverstorm 12y ago
I wish it had an SD card slot for sure, too! I was overly optimistic about how quickly 8GB would fill up. But, it's not a big deal, and for the price? Can't think of anything close. Edit: Oh dear, the new 4G version supports SD cards. Man, I didn't get my Moto G that long ago either. Regrets...
- pbowyer 12y ago
  If you're in the UK and want to sell...
  - welly 12y ago
    I'm in the UK (London) and just bought my Moto G 16Gb perhaps a week ago. I'd be willing to sell to update to the LTE version. Give me a shout if you're interested.
bnn 12y ago
Some phones for the same price: ZTE Geek v975, Lenovo P780, Lenovo S860, Jiayu G4s, Star N9800. Faster, bigger, dual sim. And Lenovo has great battery.
- daliusd 12y ago
  ... and no Android KitKat.
- tomp 12y ago
  For me, bigger is a disadvantage.
- GFischer 12y ago
  I bought a Lenovo for my girlfriend (S820), since Moto G was sold out. While it's a pretty decent phone, the UI has some lag and feels a bit sluggish compared to its competitors. I think the Mediatek does not deliver the same performance as other similarly specced chips. I don't know enough to understand why, maybe the GPU is not good enough or something. Edit: someone says that, among other improvements, Motorola uses a different and faster filesystem (F2FS) which is faster (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742608). It does have some big advantages (much better camera for example), and the battery seems to be pretty good too. Huawei has ever cheaper similarly specced phones, but the reviews scared me, it seems their software is extremely buggy. If you're considering rooting / modding your phone, then maybe one of these phones is a good option.
- sirkneeland 12y ago
  At this point though it is not crazy to say that Motorola's (unobtrusive and thoughtful) software additions actually add value to their phones. My Moto X is an excellent piece of hardware but the magic that really sets it apart is in Moto's actually useful software additions. Now that Lenovo is buying Motorola, it will be interesting to see what happens both with Moto and Lenovo devices.
polshaw 12y ago
The Moto G LTE has an SD card slot! I'm glad to see SD having a 'resurgence' with HTC (m8) and Motorola now adding it back in.

by rtpg 12y ago

Alterlife 12y ago

Surprising... The Moto E has an SD card slot, dual sim support, and a gorilla glass screen. I'm guessing they've got the price down by getting rid of the front facing camera, and LED flash for the rear camera, probably cheaper build quality. But... that's a a great price!

sspiff 12y ago
They're also using a screen that's much cheaper, I think that explains a large part of the price difference.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  There's less internal storage, too, although the 4GB they saved costs them about $2 in component costs (~$4 out of retail price), since NAND flash is about $0.5 per GB now, and it's unfortunate most people don't realize this, and demand not to be ripped off on extra storage prices. That's why the OnePlus One managed to put another 48GB for only $50 more, while still making a nice profit (~$24 in component costs), while companies like Apple and Samsung still charge you $100 more for another 16GB that costs them only $8. For $100 more they should be offering offering another 128 GB, and it would still give them nice profits. They haven't changed their default storage prices since 2010, while prices have fallen by 30 percent per year, costing them 1/4 now of what it cost in 2010. Both Apple and Samsung continue to optimize for costs rather than quality - Samsung by refusing to use anything higher quality than their cheap sub-$1 per unit plastic cases, for their $600 phones (I'm pretty sure even this Moto E has higher quality case than Galaxy S5), and Apple by lowering their BOM cost with each new generation compared to the last, yet still keeping the prices just as high for everything. If they keep following this trend, iPhone 10 will cost them $100 to build, but they will still sell it for $650. My point is not that Apple doesn't keep adding stuff to their new phones or iPads, but that they are adding less than the average rate of technological progress. Ideally, a $650 device, would maintain roughly the same costs with each generation, because the company would use the best possible components and features for the same costs as last year. If they don't do that, it means they aren't properly optimizing for competitive quality and consumer value, and they shouldn't keep the retail price the same, and they should lower it accordingly.

sliverstorm 12y ago

I wish it had an SD card slot for sure, too! I was overly optimistic about how quickly 8GB would fill up. But, it's not a big deal, and for the price? Can't think of anything close. Edit: Oh dear, the new 4G version supports SD cards. Man, I didn't get my Moto G that long ago either. Regrets...

pbowyer 12y ago
If you're in the UK and want to sell...
- welly 12y ago
  I'm in the UK (London) and just bought my Moto G 16Gb perhaps a week ago. I'd be willing to sell to update to the LTE version. Give me a shout if you're interested.

bnn 12y ago

Some phones for the same price: ZTE Geek v975, Lenovo P780, Lenovo S860, Jiayu G4s, Star N9800. Faster, bigger, dual sim. And Lenovo has great battery.

daliusd 12y ago
... and no Android KitKat.
tomp 12y ago
For me, bigger is a disadvantage.
GFischer 12y ago
I bought a Lenovo for my girlfriend (S820), since Moto G was sold out. While it's a pretty decent phone, the UI has some lag and feels a bit sluggish compared to its competitors. I think the Mediatek does not deliver the same performance as other similarly specced chips. I don't know enough to understand why, maybe the GPU is not good enough or something. Edit: someone says that, among other improvements, Motorola uses a different and faster filesystem (F2FS) which is faster (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742608). It does have some big advantages (much better camera for example), and the battery seems to be pretty good too. Huawei has ever cheaper similarly specced phones, but the reviews scared me, it seems their software is extremely buggy. If you're considering rooting / modding your phone, then maybe one of these phones is a good option.
sirkneeland 12y ago
At this point though it is not crazy to say that Motorola's (unobtrusive and thoughtful) software additions actually add value to their phones. My Moto X is an excellent piece of hardware but the magic that really sets it apart is in Moto's actually useful software additions. Now that Lenovo is buying Motorola, it will be interesting to see what happens both with Moto and Lenovo devices.

polshaw 12y ago

The Moto G LTE has an SD card slot! I'm glad to see SD having a 'resurgence' with HTC (m8) and Motorola now adding it back in.