The low-cost Motorola phone, the Moto G, was officially announced during the week and featured relatively meagre specifications which appeared to match the price at which it will come to market with; the 8GB version will be $179  and the 16GB version will be $199 off-contract in the U.S. and in the U.K. the Moto G has already gone up for preorder, £139.99 for the 8GB and £159.99  for the 16GB. For that standalone price, you’ll be getting a Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB RAM, a 4.5-inch display and Android 4.3. It’s also been said that the phone will be shipping with Android 4.4 KitKat after the Christmas period, which should be long before even flagship phones from other manufacturers receive it.
While the Moto G‘s specifications might look a little uninspiring, one point to remember is that the Moto X also looked relatively uninspiring compared to its flagship compatriots, yet performed admirably in benchmarking tests and in day-to-day usage tests. While the Moto X was arguably prohibitively priced and unavailable outside of the States, the Moto G will be available internationally for a budget price and from some AnTuTu benchmark tests that have been proffered on the XDA forums, it looks like it will have pretty surprising performance as well.
XDA member, jonmorris, has posted up an AnTuTu benchmark of what he says is from the Moto G, which you can see above. You will notice that it actually outperforms what many consider the best value smartphone from 2012, the Nexus 4, and has comparable performance to the Samsung Galaxy S3. While benchmarks alone can’t be the sole indicator of how good a phone is, considering what software features the Moto X shipped with, we’d hopefully see dumbed-down versions of that in the Moto G which should make it a formidable smartphone in its own right.
While it’s definitely not the best smartphone on the market, the Moto G is definitely a budget friendly, and as it turns out, a decently performing smartphone itself. I’m definitely considering getting one for myself, what about you? Let us know what you think about the Moto G.
Source: XDA Forums via Android Ice Cream Sandwich
