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Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

arstechnica.com

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Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#11

Post by justin66 »

naner wrote: post #9
justin66 wrote: post #5

If Google's plan is to leave the high-end of smartphones to its Android "partners" and stake out the low end with Motorola, that seems pretty smart. Its partners get to keep the high-margin hardware business that Google doesn't need anyway, Google puts a floor on how bad the low-end phones can be and still make it to market. And yeah, Google isn't in the position of competing with companies that it needs.

The Moto X and Google's own Nexus series appear to be pretty high end. I don't think this is their plan at all.

Motorola doesn't manufacture the Nexus phones.

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#13

Post by krakensden »

mmahemoff wrote: post #8
martinald wrote: post #3

This is getting really interesting. Between this, the Nexus 5 and the various Lumia's a $649 iPhone is starting to look very, very expensive. Smartphones at the moment seem to have got 'good enough'.

Apple used to cover all bases. There was iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, all the way up to the biggest iPod. So in the early 2000s, people at every level of the MP3 player market could be part of Apple's universe (which led to more PC sales and further MP3 sales and upgrading). They've still not done this with phones, so they've left a giant hole for Android to fill, which in turn makes the platform more attractive to devel…

There are two editions of the 5, so they are probably moving in that direction. That, and older models do a reasonable job of filling the low end niche...

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#14

Post by alexmat »

stusmall wrote: post #7
pedrocr wrote: post #4

>It's tempting to think of the Moto G as some kind of "Nexus Jr.," a cheaper way to buy into the clean UI and quick software updates that Google's reference phones have always received. However, Google is making no promises about versions of Android beyond version 4.4, and speculating about whether Android 4.5 or 5.0 or whatever will roll out to the Moto phones as quickly as KitKat is a pointless exercise. Again shoo…

How so? The quick software updates is a selling point to devs but not so much to consumers. We aren't their target market. It seems like a good place to cut costs since you don't have the huge reaccuring engineering costs and there is much more freedom on part selection

Anecdotal point, but my Mom is much happier to get an update with a new phone than to have an old phone updated.

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#15

Post by pedrocr »

stusmall wrote: post #7
pedrocr wrote: post #4

>It's tempting to think of the Moto G as some kind of "Nexus Jr.," a cheaper way to buy into the clean UI and quick software updates that Google's reference phones have always received. However, Google is making no promises about versions of Android beyond version 4.4, and speculating about whether Android 4.5 or 5.0 or whatever will roll out to the Moto phones as quickly as KitKat is a pointless exercise. Again shoo…

How so? The quick software updates is a selling point to devs but not so much to consumers. We aren't their target market. It seems like a good place to cut costs since you don't have the huge reaccuring engineering costs and there is much more freedom on part selection

Google is interested in building Android as a platform. Having 80% of your install base stuck 4 versions behind[1] is a crappy way of doing it. Even after they've moved more and more of the platform into the Play frameworks you're still leaving users without a bunch of improvements to the core platform, not to mention security fixes. iOS is miles ahead on this front exactly because it controls the hardware. That Google doesn't do the same now that it also controls the hardware seems short-sighted.

Building a 150$ great phone would allow them to set a feature/quality floor for the market. If they forced their suppliers so the hardware in these phones is properly supported upstream, targeting new versions of Android should be pretty easy. When Ubuntu launches a new version it doesn't need to go and retrofit it to the thousand different types of laptop out there. The state of Android though is that the GPU/Camera/whatever drivers are binary blobs locked in to a specific kernel version.

[1] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#17

Post by localuser »

quaffapint wrote: post #16

I can't wait for a Verizon version (apparently 1Q 2014) to pare up with PagePlus, so I can dump my VZ contract and only pay half of what I do now.

I bought 3 moto g's and on the day they arrived switched the entire family to tmobile. I had enough of Verizon and now my bill is $100 a month. Can't beat that.

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#18

Post by Macha »

mpg33 wrote: post #6
martinald wrote: post #3

This is getting really interesting. Between this, the Nexus 5 and the various Lumia's a $649 iPhone is starting to look very, very expensive. Smartphones at the moment seem to have got 'good enough'.

macs are also a premium price compared to PC's....not sure how comparably this is

And the Mac market share compared to PC market share shows which is far more dominant.

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#19

Post by laureny »

ye wrote: post #12
nnnnni wrote: post #10

$179 is way too much for a phone that sends all of your login information for different pages and services to Motorola's servers in plaintext...

What are you talking about?

Just the regular "NSA/Google is evil/wake up people" troll.

Ignore and carry on.

Re: Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

#20

Post by cabbeer »

justin66 wrote: post #5

If Google's plan is to leave the high-end of smartphones to its Android "partners" and stake out the low end with Motorola, that seems pretty smart. Its partners get to keep the high-margin hardware business that Google doesn't need anyway, Google puts a floor on how bad the low-end phones can be and still make it to market. And yeah, Google isn't in the position of competing with companies that it needs.

The divide between "High end" and "Low end" devices is beginning to blur. The improvements to high end devices are providing diminishing returns, while all the "essentials" have trickled down to low end devices.
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