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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

#61

Post by superuser2 »

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'.

iPhones are not intended to be purchased for $649 except by the very impatient (or people who break/lose their uninsured phones). If you wait your 2 years, it's $100 or $200 on-contract.

Of course it's different in emerging markets where contracts aren't the norm, but smartphone prices in the US are pretty damn close in terms of 2-year TCO.

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

#62

Post by vidarh »

That price point is now full of phones with 1920x1080 5" screens; 1280x720 is very much "last year". The camera specs are beaten roundly by my year old $200 phone. The physical design is almost identical to said year old phone (which is to say it looks pretty much like the Galaxy SIII).

And said phone also has removable battery, dual SIMs, and support for a 32GB SD card.

This might put ever single "cheap" Android phone of a brand well known in Europe and the US to shame, but from the specs given it's middle of the pack fo cheap Android phones overall (it's likely to be a bit faster and with better graphics performance than most low end Android phones, but lower resolution and lacking camera and storage e.g.)

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

#63

Post by potatolicious »

oh_sigh wrote: post #52
cmelbye wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably true, but they're still shooting themselves in the foot. Apple is still supporting a device from 2010 with software updates.

Have you used an apple phone from 2010? Yes, they provide updates, but the updates make the phone incredibly slow and almost unusable. I'm not implying that apple intentionally does planned obsolescence updates, but that is what happens when you run new software on old hardware.

There's a middle ground here though. The iPhone 4 is legitimately pretty shitty on iOS7, but the 4S runs the newest OS just fine. I've tested some pretty demanding apps on 4S/iOS7 and the thing barely breaks a sweat.

And that's a 2 year-old phone. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect at least one major update out of new hardware, even low-end.

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

#64

Post by tostitos1979 »

mhb wrote: post #58
localuser wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd like to do that. Which plan?

Standard family plan. No contract!

Spotty service coverage but can't beat the price.

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

#65

Post by KVFinn »

vidarh wrote: post #62

That price point is now full of phones with 1920x1080 5" screens; 1280x720 is very much "last year". The camera specs are beaten roundly by my year old $200 phone. The physical design is almost identical to said year old phone (which is to say it looks pretty much like the Galaxy SIII). And said phone also has removable battery, dual SIMs, and support for a 32GB SD card. This might put ever single "cheap" Android pho…

>That price point is now full of phones with 1920x1080 5" screens; 1280x720 is very much "last year". The camera specs are beaten roundly by my year old $200 phone. The physical design is almost identical to said year old phone (which is to say it looks pretty much like the Galaxy SIII).

I think you missed the fact that that's the non-contract no subsidy price... Your $200 dollar phone was probably 500 or 600 off contract so this costs about 1/3 as much.

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

#66

Post by _delirium »

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

Apple seems to be aiming to fill the cheaper price points with tablets. Their idea seems to be, $1k+ laptops, $300-$900 iPads.

Within those price points they're nowadays pretty reasonably priced. There used be a significant "mac tax" versus similarly specced PCs, but a MacBook Air or Pro these days compares pretty reasonably to the stuff Dell is putting out. If you want a dual i5 with 128 GB SSD and 8 hours of battery life, the Macbook Air's $999 price point is within the norm.

The main market they aren't competing in is sub-$1000 laptop form factors, like the Chromebooks. That seems to be less an unwillingness to compete on the low end, and more a disagreement over what it will look like: Google is betting on a netbook-esque form factor at ~$400, while Apple is betting on a tablet form factor in that price range.

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

#67

Post by av500 »

blinkingled wrote: post #37
001sky wrote: post #36

Is Moto-G now good enough to replace an iPod touch? for a no-contract 'smartphone' that doesn't need to be up on 4g all of the time (say w/good wi-fi acesss)? Because it sure seems like a better deal in terms of functionality. The main limitation/constraint IMHO is the memory [8 or 16 GB NAND flash], which seems arbitrarily low. (ie, >5 years out of date).

Yeah barring the storage part - it is definitely a great iPod Touch replacement. You might be able to live with the 16GB if you stream stuff instead of playing it locally. There are many media player apps (Archos one that I use is great - even the free version) that can play videos from SMB shares etc.

Archos developer here, glad that you like the app :)

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

#68

Post by vidarh »

001sky wrote: post #36

Is Moto-G now good enough to replace an iPod touch? for a no-contract 'smartphone' that doesn't need to be up on 4g all of the time (say w/good wi-fi acesss)? Because it sure seems like a better deal in terms of functionality. The main limitation/constraint IMHO is the memory [8 or 16 GB NAND flash], which seems arbitrarily low. (ie, >5 years out of date).

If you just want a media player, pick up almost any current generation chinese Android phones from Alibaba/Aliexpress. Many will be as cheap or cheaper, with plenty of them offering 1920x1080, and pretty much all of them supports 32GB or 64GB SD cards.

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

#69

Post by glesica »

cabbeer wrote: post #20
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.

This is actually why I've got a Moto G on order. This will be my first smart phone. Before I heard about the Moto G I always assumed my first smart phone would be a Nexus device, because I refuse to sign a carrier contract and I would rather have a dumb phone than carry around something that cost $600 in my pocket every day.

But with the Moto G, I get a cheap-ish device with all the features that actually matter to me (high res screen, good camera, reasonably fast processor, decent amount of RAM) and it doesn't come with a contract or a crazy price tag.

I saved $150 over buying a Nexus 5, and I doubt I'll even notice the difference (if anything, I'll like it better because, IIRC, the Moto G is a bit smaller than the Nexus).

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

#70

Post by rayiner »

kombine wrote: post #47
btian wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your phone support LTE? Does it run a modern version of Android? Does it have a modern SoC? Does it sync with my Fitbit? Is it widely available in the US? Can I get after sales support?

Does your phone support LTE? I don't know if it does, but I live in Europe so that is not an issue for me. Does it run a modern version of Android? 4.2.1 Does it have a modern SoC It has more than enough horsepowers for what I do on a smartphone. It's quad-core, as for details - I never bothered. Is it widely available in the US? Can I get after sales support? Again, I don't know much about US, but I would imagine th…

Lenovo has no presence in the U.S. for cell phones. The P780 doesn't support LTE, which is a big problem in the U.S. Because American carriers never built out well-developed HSPA+ networks. They put most of their energy into skipping ahead to LTE. So the differential between HSPA and LTE is a lot bigger than in Europe. Finally, most international phones don't support all the bands U.S. carriers use for HSPA. This makes the lack of LTE even more acute.
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