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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

#101

Post by zobzu »

ehPReth wrote: post #28
laureny wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just the regular "NSA/Google is evil/wake up people" troll. Ignore and carry on.

Nah, this one is credible: http://www.beneaththewaves.net/Projects/Motorola_Is_Listenin...

default android phone sends your location to google, as well as your contacts, app list, app usage, calendars, todo list and some other things.

You can disable a good part of it manually, thanksfully. Still, he sure has a point.. its not like if that data wasn't sent. It fucking is.

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

#102

Post by KVFinn »

vidarh wrote: post #85
KVFinn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 con…

You are jumping to (wrong) conclusions. My $200 phone was without contract. . Here's a few examples of current Chinese phones in the Moto G's price range or below: 2GB RAM, Quad Core MTK CPU, 5" screen, 12.8 megapixel camera down to $121: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Full-1-1-i9500-MTK6589-S4-Pho... MTK based Galaxy S4 clone for http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Mtk6589t-S4-1-1-Perfect-Galax... Note 3 clone for ~$190:…

Those do look pretty good. How's your battery life?

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

#103

Post by oh_sigh »

potatolicious wrote: post #63
oh_sigh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's fine. the 4s, the oldest model phone that actually continues to work with their software updates, came out 80% through 2011. That's a little different than saying apple still supports phones that came out in 2010.

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

#104

Post by SifJar »

gcb1 wrote: post #93
glesica wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

hope you don't plan to travel. nexus 5 would work on most network. also get ready to be disappointed with the camera. even the motoX gets owned by old nokia phones. the sad thing about google/moto only churning out low end phones, is that we now will have to give in to weird rooting/unlocking if we want basic features, like a simple sd card or removable battery. i dread the day i have to abandon my old nexus and star…

HTC and Sony both allow their devices bootloaders to be unlocked via simple procedures involving fastboot, a generic (& simple to use) Android tool supplied with the Android SDK (and AFAIK, open source). Both manufacture high quality, high end devices.

As for Samsung devices, there is Heimdall, an open source, cross platform alternative to Odin.

Of course, whether via official means for HTC & Sony, or unofficial for Samsung, unlocking the bootloader will void your warranty (just as on Nexus devices). It comes down to a question of whether or not AOSP is worth it to you.

Of course, there are also the "Google Play Editions" of phones like the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4 which come with what is essentially AOSP, giving a "Nexus-like" experience on a non-Nexus, high end phone (including officially unlockable bootloader, although that may be unnecessary if all you want is AOSP). The S4 has micro SD card support and a removable battery.

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

#105

Post by akennberg »

interpol_p wrote: post #97
mmahemoff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Apple wasn't really covering all price ranges with those products — they were covering all use-cases. For example, the shuffle seemed more aimed at people who wanted something easy and light to clip on while exercising. The nano seemed to cross-over slightly with that market, and also attract people who wanted something tiny but full-featured. (I.e., it was the size that differentiated it, not price.) I don't think m…

Offering previous iPhones as a price-reduced version works well for the development ecosystem (i.e. minimize fragmentation).

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

#106

Post by Negitivefrags »

superuser2 wrote: post #61
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.

I don't understand why people in America are so keen to pay for expensive monthly plans.

I pay $5-$10 dollars per month on average for my cellphone on prepay. It doesn't make sense all to buy a phone on plan.

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

#107

Post by sliverstorm »

gcb1 wrote: post #93
glesica wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

hope you don't plan to travel. nexus 5 would work on most network. also get ready to be disappointed with the camera. even the motoX gets owned by old nokia phones. the sad thing about google/moto only churning out low end phones, is that we now will have to give in to weird rooting/unlocking if we want basic features, like a simple sd card or removable battery. i dread the day i have to abandon my old nexus and star…

The fantastically inexpensive motoX has two flaws, and you're already down on it. Wonderful.

It's good to know we should be unsatisfied by budget devices that don't have every single feature of a flagship device. After all, what kind of slob would be satisfied by a phone that doesn't do everything?

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

#108

Post by dageshi »

Brakenshire wrote: post #90
nicholassmith wrote: post #80

It looks great, but as I've mentioned here before, I have some concerns about the cost. It's a great short term boon to consumers getting a device of this high quality at this price point, but the margins have to be razor thing on it, so how do they make money for R&D? What about Company X? What do they do, slice prices to match to keep market share or hope they retain a profit share? If they slash where do they get…

You can see this with Jolla- interesting new entrant, aims to provide a less monolithic, more hackable device, built on the Nokia N9, which was widely acclaimed. But it's double the price of the Moto G, with equivalent or even slightly worse specs. If Google is selling its handsets at or near cost, and relying on the long-term value of advertising and data, then it will be almost impossible for anyone without the sam…

I guess if you're google, you might worry that someone could come along and do this to you. Someone say for instance Amazon decides to sell a very good quality phone at near cost and starts to capture marketshare. From Google's perspective, better for them to preemptively do that if that's where the market is heading anyway.

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

#109

Post by techsupporter »

SifJar wrote: post #104
gcb1 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hope you don't plan to travel. nexus 5 would work on most network. also get ready to be disappointed with the camera. even the motoX gets owned by old nokia phones. the sad thing about google/moto only churning out low end phones, is that we now will have to give in to weird rooting/unlocking if we want basic features, like a simple sd card or removable battery. i dread the day i have to abandon my old nexus and star…

HTC and Sony both allow their devices bootloaders to be unlocked via simple procedures involving fastboot, a generic (& simple to use) Android tool supplied with the Android SDK (and AFAIK, open source). Both manufacture high quality, high end devices. As for Samsung devices, there is Heimdall, an open source, cross platform alternative to Odin. Of course, whether via official means for HTC & Sony, or unofficial for…

> unlocking the bootloader will void your warranty (just as on Nexus devices)

Unlocking the bootloader on Nexus devices doesn't void the warranty on the hardware; it just removes support for the software. I had a Samsung Galaxy Nexus with a failed USB port. When troubleshooting clearly revealed it to be a hardware problem, Samsung replaced my device even though it was running CyanogenMod and very obviously had the unlocked padlock on the boot screen.

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

#110

Post by kllrnohj »

vidarh wrote: post #85
KVFinn wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 con…

You are jumping to (wrong) conclusions. My $200 phone was without contract. . Here's a few examples of current Chinese phones in the Moto G's price range or below: 2GB RAM, Quad Core MTK CPU, 5" screen, 12.8 megapixel camera down to $121: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Full-1-1-i9500-MTK6589-S4-Pho... MTK based Galaxy S4 clone for http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Mtk6589t-S4-1-1-Perfect-Galax... Note 3 clone for ~$190:…

The MTK SoC in those phones doesn't have remotely enough power to adequately drive 1920x1080, THAT is the huge problem with those devices. If you take any of those phones and swap it out with a 720p screen the device would actually become much, much better.
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