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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

#251

Post by gcb0 »

localuser wrote: post #31
quaffapint wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to leave VZ too, but I'm simply too afraid that the coverage will not be there on tmobile and at&t - and especially I need to consider the WAF.

I understand. Coverage was what kept me on VZ for 10 years. What finally got to me was the fact that when I'm overseas I can just swap a sim and T-mobile's coverage has been improving exponentially.

depending on the plan, on tmobile, you don't even have to swtich the sim. they have international calls included.

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

#252

Post by jaredmcateer »

Someone wrote: post #212
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.

A floor, at $179? I bet companies will find a cellar or two below that price point, at lower quality. $179 is a lot of money to many people, even inside the USA.

179 off contract, on contract it will probably be $0-$50

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

#253

Post by com2kid »

chetanahuja wrote: post #250
lostlogin wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony of capitalism working better in China the the US is strong. What failed in the US? Under or over regulated? Or is it the lobbyists thing?

US telecom market is mostly a duopoly (AT&T + Verizon) with sprint and Tmobile fighting at the margins. Combine with a profoundly uneducated user-base (when it comes to phone technologies) makes the job of the numerous MVNO's (straight-talk/simple-mobile etc.) much harder. Most people I know, even many who work in the tech industry, don't quite understand the concept of buying a device and a carrier plan as separate…

It isn't a matter of agreement on frequencies, it is that each company paid many hundreds of millions of dollars to get exclusive access to those frequencies during auctions from the FCC.

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

#254

Post by fidotron »

nl wrote: post #248
fidotron wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I admit it's not a perfect viewpoint, but I don't think any is! The problem here is these things should be private by default, with the option to break from that, since installing things like Cyanogenmod have external dependencies (like PCs) that cost money and people may not have access to. Features such as weather forecast widgets should not break if you choose not to share your location with Google, and right…

Features such as weather forecast widgets should not break if you choose not to share your location with Google, and right now many will. I (and I think most people) like their weather forecast to show where they actually are? Using geo-location makes it simpler for users, which I think is a good thing, isn't it?

Have you heard of GPS? It's pretty good.

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

#255

Post by nl »

fidotron wrote: post #254
nl wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Features such as weather forecast widgets should not break if you choose not to share your location with Google, and right now many will. I (and I think most people) like their weather forecast to show where they actually are? Using geo-location makes it simpler for users, which I think is a good thing, isn't it?

Have you heard of GPS? It's pretty good.

So many ways to answer that...

Have you heard of GPS to POI?

How do you think Google gets your location when you look up the weather (and see later for a discussion of network location vs GPS location)?

Your GPS location is useful, but you need to convert it to a named location to get the weather. There are some services that do that for you.. but then you need to send your location - which seems to be what you want to avoid?

Of course, for most weather-type services, "network location" rather than GPS location gives sufficient precision. With that you still need to convert that to a POI, though.

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

#256

Post by ForHackernews »

dublinben wrote: post #241
ForHackernews wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what Republic Wireless does now, and they just launched with the Moto X at a surprisingly low price: https://republicwireless.com/

Be careful with Republic Wireless. They are completely anti-rooting, require customized proprietary software to use their service, and you're out of luck if you want to cancel the service after 30 days.

I can see why they're anti-rooting--they need to be able to offload voice + SMS traffic to wifi, and they can't do that if you've flashed a custom ROM or whatever. I think they're hoping to eventually have the wifi calling stuff packaged as an app, so it could be installed on whatever ROM (or device) you wanted. But for now, it's integrated with the android system at a very low level.

> you're out of luck if you want to cancel the service after 30 days.

Sort of. There's no early termination fee, so in that way it's better than legacy carriers. But you can't take your RW phone and use it on any other network, so you are out the cost of the device.

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

#257

Post by acchow »

nl wrote: post #255
fidotron wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of GPS? It's pretty good.

So many ways to answer that... Have you heard of GPS to POI? How do you think Google gets your location when you look up the weather (and see later for a discussion of network location vs GPS location)? Your GPS location is useful, but you need to convert it to a named location to get the weather. There are some services that do that for you.. but then you need to send your location - which seems to be what you want…

> Your GPS location is useful, but you need to convert it to a named location to get the weather.

Why would any app need a named location? Seems trying to match a string is way harder than finding the nearest weather data by coordinates...

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

#258

Post by kayoone »

amaks wrote: post #243
girvo wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's user interface is responsive, but it's not a powerful handset. That's the best way of describing them, and to be honest for a lot of first-smartphone buyers, that's more than good enough in my experience.

And the reason is that UI is written in native code (read C++) using internal native APIs while 3rd party apps written in managed code (using different APIs. Of course it takes more time to launch managed apps. This is clearly a disparity between 1st party and 3rd party apps.

still better than android where everything is just slow and laggish on low-end phones.

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

#259

Post by kayoone »

rayiner wrote: post #153
JohnTHaller wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, which is why Apple commands a relatively small share of the PC market and why the entire Mac desktop/laptop and OS X business is only about 12% Apple's total revenue (last I checked last year anyways). The Moto G is $179 and is, honestly, quite a bit of phone. Compare that to the iPhone 5c which is $549, over 3 times the price. Macs are about as much of a premium over PCs (comparing entry level hardware costs,…

Macs are a small part of Apple's revenues, but Apple is and has for awhile been pretty much the only company making substantial profits on laptops and PCs. Similarly, pretty much only Samsung makes big profits on Android, and Galaxy S4 is just as expensive as iPhone. They also have the advantage of vertical integration in manufacture. Finally, Google doesn't make any money on Android. Key difference from Microsoft an…

When i look onto Amazon, the S4 is still substantially cheaper than even the iPhone 5. 460 EUR vs 620 EUR in german amazon currently. iPhone 5S starts at 700 EUR

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

#260

Post by kayoone »

glogla wrote: post #202
mpg33 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't really think so. For iMac, this is pretty much true, you can get computer equivalent to 27" iMac (except for Mac OS and all-in-one construction), for a lot less money than 21" iMac. But with laptops, you would be hard pressed to find something as good or better and at the same time less expensive than rMBP 13. With 15", the prices are about comparable, but looking at our local eshops, for the price of 13", yo…

i am actually not so sure about this. If you compare the recently released Haswell Dell XPS 15 to an 15" rMBP you will find a price difference of EUR 500 (in Germany) in favor of the Dell with very comparable specs. The Dell doesn't have PCIE SSD Storage (it has a mSATA SSD of the same size) but has a higher resolution QHD screen.

13 inch models aren't as easily comparable as the Dells don't offer a QHD display but feature a touchscreen. Also the SSDs seems to max out at 128GB, but still the Dells remain quite a bit cheaper.

Thinkpad/Elitebooks are usually lacking in cutting edge hardware in favor of stability and i think the MBP should be compared to premium consumer laptops like the XPS and HP Envy instead of thinkpads/elitebooks.

Dont get me wrong, id still favour Macbooks for various reasons, but you still seem to get more for less elsewhere.

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