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Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked

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Re: Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked

#31

Post by soperj »

a3n wrote: post #12
Touche wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quad core. Looks like an excellent phone for the price. Interesting that Motorola is one-uping the Nexus to some degree here (the Nexus is closer to being a flagship, but this is significantly cheaper). This might be my next. What's for sure is I'm never buying another $600 phone again.

I'll never buy one of those again either, subsidized or not. One reason beyond the cost is being at the mercy of the telco for upgrades. So, unlocked, is this thing jail-breakable/cyanogenmodable or similar? What's a reasonable expectation for how many years I could keep it security upgraded?

You don't need to be unlocked any more to install CyanogenMod, for most popular phones. http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/CyanogenMod_Installer#Supporte...

Re: Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked

#32

Post by josteink »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #28

I guess it's not CMDA (Verizon) compatible. It sure looks nice otherwise, AND it has an FM radio. I hate that most new models have dropped that. EDIT: Reformatting

You have that backwards.

It's Verizon which has decided explicitly not to be compatible with phones which works everywhere else in the world.

It's like an ISP which decides that it doesn't want to use TCP/IP, but instead goes off and makes their own network-protocol, which requires its own custom OS preloaded on customer-computers.

You can hardly blame phone-vendors for not being on that ship. It's much more profitable to make one model which works everywhere.

Re: Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked

#33

Post by cs702 »

This phone looks like a game changer to me, because it has the specs of a high-end smartphone but is priced like a crappy low-end one.

The cost of an unlocked unit is $300 to $600 LESS than that of other devices with comparable specs, so mobile carriers should be able to offer the Moto G to the masses for hundreds of dollars less than any iPhone or high-end Android device by Samsung, LG, etc.

Mobile carriers could offer the Moto G profitably at a negative price -- for example, zero money upfront plus an instant $300 coupon rebate if one commits to a two-year plan. Or they could offer it with much cheaper monthly bills than economically possible with other comparable phones -- for example, 25% off one's monthly bill if one commits to a two-year plan.

--

Edits: added context and examples.

Re: Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked

#34

Post by just_bytecode »

a3n wrote: post #12
Touche wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quad core. Looks like an excellent phone for the price. Interesting that Motorola is one-uping the Nexus to some degree here (the Nexus is closer to being a flagship, but this is significantly cheaper). This might be my next. What's for sure is I'm never buying another $600 phone again.

I'll never buy one of those again either, subsidized or not. One reason beyond the cost is being at the mercy of the telco for upgrades. So, unlocked, is this thing jail-breakable/cyanogenmodable or similar? What's a reasonable expectation for how many years I could keep it security upgraded?

The Motorola blog says that the phone will have an unlockable bootloader (in the U.S) which means you should be able to install custom ROMs.

Re: Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked

#35

Post by evilmushroom »

a3n wrote: post #12
Touche wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quad core. Looks like an excellent phone for the price. Interesting that Motorola is one-uping the Nexus to some degree here (the Nexus is closer to being a flagship, but this is significantly cheaper). This might be my next. What's for sure is I'm never buying another $600 phone again.

I'll never buy one of those again either, subsidized or not. One reason beyond the cost is being at the mercy of the telco for upgrades. So, unlocked, is this thing jail-breakable/cyanogenmodable or similar? What's a reasonable expectation for how many years I could keep it security upgraded?

I really enjoy my $399 32gb Nexus 5. I couldn't be happier.

But yeah, $600-900... never again.

Re: Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked

#36

Post by CrazedGeek »

josteink wrote: post #32
jimktrains2 wrote: post #28

I guess it's not CMDA (Verizon) compatible. It sure looks nice otherwise, AND it has an FM radio. I hate that most new models have dropped that. EDIT: Reformatting

You have that backwards. It's Verizon which has decided explicitly not to be compatible with phones which works everywhere else in the world. It's like an ISP which decides that it doesn't want to use TCP/IP, but instead goes off and makes their own network-protocol, which requires its own custom OS preloaded on customer-computers. You can hardly blame phone-vendors for not being on that ship. It's much more profitab…

I think he was talking about the FM radio.

Re: Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked

#37

Post by CrazedGeek »

bsimpson wrote: post #24
noir_lord wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This in the same league as the first generation N7 (very roughly) which is a hell of a lot of hardware for 200 bucks. If this had been around when I bought my N4 I would have been very tempted (as I just want something that is a decent mobile web browser, I don't really use Apps at all).

Chrome runs like crap in 1GB RAM. The keyboard frequently gets garbage collected while I'm typing on it, and the whole thing can crash if I rotate the screen. That's running on a stock Galaxy Nexus.

That might just be a GNex issue. I don't have any issues with Chrome on my phone (which is slightly faster than the GNex but has the same amount of RAM).

Re: Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked

#38

Post by nicholassmith »

I wonder how much Motorola makes per handset at that price point, which could be slightly concerning for the business overall. Google can get away with tiny margins on their physical devices as they're about pushing traffic back to their services, making more money residually, but Motorola makes money by selling hardware for a profit.

It's great for consumers when price comes down, but that could leave businesses fighting to try get prices down and reduce overall profit, meaning they're unable to throw as much into R&D, or cut back on customer support or a dozen other areas. It's certainly an interesting marketplace at the moment, most manufacturers seem to be slashing prices reasonably heavily.

Re: Motorola Makes The Moto G Official, A “Premium” Phone Starting At $179 Unlocked

#40

Post by mkaziz »

Derbasti wrote: post #14

This is terriffic news! Smartphones are things that drop, that break, that fall into water and that get lost. Shelling out $500 for something this... ephemeral... always seemed absurd to me. Or maybe I am just clumsy.

I agree with you. I balked at the Nexus 5 even because I would hate myself if I dropped $350 on the train. $179 is much more bearable.
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