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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

#71

Post by berkut »

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'.

This.

I've just bought a Lumia 520 as a play phone / replacement while I send my HTC One back to be repaired (due to it continually rebooting / crashing - I'm otherwise generally very happy with it).

I had an iPhone 3GS and 4S as well before the HTC One, so I've tried the three main platforms.

Windows Phone is actually very nice for the basics of webbrowsing, sending texts, calling, etc. It has its faults (limited app selection, screen's not amazing, the font hinting is a bit poor), but I'm very impressed with it (and I'm a Linux dev by trade who hasn't touched Windows for many years).

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

#72

Post by glesica »

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, and quite a few people I know (admittedly perhaps not average consumers) refuse to sign contracts partly because the phones are so expensive to replace, and breaking the phone doesn't get you out of the contract. That means you need insurance, which adds to the cost. I would rather fully own my device, have the flexibility to switch carriers, and be able to downgrade my plan if my phone breaks or my needs change.

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

#73

Post by JohnTHaller »

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

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, not equivalent builds, as that would be a lower multiple).

Realistically, Apple is setting themselves up for the same type of market share in the phone business they have in the PC business. Android is at 52.2% of the market and climbing in the US (where consumers are currently insulated from the actual cost of a phone though this is starting to change) and at over 80% and climbing internationally. It's looking like it will be Android in a position analogous to Windows in the smartphone market.

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

#74

Post by simbolit »

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.

in 'emerging markets' like germany more and more people are getting PAYG sim cards due to the prices being much much cheaper. so much cheaper in fact, that it often makes economic sense to buy a phone unlocked and pair it with PAYG, compared to the on-contract alternative.

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

#75

Post by bane »

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.

Right, by this point high end phones should be much more powerful, with much more memory and battery life and more special features or similar. But the delta between high and low is mostly GPU and to some extent CPU speed and screen resolution.

For example, I'd expect by now that 64GB would be the default for mid and high end phones with 128GB and 256GB as options. Instead we're still seeing "high-end" phones at 16-32GB.

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

#76

Post by vidarh »

linux_devil wrote: post #22

Right move to target market in India and China , its way affordable than Iphone 5C and comes with the brand name too.

China is overflowing with cheaper, better spec'ed phones than the Moto G. And their own homegrown high end phones that compete for the Iphone end of the market, like e.g. Xiaomi and Huawei phones priced in the same price range as the iPhone.

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

#77

Post by JohnTHaller »

krakensden wrote: post #13
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…

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...

Not really. The 5c just took the place of the 5. It's the same older hardware and build just with a cheaper to build case. So, instead of continuing to make the older versions of iPhones and marketing them as the less expensive alternative, Apple has switched to having the 5c fulfill that role with the same ~$100 price difference... so the phones on contract in the US start at $99 (5c) instead of $199 (5s) and are discounted appropriately.

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

#78

Post by jedc »

hayksaakian wrote: post #60
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…

the problem here, is that they make SO MUCH MONEY that offering a (truely) low end model, or making any drastic changes is a great risk to their bottom line

And remembering the lessons of "The Innovators Dilemma", this strikes me as a potentially dangerous place for Apple to be in. (A company should always try to disrupt their own industry... instead of others doing it for them.)

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

#79

Post by JohnTHaller »

rayiner wrote: post #70
kombine wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mak…

Non-LTE works just fine in the US for a lot of folks. T-Mobile's HSPA+ network, where quite of few Moto Gs will end up, is solid. Heck T-Mobile's non-LTE network is faster than some other carrier's LTE networks in a lot of areas.

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

#80

Post by nicholassmith »

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 the R&D budget from?

The smartphone market is starting to get truly interesting, I just hope it doesn't get dominated by the companies with the deepest pockets, it's a short term gain for consumers (we all like things cheaper), but could long term stagnate the market.

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