
Introducing Moto G: An Exceptional Phone At An Exceptional Price - mikeevans
http://motorola-blog.blogspot.com/2013/11/introducing-moto-g-exceptional-phone-at.html
======
Theodores
"All day battery" \- that really is the top selling point! Imagine that, a
phone that works all day, no babysitting needed! People will flock in vast
hordes to buy this baby, and just for this one feature.

'web' rather than 'mobile' version of page:

[http://motorola-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/introducing-
moto...](http://motorola-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/introducing-moto-g-
exceptional-phone-at.html)

~~~
YeahKIA
Wait. What? I thought this problem was already solved. My Lumia 920 easily
lasts through the day without requiring a charge and is already almost a year
old.

~~~
corresation
My Nexus 5 sat at 80% battery remaining after 26 hours off the charger this
morning. This with regular checking of emails, a couple of Facebook forays,
some quick tests of a web app, and all of the services and background apps
such entails. And despite my office/business being in a rural area with very
sketchy cell coverage (thus the phone has to work much harder).

Of course if I used much more screen on time my duration would be single digit
hours instead. But such is the problem with comparing battery times when we
all do different things with our devices, and use them in significantly
different conditions.

~~~
simonsez
That's interesting, for my nexus 5 (granted it's only a few days old so
perhaps there is some break-in) seems to go down to 80-85% in 10-15 minutes of
morning web surfing/reading.

Perhaps I have a bad device or something?

~~~
corresation
With high brightness and a lot of active, screen-on use, it will absolutely
chew through the battery (though 20% in 15 minutes is extremely excessive: For
wifi browsing Anandtech found it to be among the top devices, actually beating
the benchmark iPhone devices. They then removed that result from the listing
pending the full review release). What impressed me most from it is the
standby time which is extremely impressive, even in difficult conditions.

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wiredfool
FM radio for 'free' music? Where's the business model in that?. Don't tell me
it's going to be ad supported.

~~~
DanBC
BBC Radio One, Two, Three, and Four are transmitted on FM (and others). They
are free to receive, and funded by the BBC licence fee. They do not carry ads.

~~~
msh
So they are not really free.

~~~
DanBC
The licence fee is payable by people in the UK who use a device to watch
broadcast tv.

You don't need a licence for radios. Some people don't use a tv to watch
broadcast TV, and so they don't need to pay a licence, and so to those people
it is free.

Obviously, pretty much nothing is free, but at some point it becomes tedious
to say "free at the point of delivery, but paid for by X".

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blisterpeanuts
$199 for an unlocked (or unlockable), contract-free 16 gig device? That's
really outstanding. This may even cut into Nexus 5 sales. This may be the
adrenaline shot that Motorola needs to get back into the game.

I hope this leads to a whole slew of similarly priced medium-to-high
performing handsets. And assembled in the U.S., too. Congratulations to
Motorola!

------
programminggeek
Wow, this is sort of like the Lumia 520 of the Android world. Awesome.

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turing
Truly impressive specs/build for the price. Can anyone shed light on whether
$179 off-contract is low enough to be successful in its target markets
(Brazil, Europe, Asia)?

~~~
dudus
This is the price for US. It actually starts at US$280 in Brazil.

~~~
eurleif
Why is it more expensive in Brazil? Is it subsidized in the US because of
expected add revenue?

~~~
makomk
Essentially all electronics are more expensive in Brazil, due to hefty import
duties.

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jqueryin
I was very interested until I got to the part of no LTE support. That's a deal
breaker for me. I had a Samsung S3 that I busted and opted for the Samsung S3
Mini at one point, and the lack of LTE cost me dearly. I literally couldn't
browse the internet unless I was on Wifi.

~~~
Spittie
You can't use 3g? It's plenty fast for internet browsing (Right now from my
phone I get a ping in the range of 60/120ms, ~10mb down and ~1mb up).

Or there are other problems?

~~~
laacz
LTE has one killer momentum - extremely low latency. I have to go back
(temporarily) to a phone without LTE support and it's a pain, actually.

Edit: I'm from Latvia. We currently have Band 3 only LTE with Band 7 and Band
20 coming next year. And even though actual speeds are not South-Korea-like,
20Mbps+ is a norm.

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rubiquity
I wonder if you'll be able to put Firefox OS on these. I've been wanting to
play with that OS but the current devices offered for it are very
underwhelming to try and push its limits.

~~~
supergauntlet
It's an unlocked bootloader, assuming you can get the needed device drivers
installed into FF OS I don't see why you wouldn't.

~~~
homosaur
My guess is if that's the case, and this device will be widespread and popular
overseas, they will specifically target it.

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disdev
Exceptional?

How about "A decent phone at a decent price."

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mkaziz
WANT. I think I just found my next phone.

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lnlyplnt
I'm worried that Moto might find itself in HTC's shoes: Making truly great
phones that nobody buys anyway.

~~~
homosaur
I don't think customers soured on HTC because their phones weren't awesome but
because of their shoddy support and updates. The HTC One is the best phone
I've owned since their Nexus One (probably the best phone I EVER owned) but
they are laggards in getting software updates out. They're smart enough now
not to set deadlines they'll break but not setting deadlines is maybe not a
great solution to the problem long term.

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prlin
So.. what did they do to bring the price down? Take a hit and lose money on
each phone sold to get gain relevance?

~~~
wmf
Cheaper SoC, cheaper cameras, no LTE, less RAM, less flash storage, etc.

~~~
bsimpson
They skimped on all the things I find underwhelming about my GNexus now. =(

Oh well. I'll just pick up an HTC One off Craigslist for $300.

~~~
jsolson
Why not a Nexus 5? It didn't skimp on any of those things and is $349 unlocked
on the Play store.

~~~
mosburger
I wish I could do that. Unfortunately I'm on Verizon. :(

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mcintyre1994
I'm really impressed, this is exactly what Google should be working toward. I
remember them saying they're looking toward the next billion phones, and
putting products like this and the Nexus 5 in their respective price points
definitely looks like a move in the right direction.

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xioxox
Interesting, but this review shows there's no SD card, so I won't be buying
it. [http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/motorola-
moto-g/4505-645...](http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/motorola-
moto-g/4505-6452_7-35831726.html)

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dudus
Motorola Brazil seems to be down right now, probably updating for this phone.

motorola.com.br

I'm very anxious to see how much they will charge. The Moto X goes for R$
1499.00 unlocked or US$ 645.

Electronics arrive here at ridiculous prices unfortunately.

The Playstation 4 will be released at a US$2,000.00 price point.

~~~
dudus
Here are the prices for the Brazilian version.

    
    
        8GB single chip: R$649 (US$280)
        8GB dual-chip: R$699 (US$300)
        16GB dual-chip with 3 covers: R$799 (US$344)
        16GB dual-chip in a package that includes a headphone: R$999 (US$430)
    

For someone in the US it seems a lot, but it's actually very well priced IMO.

Source: [http://www.techtudo.com.br/noticias/noticia/2013/11/moto-
g-d...](http://www.techtudo.com.br/noticias/noticia/2013/11/moto-g-do-brasil-
para-o-mundo-motorola-apresenta-novo-smart-android.html)

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dschiptsov
Come on, big screen with _low_ resolution, weak CPU/GPU, reduced RAM -
Samsung's approach to sell cheap phones which look like Galaxy S III/IV.

Is this what is called innovations nowadays?)

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Pxtl
I wonder why they skipped the Xmas launch in the USA? Either way, I'm happy to
be Canadian for once, this is seriously tempting.

~~~
anigbrowl
Probably not to undermine sales of the Nexus 5. Anyweay I'm waiting until
January, this looks like a nice phone that does more than enough of what I
want.

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arunoda
Anyone knows the soundtrack of the youtube video?

~~~
spudlyo
I wondered that myself, to my ear it sounds a bit like Blackalicious, one of
my favorite underground hip-hop acts. Turns out it's Wax Tailor's Positively
Inclined.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv44r3q6zgo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv44r3q6zgo)

Dope!

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Ricapar
How would this compare to an HTC One?

~~~
s3bast0m
Half the specs, quarter of the price.

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essersteven
I have the nexus 4 right now, this might have to be my next phone.

~~~
wmf
Why? Isn't it equivalent or worse than the N4?

~~~
Mindless2112
It depends on when he plans to get his next phone.

I would consider buying this if I accidentally dropped my N4 in a lake, so it
could be my next phone.

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markbernard
Won't buy a phone that does not have an SD or microSD slot.

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auctiontheory
Unless Google is bundling this with an unlimited bandwidth cellular plan,
8GB/16GB are totally inadequate for anyone who hopes to create or consume
audio/visual content.

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beachstartup
this is low enough to buy one for the unused numbers on our company plan that
are still in contract for whatever reason.

