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.
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 me (high res screen, good camera, reasonably fast processor, decent amount of RAM) and it doesn't come with a contract or a crazy price tag.
I saved $150 over buying a Nexus 5, and I doubt I'll even notice the difference (if anything, I'll like it better because, IIRC, the Moto G is a bit smaller than the Nexus).
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 start fiddling with Odin and whatnot to unlock a high end phone. (odin is code you have to use to unlock samsung phones. nobody has the source, and it is allegedly stolen property from samsung... shady stuff, and that is what will update you phone bootloader. no thanks)
anyway, really wanted to have a high-end option that was free as the nexus claim to be (claim because the radio, camera driver, etc are never open source. but thats the best we can get, well, could.)
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?
Yes, but GP's comparison is moot, IMO: I'm sure the GGP knows that his $179 phone isn't going to blow anyone away in terms of camera potential. It came across as exactly like that typical "my phone is better than your phone" crap, even if it might not have been.
Also, I don't get his point about travel. It's got Quad-band HSDPA... honestly, that covers pretty much anywhere most people travel, or at least anywhere I've ever wanted to go. No-one uses 1700mhz for HSDPA apart from, what, T-Mobile in the US?
And the North American version of the Moto G actually does support '1700mhz' AWS HSPA+ too (so it's 100% T-Mobile USA compatible everywhere they offer HSPA+)
HN saw a problem with snide negativity, and has decided to solve it with mindless optimism and nasty remarks towards anyone who expresses criticism. See the Amazon drone thing.
Unsolicited comments telling people why they are going to hate their new device, particularly when they are side reasons rather than core functionality, isn't healthy criticism. It signals to me that the criticizer is looking for any and all opportunity/excuse to talk down about the device.
I for one appreciate knowing what features suffer at this price point on the device. You could not be more wrong and in my opinion you are stifling discussion.
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.
> 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.
I used to sell and repair phones, for a number of years. Honestly it's a case-by-case basis, sometimes you'll be fine and they'll fix it no issues (like your example, I've seen that plenty of times, and I'd expect the Nexus line to have that happen more often)... but sometimes the vendors will just refuse. That's why the unlock screen says "may void your warranty". So, it's not completely cut-and-dried, but you'll have a much better chance of it with the Nexus line, in my experience (and yours!).
Yes, I should probably have been more clear on that; it's a "may void your warranty" in that if you've done it, they can refuse to honour the warranty, if they deem it appropriate, and there's technically nothing you can do about it.
> 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.
Samsung S4 and HTC One are available in unlocked "Google Play edition" models. They're as expensive as any high-end off-contract phone, but they do what you want.
It is leaked internal code never meant for public use. Technically more of a grey area than "stolen", but still a bit sketchy in a legal sense, although I personally would have more of an issue with the fact it's not really fully understood by the people using it (or anyone outside of Samsung, I believe).
Well I don't have an old Nokia, I have an old Samsung slider with a 2 MP camera, so for me there's nowhere to go but up. I, and I think most other people, are pretty easy to satisfy in that department anyway.
Also, travel? Like, around the US? I think I'll be fine, plenty of people seem to get by with AT&T just fine, right? And when I go overseas I have no one to call, and usually don't want to be contacted (that's part of the whole "vacation" thing) so I consider lack of overseas support a feature :)
It's Quad-band HSDPA, you'll be fine when travelling. It is missing 1700mhz, which is used by T-Mobile in the US (IIRC), and that's about it (I think there may be somewhere in South America as well, but I'm not sure).
Travelling with it will be more than fine. He doesn't know what he's talking about.
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.
Every Nexus except the S and Galaxy had the best SOC available at the time (The one and 4 had them before any other android phone). The Galaxy was the first 720p smartphone. They are high end, just not at all costs.
I love this "puts a floor on how bad the low-end phones can be" -- YES that's the really great thing about this. Very good for consumers, and competition, and the mobile ecosystem, and keeps pressure on Apple and everyone else involved to keep cranking up the awesome.
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.
I'm not so sure they will just "leave the high-end market" to the rest, but they may try changing things up at the high-end, such as with highly customizable "ARA" phones:
> And yeah, Google isn't in the position of competing with companies that it needs.
Why not? Motorola's Moto X is pretty high end and Google is spending $500M on just advertising it this year[1], beating Samsung's and Apple's ad spending. In watching a couple of hours of primetime TV in the US, I usually see 3 to 4 Moto X ads, and almost the same number of Windows 8/Surface ads. However, sales seem to be quite sluggish[2].
Motorola can't be making all that much money on Moto G and it seems to be Google's loss leader just like Microsoft's Lumia 520/521 at $69 to $99 unlocked(Surprised the article didn't mention it at all or compare it against the Moto G, it's a surprisingly fast phone for that price). Meanwhile Motorola's losses continue to grow every quarter and continue to be a drag on Google's earnings [3]
. I guess the pressure is on Motorola to deliver, but even if this phone sells well, I doubt it's going to help them unless they're going to make money from ads and/or Google Play sales on those phones.
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.
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 developers.
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 many people thought "Oh, I'll get a shuffle because I can't afford a regular iPod."
The fact that Apple continues to offer the previous years' iPhones is actually kind of unusual with regards to the structure of their past product lines. It's how they are trying to cater to different price brackets rather than use-cases.
> For example, the shuffle seemed more aimed at people who wanted something easy and light to clip on while exercising.
Speaking for myself, the shuffle is definitely aimed at my use case (I actually used a zen stone). I want to control my in-car music by hooking up a player with a purely tactile interface. Using my phone means every time I want to interfere with the player, I have to look at the screen... a huge step backwards in usability.
The zen stone had an adavantage that an ipod shuffle might or might not also have... no one ever broke into my car to steal it (although it was taken when they broke into my car to steal my backpack).
If you are buying for someone else - a child - then you might buy a low end shuffle because you are cheapskate.
As for use cases, phones are all for adults, or rather every age group. Apple and others have not brought out products that are for kids or old age folk, as in specifically for them, e.g. with restrictions on in app purchases and porn where some 'mothership' device can be asked to yay or nay an action. Also, there 'should' be a phone for old folks that is full featured yet only presents a simple dialler on the home screen.
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.
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.)
You took the wrong lesson home. Disruption isn't "low-cost" same product category. Disruption is totally new product category that obviates old category. Between iPods -> iPhones, Macs -> iPads, I'm not worried about Apple being scared to take these leaps as long as they get to own the profit margins.
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).
As a daily Windows Phone user, android user, and former iOS user, I'm curious to hear what apps you think are missing? I moved from my iPhone to Lumia and am only missing a google hangouts app (due to google choosing not to support the platform).
There's no "decent" Weather apps - that's obviously subjective, but WeatherPro for iOS and Android I really liked.
I still miss iOS's weather app really, the built-in one on the HTC One (don't know if it's Android's default) is a bit crap - made worse by the fact that different screens of the Android interface seem to think they're in different geographic locations.
Also there's no port of certain apps I rely on a lot like CityMapper, and the best guitar tuner app I've found on iOS or Android: Cleartune.
Have a look at this link[1], you can find reviews for ton of weather apps. Every week a new weather app is released on WP, i am sure you find the one you like.
Wow, $70 for that phone? I've been using an old Nokia E71 with a straight talk plan for a couple of years now because I didn't want to spend a few hundred on a phone. Looks like it might be time for an upgrade. How's the browser on it?
Ignoring the font hinting (the font is barely readable when fully zoomed out - in contrast to on iOS and Android, although with the 4S and HTC One I had retina screens, so maybe it's not a fair comparison), the only thing really annoying me with the browser is more a general Windows Phone issue - in text boxes, I haven't worked out how to move the text caret position in the URL - by default it seems to autoselect parts, meaning it's very tedious try to fix incorrectly-typed URLs... I guess the answer is get it right first time...
I wish there was a way to make "Open in new link" tabs open in the background like on Android as well, but as far as I remember iOS had that annoyance too.
>the only thing really annoying me with the browser is more a general Windows Phone issue - in text boxes, I haven't worked out how to move the text caret position in the URL
If you want to place your cursor in the middle of some text you've already written, tap and hold the screen near the text you want to change until a cursor appears, then drag your finger to move the cursor exactly where you want it.
If you feel that the default browser is not customizable enough, try UCBrowser[1], it provides an option to open new links in background.
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.
Your problem is that you believe sensible plans are offered in the American market at all. Look at all the love people express for t-mobile's $30 / month plan. That's because it is leaps and bounds ahead of anything else you can get.
In China, I pay about US$15 every 3-4 months for a level of texting and voice talk that would easily cost $30 / month by itself in the US. (I don't have a data plan.)
I've tried going prepaid (also t-mobile) in the US. The economics worked out as long as I never expected to use my phone at all; if I expected anything, it was a money loss. And even while I expected nothing, I had to keep paying $10 / month so that all my paid credit wouldn't suddenly expire.
The market for phone voice service isn't exactly the entirety of each country. "What failed in the US", if we want to compare only the situation in the US with that in China, could easily be that people in the US have so much more money that phone service prices are nine times higher.
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 things.
This situation is not helped by the fact that the carriers have steadfastly refused to standardize on wireless technologies. Even the two GSM carriers (AT&T and T-mobile) have never agreed on the same set of frequencies for data... so eg., AT&T HS(D)P(+) devices (e.g. Galaxy Nexus, iPhone 4) didn't quite work on T-mobile and vice-versa. The regulatory agency (FCC) has basically been either helpless or complicit and maintaining the status quo.
Things might get a bit more competitive with LTE (with more standardized hardware etc.) but there doesn't seem to be any incentives for the big carriers to stop this effective collusion to start a price war. T-mobile seems to be breaking ranks in some ways but I haven't really seen a pricing strategy designed to pull the crowds yet even from them.
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.
Have you found a prepaid carrier in the US with adequate roaming coverage? Prepaid coverage maps are typically (always?) much, much weaker than contract coverage maps.
Your math isn't correct. If one switches to T-Mobile in the US, you get pretty substantive savings. The con is that you don't get a phone subsidy.
I did the math a while ago. Don't know how it holds up. As a datapoint, we pay between $90-$100 for two phone lines with T-mobile. Includes 500MB data/tethering per phone, unlimited minutes in the US and text messages.
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.
The biggest problem with that is most carriers don't give you a discount if you own your own phone. So you can either pay $50 a month and get your handset for $200 or pay $50 and get your handset for $600. Which one makes more financial sense?
Many carriers are starting to give discounts. T-Mobile does already. Also, I can use an MVNO for quite a bit cheaper than a subscription plan, but I need a phone to do that. Most of the MVNOs will sell you a phone, but it will be a either a full-price model, or a terrible piece of crap.
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.
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.
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 and Windows.
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
Yes, Apple did get an large share of the market simply by being first to the "fully-touch-screen phone market" with the first iPhone. It depends on how Apple views this. Will they start introducing sub $200 (no contract) products?
Apple seems to be aiming to fill the cheaper price points with tablets. Their idea seems to be, $1k+ laptops, $300-$900 iPads.
Within those price points they're nowadays pretty reasonably priced. There used be a significant "mac tax" versus similarly specced PCs, but a MacBook Air or Pro these days compares pretty reasonably to the stuff Dell is putting out. If you want a dual i5 with 128 GB SSD and 8 hours of battery life, the Macbook Air's $999 price point is within the norm.
The main market they aren't competing in is sub-$1000 laptop form factors, like the Chromebooks. That seems to be less an unwillingness to compete on the low end, and more a disagreement over what it will look like: Google is betting on a netbook-esque form factor at ~$400, while Apple is betting on a tablet form factor in that price range.
A sustainable business with larger profit margins is usually better to have than one with smaller profit margins. Also, a business with clients who have deeper pockets is better than a business dealing with those who have less disposable income.
Apple's strategy had them circling the drain for many years, with too little volume to build a decent supply chain and hit sane price points. They all but gave up on making open tools and moved down to crippled appliances, and even then I was honestly surprised they survived.
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", you get thinkpad or elitebook with 1600*900 TN panel and rotary storage. That sucks.
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.
Google is making a big play on smartphone for everyone model. Now if they could get carriers to agree to cheaper data model, their hand would be really strong. To some extent this favors T-Mobile and other no-discount/cheaper plans carriers.
Google's play is to bypass the carrier altogether, which they will do as soon they get broadband in many homes and use their own souped up wifi routers to create a network that will allow you to be forever internet-connected. And when you are not, they will roam.
I think this is Google's long term plan, and its a pretty great one. You will literally be connected anywhere on the globe with Google Fiber based HetNet wireless, and wifi beamed down on the rest of the earth from Balloons.
I am not sure balloons are viable. For short term disaster sure, but long term is too much maintenance. Besides worsening hurricane/wind trend is likely to continue. I think they might just deploy network of cube sats, and figure out low power satellite uplink if they are really shooting for global connectivity.
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.
Unlimited 2G data. LTE is limited to 5GB per month. I've hit their throttle before, and while it's nice that you don't go dark, it's not for normal use.
It depends. 1.5 hours of facetime will use ~1gb, and streaming 1 hour of music every day will run at 1gb over the month. Add browsing during commute and you're getting close. It's probably not "normal" in the sense of average, but for the heavy consumer, they will have to moderate their usage.
I'm on the verge of doing the exact same thing. On that plan are you able to use any of that data for tethering or mobile hotspot? A customer service rep said you can use all of your "up to 5GB" 4G data for tethering if you want, but I found that a little hard to believe.
I'd extend this statement and say that the Moto G puts every single cheap phone to shame. Not just Android. It becomes very hard to justify a Lumia at $400 or an iPhone 4S at a ludicrous $450 when we have a flagship Nexus at $350 and now the Moto G at $179.
Combine that with the defiant cries against consumerism and wastefulness with Project Ara, and Google has really raised the bar by quite a bit for what a mobile phone OEM is capable of. It will be interesting to see what happens 3, 4 years down the line when the market fully resaturates with more price-friendly and DIY-friendly phones.
Moto G is a great balance of price and performance. It is also much more sensible for a Google-owned OEM to pursue a distinctive niche in the market than to compete with Google's partners across their whole product line.
BUT that's just one handset. Nobody knows what Motorola will do next. Is Google shining it up to sell? That would be sensible.
Motorola is a huge addition to Google's headcount that produces far less than the typical Google product group. Motorola competes with Google's partners. Google would be better off with Motorola as an OEM partner than as a subsidiary.
My understanding is Google bought Motorola primarily for their patent portfolio, so they'd have some weapons to aim at Apple and ward off lawsuits through mutually-assured destruction.
Is it possible for them to sell off Motorola's hardware operations while retaining their IP?
Many people assumed this is what would have happened by now. Maybe it's a problem Google is avoiding: What if OEM + patents adds up to nowhere near $12B? Google risks distracting management and annoying partners by dithering.
I think questions need to begin to be asked about Google getting close to giving the hardware away in return for user information. It gets dangerously close to the kind of practices that got MS in trouble, especially the way it ends up poisoning the market for anyone else.
The problem is competition is good, and if users want their privacy they probably should be going to pay for it, but I'm profoundly uncomfortable with essentially condemning those that can't afford it to having to surrender their rights to privacy.
"I'm profoundly uncomfortable with essentially condemning those that can't afford it to having to surrender their rights to privacy."
You appear to be implying that you can get extra privacy by buying a more expensive phone. However, the Moto G does not actually seem to be any more or any less invading of privacy compared to any other Android phone out there (and arguably not moreso even compared to Windows Phones and iPhones). Even if those phones are much more expensive than it.
Furthermore, the inevitable popularity of the Moto G only means that you will be able to load it with a custom ROM that gives you as much control as you want, like Cyanogenmod/OmniROM without Google apps.
Google rightly gets flak for privacy issues, but I think you're going too far by getting the privacy debate into hardware pricing as well.
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 now many will.
Further, I think Google are monopolising areas such as push email to such a degree they should be forced, MS in EU style, to give you a choice of accounts you can use to access things on the device when first started up. For example, there is no technical reason you couldn't use your twitter (or any OAuth) account as your ID, even when accessing Google services like the Play Store, but they are using all this to weasel Google+ in everywhere.
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.
Unless all the weather data from pretty much everywhere is streamed constantly to your phone. Then you can do the query by location effectively offline.
Google Play Location Services are backed with GPS and/or network location(!?)
It's just a wrapper that has some nice functionality around trying to preserve battery use by sharing location requests between the multiple applications that need it. See [1] for the details. Here is a useful quote:
Applications cannot specify the exact location sources, such as GPS, that are used by the LocationClient. In fact, the system may have multiple location sources (providers) running and may fuse the results from several sources into a single Location object.
How do you think Google works out your location otherwise?
The laws Microsoft ran afoul of were under the general category of, "Things you're not allowed to do if you have a monopoly", and the court found that Windows was a monopoly, primarily because the switching costs were so high.
Do you feel Google has a monopoly (i.e., tremendous market share, high switching costs)?
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.
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 same revenue streams to engage in serious competition.
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.
Google is not in business of making money with selling hardware like Apple and Samsung. Google is selling a platform, and then makes money from people using it.
Thin margins are great. Innovation typically happens more when margins are thinner. When profit is easy it's easy to be lasy, which we've seen. It'll be nice to see the market tighten up more and people actually have to earn money by servicing the customer.
You worry too much. Google can afford to blow some cash on a long-term strategy. They'll be fine.
Company X will either sink or swim. If they sink, Company Y will take their place once Google's long-term plan reaches maturity and the value of their phones begins stagnating.
It's a cliche that so many people hate to hear, but the market will sort it out.
Consumer electronics is one of the least regulated sectors worldwide, yet it has been advancing by leaps and bounds for some three decades, and the diversity of companies large and small in the consumer electronics space has never been greater than it is today.
>It's tempting to think of the Moto G as some kind of "Nexus Jr.," a cheaper way to buy into the clean UI and quick software updates that Google's reference phones have always received. However, Google is making no promises about versions of Android beyond version 4.4, and speculating about whether Android 4.5 or 5.0 or whatever will roll out to the Moto phones as quickly as KitKat is a pointless exercise.
How so? The quick software updates is a selling point to devs but not so much to consumers. We aren't their target market. It seems like a good place to cut costs since you don't have the huge reaccuring engineering costs and there is much more freedom on part selection
Google is interested in building Android as a platform. Having 80% of your install base stuck 4 versions behind[1] is a crappy way of doing it. Even after they've moved more and more of the platform into the Play frameworks you're still leaving users without a bunch of improvements to the core platform, not to mention security fixes. iOS is miles ahead on this front exactly because it controls the hardware. That Google doesn't do the same now that it also controls the hardware seems short-sighted.
Building a 150$ great phone would allow them to set a feature/quality floor for the market. If they forced their suppliers so the hardware in these phones is properly supported upstream, targeting new versions of Android should be pretty easy. When Ubuntu launches a new version it doesn't need to go and retrofit it to the thousand different types of laptop out there. The state of Android though is that the GPU/Camera/whatever drivers are binary blobs locked in to a specific kernel version.
and they could/should have done this 4 years ago, minus the hardware, simply by tightening the licensing model. you want to say you're "android" and use our software? You have conform to these minimums.
most people could predict from a mile away that when there's no restrictions on it, the carriers and manufacturers will generally race to the bottom in terms of quality and support. ESPECIALLY when the google name is tangentially attached to something, why would they bother making a good hardware model or updating it regularly? laypeople - who they are targeting - will blame google before they blame a handset maker or carrier.
Four years ago Android was well behind iOS, RIM was still around, OEMs were still considering having their own smartphone OSes, and Google had minimal leverage. There's a good chance the OEMs would have refused to go with an Android with a tighter licensing model.
Point in case: I have a Galaxy Nexus that is fewer than two years old that won't receive any future releases because it's old enough they don't want to bother with.... not that it isn't capable... they just don't want to bother updating devices that are older than X (where X = less than the average contract length in the US).
I kind of wonder if that's because a lot of updates are rolled out poorly to older devices. On my previous two phones, I've ended up running CyanogenMod or another third-party ROM, even at the same base Android version at the stock OTA updates, because many times even the RC versions run better than what's getting pushed by the carrier. Verizon customer here though, so I don't know if other networks are better about that. I also wouldn't be terribly surprised if that effect (wanting a new phone over an update) is intentional.
Part of it is just change. One day, I needed to pull up the map on my Nexus phone -- and it had a completely different interface to it. I had to sit in a parking lot for an extra 15 minutes to get it to do what I wanted.
Now I've got KitKat, and the phone dialer has changed -- I have to hit an extra button to get all my contacts, and I don't like the "premium" spots being automatically populated (there are only 3 large icons, and room for two smaller icons, in the quick-access screen). The most important contact is the one I need right then.
Oh, and I also have to re-agree to the license terms on a number of apps whenever I launch them the first time after an upgrade. And my tethering is no longer working. And the flashlight app that worked fine is now rebooting the phone randomly after it is on for a few seconds. At this point, I'm ready to wipe and re-install the older OS version.
In this case, it was the free/free one from F-droid -- I always go there first for utility-type apps, before hitting one of the app stores. I think this is actually why I was so upset, is I don't want to have to resort to a flashlight app (or any utility for that matter) that may be doing other things behind the scenes.
The hardware could be completely capable of handling it but the software isn't. A lot of times when you buy an ARM SoC it comes with a supported kernel from the manufacturer and some documentation(but sometimes for various reasons a lot is missing). To ensure that you can always port the newest version of Android to a phone you need to ensure you can port the newest kernel. Limiting yourself only to well supported mainlined chips or to chips that you have all the documentation you need to maintain your own branch greatly limits your options and can run up costs a ton.
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.
The Galaxy Nexus was launched in the US 2 years ago today. It was sold until about 1 year ago, by Google. They are refusing KitKat for it due to it being obsolete.
A (barely more than) one-year-old NEXUS phone is obsolete......
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).
And said phone also has removable battery, dual SIMs, and support for a 32GB SD card.
This might put ever single "cheap" Android phone of a brand well known in Europe and the US to shame, but from the specs given it's middle of the pack fo cheap Android phones overall (it's likely to be a bit faster and with better graphics performance than most low end Android phones, but lower resolution and lacking camera and storage e.g.)
>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 contract so this costs about 1/3 as much.
Most of these phones are very good quality and the main "problem" to be aware of is that the MTK SoC's are not the fastests alternative. Then again, neither is the one in the Moto G.
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.
The issue is that you don't get any support with this phones, while with Moto G they will just replace your device with a new one If something happens. To many average customers this factor is enough to deter them from buying phones you mentioned.
That, or he has non-branded phone straight from china. You can find quite some interesting things on dealextreme or similar site, if you're feeling adventurous.
Well, unknown-in-the-West brand. It's a Star phone bought off Amazon Marketplace.
Could have gotten it even cheaper straight from China, but didn't feel quite adventurous enough to order direct and not have a local distributor to deal with at that point. My next phone probably will be.
just like nexuses. still sends all the info to google by default, that's not something we can deny.
in fact, even if you flash it, you'll want google play services, and it then still sends all the info to google again.
So unless you can live without gapps (some apps won't even work without it nowadays, due to calls to the proprietary API), you're a little screwed.. well thats unless you wanna port FirefoxOS to it or something.
> default android phone sends your location to google, as well as your contacts, app list, app usage, calendars, todo list and some other things.
By default it does none of those things. You have to hit "yes" to enable the location reporting which defaults to off but which you are asked to enable the first time you add a Google account.
The rest isn't done at all unless you are using the Google services to sync that data. Which is only an option if you've added a Google account.
My Lenovo P780 was only $80 more expensive, but its battery has the highest capacity on the market, 4000 mAh. The phone holds the charge for >2 days of quite intensive use. I had Samsung Galaxy Note before this one, but now don't understand why anyone would choose top end phones from the brands like Samsung or Apple, if half of the cost of a phone goes to profit their shareholders.
>don't understand why anyone would choose top end phones from the brands like Samsung or Apple, if half of the cost of a phone goes to profit their shareholders.
When consumers spend money to buy products, where the money goes (whether it's costs of production or shareholder profit) almost never factors into the purchase decision.
Rightfully so. For instance, a new manufacturer comes in, and has high costs due to inefficiencies and lack of economies of scale, how does that help me in making decisions?
While low prices can make purchase more compelling, the lack of profits never does.
Does your phone support LTE? Does it run a modern version of Android? Does it have a modern SoC? Does it sync with my Fitbit? Is it widely available in the US? Can I get after sales support?
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 makes the lack of LTE even more acute.
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.
Right, but t-mobile is pretty much the only carrier with a really solid HSPA+ network, and has a tiny minority of the overall market. I've got a Lumia 620, which doesn't do LTE, and it's really not great on ATT.
It depends entirely where you are. I've had T-Mobile since the original G1 (first commercial Android phone) came out in NYC and have had no issues. Service is a bit spotty on the train up to Albany/Rochestor, but it is with all the carriers. The only places you have trouble with T-Mobile is when you get in rural areas, which I usually don't. The one exception is part of my family we visit and only Verizon has coverage by them. In that case, I just switch to wifi calling at their house. Or turn it off for a while.
In the states, if you're obsessive about your phone being on every minute of every day (and, realistically, anyone actually that important... as opposed to thinking they are for their startup... is still forced to carry a pager), you basically have to go with Verizon. That's why I have a Verizon hotspot as a backup. Not as a backup for T-Mobile, but as a backup for Time Warner, since it goes down at least once a month for a little while and down for a full day every few months.
This is one reason I'm always surprised people buy anything other than a Nexus device. You have a new phone, and it's running an OS that's already a year old.
If battery capacity is your main issue, you can do better with an aftermarket one. I got a 4500 mAh for my Galaxy S3 for $30! Of course, it requires a new case because it's enormous...
It wasn't my main issue, until I got it. I was very restricted with my Samsung before, because I would always end up with dead battery during just a one day of intensive usage. As for the size, it's absolutely manageable, maybe a little thicker than most of the 5" phones.
Well, all I can say is that until last week I was still using my Nokia 6500c. This Moto G is the fist smart phone that for me does enough to warrant the price; UK £120, unlocked. So, I bought one.
Is Moto-G now good enough to replace an iPod touch? for a no-contract 'smartphone' that doesn't need to be up on 4g all of the time (say w/good wi-fi acesss)? Because it sure seems like a better deal in terms of functionality. The main limitation/constraint IMHO is the memory [8 or 16 GB NAND flash], which seems arbitrarily low. (ie, >5 years out of date).
If you just want a media player, pick up almost any current generation chinese Android phones from Alibaba/Aliexpress. Many will be as cheap or cheaper, with plenty of them offering 1920x1080, and pretty much all of them supports 32GB or 64GB SD cards.
Yeah barring the storage part - it is definitely a great iPod Touch replacement. You might be able to live with the 16GB if you stream stuff instead of playing it locally. There are many media player apps (Archos one that I use is great - even the free version) that can play videos from SMB shares etc.
Looking into it. I understand there might be legal issues around Airplay and that Google did something to Chromecast to disallow "unofficial" use cases :(
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.
Xiaomi competes for the consumers who are jealous of the UX of iOS but could not afford a real iPhone. Also Xiaomi fails to match the demands to its flagship products time and time and always runs into shortages.
Yes, India might be a target, though by the time it goes through customs, it won't be $179 anymore. It will be more like $250 - 300. At that price range there are many other good alternatives available here (especially rebranded Chinese ones, that work quite well).
We're comparing entry level but quality phones. 5c is Apple's entry level phone at $549. Moto G is Motorola's at $179. There are lots of cheaper Androids as well as Androids that match the 5c in CPU and screen for less money as well as deals you can get on refurbished/last years phones from both companies, but we're specifically comparing what a new entry level phone is.
Half price Firefox OS phones like the ZTE Open are more impressive and better for your freedom.
Google want your communications, thinking, location, habits... this is worse than Mastercard or Xperian issuing you a phone. It's fundamentally evil, regardless of how they dress it up.
While Firefox OS is indeed impressive and good for freedom, for someone used to better screen the 320*480 screen of ZTE Open is pretty terrible to use.
I hope that soon we can get something like Moto G with FxOS.
I've got good recommendations on Lenovo A820 (http://www.gsmarena.com/lenovo_a820-5462.php) which has about the same price but a little lower.
What would you buy? A Moto G or a Lenovo A820?
It looks like Moto G has slightly better screen, newer OS, and better integration with Google services, while A820 has micro sd slot and better camera. If none of that is critical for you - I would say get a feel for both of them and go with one you like better. There is nothing fundamentally better about specs on either phone.
Keep in mind the A820 has an MTK SoC which could affect the timely adoption of later firmware vs the Moto G's Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, which is well supported by many ROM authors.
I've used this phone and the lack of dual-band wifi causes some issues with wifi-connectivity. Its range is less than my Nexus 4 and it will sporadically lose connectivity over wifi, more often than other Android devices I've used.
As someone in the US, I'm not really willing to buy a phone with no LTE in this day and age, and carriers will loathe to put them in stores. I think even HTC's Facebook phone from last year is a better attempt than this, goes for free on contract, and could probably be obtained as cheaply off ebay. I doubt this is really meant to sell in the US anyway, though.
To me this was a huge WTF? If they went to the trouble of making the back easily detachable, why did they deliberately do that? Almost feels like they're trolling the user: "Ha! Fooled you!"
I don't get it. If you're using a smart phone for all the things that smart phones do (audio, photo albums, video), 16GB just isn't enough. Even my 32GB iPhone requires active file management to avoid hitting the limit.
I have not had a phone with over 32GB for the past 2 years and yet I've never had to perform "active file management" or delete any media from my phone. I consume all my music through Grooveshark and Play Music and watch videos on Netflix or YouTube.
Do you only use your phone at home or when you have Wi-Fi access? (Do you live in South Korea?) Most US cellular data plans don't allow very much streaming audio, let alone video, before you hit a cap. Certainly not a month's worth.
Source: I've easily hit my cap when I mistakenly turned off Wi-Fi.
Smart music services (such as Play) will use this radical new technology called caching so that you don't have to stream everything you listen to if you have things you listen to more often.
I stream music and browse the web (including FB) almost every day of the week and I've never hit my 2GB data cap. My 16 GB hard drive is more than enough.
I bought 3 moto g's and on the day they arrived switched the entire family to tmobile. I had enough of Verizon and now my bill is $100 a month. Can't beat that.
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.
There's only one family plan on the T-Mobile site now, called Simple Choice. It's $80/mo for 2 lines with unlimited talk + text + web (500MB at 4G per phone then slower speed), and $10/mo for each line after that. There's no contract or credit check, and you either bring your phone or buy one from them -- unsubsidized but payment plans available.
