Moto E 2nd Gen Review: Budget Android Smartphone for Beginners

Are you looking for a budget smartphone or first time smartphone user? Then, Moto E 2nd gen is good choice for you. With the failure of Moto E 1st generation (gen), Motorola (Manufacturer) thinks slightly improved version and results in new Moto E, also known as Motorola Moto E 2/Moto E+1/X1506. Now the latest version of Moto E with LTE (4G) and other spec improved one is available all over the world.

Moto E 2nd Gen Key Features:- 4.5 inch TFT LCD touch screen; expandable storage memory of 32 GB; Android v5.0 Lollipop OS; Dual microSIM (2G and 3G); 1.2 GHz Quad core processor; 5 MP rear camera with video recording; 0.3 MP front facing camera; Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v4.0 LE, microUSB and 3.5mm headphone jack connectivity’s.

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The Pros

• Android v5.0 Lollipop OS
• Decent performance
• Good Build Quality
• Low price
• Good Batterylife
• Improved than Moto E (1st gen)

The Cons

• Low front camera quality
• Rear camera is good, but depends on Light
• No LED flash
• No 4G support (GSM/3G only)
• No NFC connectivity

Click here to see Moto E 2nd Gen Price on Amazon

What is Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)?

Moto E 2nd Gen is very good, low price mobile phone, which provides better performance and batterylife than other budget smartphones. It is loaded with 1.2 GHz,Qualcomm 8212 Snapdragon 200 series 4-core processor with 1 GB RAM and have graphics processing unit of Adreno 302 makes it more faster and smoother in operation. The latest Android V5.0.2 Lollipop improves the user-interface of 2nd generation moto e and it is looks great as compared with others. It also provides 8 GB internal storage memory.

However, it is very disappointing me as comes to camera and networking features. Front camera is VGA and has only 0.3 Mega pixel results low image quality for selfies. It supports up to 3G networks. Therefore, in my opinion, it does not provide any value to the current market situation. Because the other competitors such as Lenovo A6000, Xiaomi Redmi 2 etc provide LTE (4G) network with same price range. Now Moto E 2nd generation 4G smartphones are available at online stores of Amazon (USA), Flipkart (India) or from Motorola’s official website.

Overall, Moto E 2nd Gen (3G) is good smartphone with decent performance and good batterylife. The Lollipop update makes this phone more user-friendly and quick access of different options like notifications, camera etc. It’s recommended for first-time users.

Moto E 2nd Gen Review: Design&Build (8/10)

New Motorola’s Moto E 2nd generation is quite different from competitors (Redmi 2 & A6000) design. It has curvy design with center portion have more thickness than side. Unlike th bar form design of competitors, Moto E choose the curvy design which looks nice and smarter. It is 129.9 mm in length and 66.8 mm in width.

Due to the curvy design, center portion is 12.3 mm thick and both sides are 5.2 mm. The filleted corners and curved back enhances the look of this budget smartphone. The sides are completely covered with rubberized grip, which provides easy handling, portability and single-handed use. The rubberized grips are also available in various colors.

It looks like solid mobile phones with shock absorbing ad portable design fits in your pocket. The weight is around 145 grams which more than Lenovo A6000. The display screen is covered by corning gorilla glass 3, which is much more resistant against damage and scratch.

It contains native damage resistance feature provides toughness to display glass and resistance power improved up to 3 times than gorilla glass 2. Anti-smudge coating enables the resistance against the water contents and smudge particles. It provides a provision for easy cleaning of your screen and helps to avoid additional expense of buying new screen guard.

The power and volume buttons are arranged in the right side of phone as mentioned order and very easy to access single hand. The two-microSIM slots are arranged at the backside and find microSD card slot. The headphone jack is find the Top center portion and microUSB port at bottom center.

Overall, these design features provides unique look as compared with other bar formed low price smartphone. In terms of design and build, Moto E second generation is scores 8 out of 10 on honest review.net.

Moto E 2nd Gen Review: Performance (7/10)

The performance of Motorola Moto E (2nd gen) is satisfactory for operations like apps launch times, user-interface usage smoothing, internet browsing etc. It have Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 series processor with cloak speed of 1.2 GHz, quad-core central processing unit combines with 1 GB RAM provides constant performance throughout the phone features as compared with A6000. The android Lollipop has 64-bit user-interface runs smoother on this device without any lag.

Read More: SoC Smartphone Processors

Due to the Quad-core threads, the multitasking ability is improved as compared to post version of Moto E. Example for multitasking is net browsing by listening music. Snapdragon 200 series processor have RISC design, means reduced instruction set computing which makes it more faster execution and processing of data’s.

The performance is also depends on the display feature of your phone. The Moto E 2nd gen have Adreno 302 (400 MHz) graphics processing unit, which takes the display load of 64 bit android and results enhanced images and views.

For the Normal use, moto E is superb in performance and while switching on to video games (high end or low), that loads faster but uses more RAM for gaming and also drains the battery as compared with other processes. With Moto E 2nd gen, shutdown other opened apps before starting to play games on it.

Internet browsing is very easy and feels no lag for loading small sites. If you are loading higher image and ads site more data and slight lag feels during the webpage scrolling.

Overall, Moto E 2nd generation (2014) provides decent performance with 1 GB RAM for normal apps usage and internet browsing. High end gaming is quite difficult with this low price mobile phone. In my suggestion, if you are looking for smartphone for gaming purpose, better to move on the high-end specifications. If you want higher performance specs within this price range, you can prefer A600 or Redmi 2.

Note:- Do not look over the benchmark scores for buying Smartphone’s. It would not tell the complete story of any of features inside the smartphone. So, try to read honest reviews of mobile phones before making a decision.

Moto E 2nd Gen Review: Display (6/10)

Motorola Moto E 2014 have 4.5 inch LCD IPS display, with very low resolution 540 x 960 pixels while, Lenovo a6000 and redmi 2 provides 720p which looks more better than the moto E’s display. It have around 245 ppi (pixel density); better than Lumia 625.

The display looks more smooth, sharp and have good color combination that nicely suits with Android Lollipop interface. The light reflection is less and nice to see at various angles. Overall, display is good but not excellent, because A6000 and Redmi 2 provide much more enhanced display within this price range.

Moto E 2nd Gen Review: Software (10/10)

The new android version 5.0.2 called Lollipop is now runs on the Motorola Moto E 2015 smartphone, which is extremely smooth without any lag. The new android version have several interface improvements such as notifications at front screen, quick camera capture feature etc. The menu components, top screen drag, opened apps cascading etc are very nice . Totally user-interface much more improved in Lollipop update of Android.

The touchscreen effects are also improved and instant than kitkat version. In the kitkat version, the notifications access only through top drag menu. It is difficult one while Bluetooth date transferring, because file accept notifications comes to this drag menu. Only regular users knows the how to access notifications. In the Lollipop update, android provides solution and now onwards notifications can access from your lock screen. The new operating system (OS) more user-friendly and easy to access the setting with less touch moves.

Read More: Smartphone Operating System (OS) Explained

Moto E 2nd Gen Apps

Basic apps installed are phone book, Googleplay store, Gmail, YouTube, Google chrome, Motorola assist, Motorola migrate, Moto music players, video players etc. Googleplay store is more useful one helps to buy or free download apps you needed. The wide range of apps collection is main advantage of Android phones over other OS such as iOS, Windows 8.1 or Blackberry. Phone book memory is an in-built app, which manages the phone contacts, call logs, and dial features.

Moto E 2nd Gen Review: Camera (6/10)

It has 5 MP rear and 0.3 MP front camera, which did well on the bright light conditions. The 5 MP camera, f/2.2 lens aperture with no LED flash works better in good light conditions and helps to take detailed photos of object as you want. The focusing is completely automatic. To take photos, just need to tap on the camera screen interface and automatically focus and take shots. Bright light shots are looks better than low light pictures. Rear camera also offers 4X digital zoom. Auto HDR helps to get more enhanced photos with well-balanced light.

The front camera only 0.3 MP, which is really disappointing one. It takes only VGA quality (low detailed) photos, but their processing speed is very high.

The camera also offers 30 fps, 480p HD video recording with auto focus feature and recording video quality is also depends upon the light conditions. That is good quality videos produced only with bright light conditions only, otherwise results bad quality.

Moto E 2nd Gen Review: Battery (7/10)

This smartphone have 2390 mAh battery capacity, which is slightly larger than Redmi 2 and A6000 (2300 mAh). The batterylife is improved as compared with Moto E 1st generation device, mainly due to android lollipop update. The new android OS have battery saver feature extends the use by up to 90 minutes. It also calculates the estimated time needed for full charging of your device.

In my experience, batterylife up to 28 hours for mixed use. The battery is drains more for internet and gaming usage. The phone calling, music player and videos etc will take less charge as compared with internet usage.

Moto E 2nd Gen Review: Other Features (8/10)

Network

This model of Moto E supports both 3G and 2G networks and has no 4G support. Latest version Moto E with 4G LTE support is available on the online market. The supported networks are GSM/GPRS/EDGE (Global band series 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) and UMTS/HSPA (850, 900, 1800, 1900,2100 MHz). It supports dual sim cards at a time, both of them are microSIM. The 1st microsim slot provides both 3G and 2G, while 2nd sim slot only provides 2G network. This phone also supports location services such as GPS, AGPS and GLONASS.

Connectivity

Moto E 2nd generation has 4 types of external connectivity options such as Bluetooth v4.0, Wi-Fi, microUSB and 3.5mm headphone jack. It uses the latest Bluetooth technology of version 4.0 LE makes the data transfer more secure and speedy manner. It also uses Wi-Fi of 802.11b/g/n, easily detect the other Wi-Fi networks. The tethering feature helps to data transfer and internet connectivity much faster as compared to local Bluetooth transfer. For faster data transfer, needs tethering apps such as Xender or Shareit. There is no support of NFC like Sony Xperia L and Xperia Z. NFC means near filed communications. NFC enabled phones only needs a phone body to body touch for data transferring.

Storage

Moto E 2nd Generation has internal storage memory (ROM) of 8 GB, which is expandable up to 32 GB.

Speakers

It has Loudspeaker produce good sound quality and also provides headset, which is also good. It is great addition with this low price smartphone. Phone call quality is excellent. It also offers 2-mic support for calling features. External or removable storage memory of 16 GB or 32 GB recommended. Because increased use or filling of internal memory causes more processor overloading and ram usage. It wills reduce the mobile phone performance and results ultimate lag for all kind operations. To avoid this better to use external removable storage device such as Transcend 32GB micro SD Class 10 or Sandisk 8 GB class 4 or Samsung 16 GB MicroSD.

Sensors

It contains sensors such as Accelerometer (x2), Ambient Light, Proximity and Sensor Hub.

Finally

Moto E 2nd Gen is good smartphone have decent performance, good batterylife and improved new android lollipop operating system. It is very easy to use even for beginner. It is not high end specs phone not recommend for gamers.

It is highly recommend for Smartphone beginners and normal users. You can get better performance spec mobile phone within this price range are Xiaomi Redmi 2 and Lenovo A6000. However, if you are beginner or careless, not recommend because screen size higher, which result bigger size phone; difficult to handle as compared with Moto E 2nd Generation. Also 4G supported version now available on the market.


Moto E 2nd Gen Specifications:-

General Specs

Name	Moto E 2nd Generation
SIM Type	Dual MicroSIM (both GSM)
Storage	8 GB ROM; Expandable up to 32 GB; MicroSD Card
Operating System	Android Lollipop v5.0.2
Dimension	6.68 x 12.99 x 1.23 cm
Weight	145 g
BatteryLife	Avg. life up to 26 hours
Connectivity	Wi-Fi/Bluetooth v4.0 LE/EDGE/GPRS/USB/HSPA(3G)/UMTS
Tethering	USB/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth
Model no	XT1506 (2015)
Manufacturer	Motorola

Display & Performance Specs

Screen size	4.5 inches
Type	TFT LCD IPS display; 245 ppi; Multi-touch
Resolution	540 x 960 pixels
Glass Type	Corning Gorilla Glass 3
CPU	Quad core, Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 series (8212)
CPU Cloak Speed	1.2 GHz
RAM	1 GB
Graphics Driver	Adreno 302
Camera	5 MP (Auto focus & HDR); 480p Video recording; 4x digital zoom Front: 0.3 MP (VGA)

Miscellaneous

Port	Charging/microUSB
Audio	3.5 mm Headphone jack
Battery	2390 mAH; Lithium ion battery
Sensors	Ambient Light Sensor, Accelerometer, Sensor Hub, Proximity Sensor
What's in Box?	Moto E 2nd Gen Phone; Charger with microUSB cable; Headset; User Guide & Warranty card