Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I’ve been looking to replace my nearly 23 month old Nexus 5 for some time as the battery life was progressively declining. I considered opening up my Nexus 5, unscrewing things and getting a new battery, but had held off waiting for what the Nexus 5X would bring. In the meantime, I went on a questionably unsafe hike where it then poured and my Nexus 5 got more than a little wet. Needless to say, I needed a new phone as my Nexus 5 now had more than battery issues. I settled on the Moto G 2015 16GB, 2GB RAM version directly from Motorola. Motorola lets you custom design your phone with multiple color choices, storage, engraving, etc. I went with a white face, blue back and champagne metal accent. Easier to find I figure than my old black rectangles. Designing is simple and easy and the changes update real time with a 360 rotation. Ordering the Moto G was a snap, and in less than a week I had my Moto G in hand. SHINY EXTERIOR (or not really): The Moto G 2015 sports a 5” gorilla glass screen at a 1280 x 720 resolution for a 294 PPI. This is quite low compared to other phones out there, but the Moto G is also 33% or 50% of their price. Furthermore, higher resolutions require more powerful chips to run and suck up more power. Part of the reason I went with the Moto G over waiting for the Nexus 5X is because the Nexus 5X is rumored to have an even higher PPI than the Nexus 5 resulting in likely worse battery life. I can tell the difference between the Moto G and the Nexus 5 screens if I look real hard, but it doesn’t bother me. Screen to body ratio, or how much of the face is screen vs non-screen is 67%. Edge to edge screen this phone is not. Now the back is way different from my Nexus 5 in that it’s textured and easy to grip unlike the smooth backing of the Nexus 5. Still plastic, but I don’t see a problem with that at all. The texture however is likely to accumulate all kinds of gunk and dust, so I’m putting mine in a case as soon as it arrives. The backing comes off revealing a micro SIM and MicroSD ports. You can order additional different color backings directly from Motorola to customize your phone and change the colors based on whatever you feel like. The phone’s backing is curved with the audio port on the top. The top of the phone also curves down making audio port buttons like the Pressy PB01 The Android Smart Button Compatible with Galaxy, HTC, and Nexus Smartphones, Black not viable. Power button is on the right above the volume up and down. Speaker (unknown if mono or stereo at this time) and microphone are front facing with respectable sound. Front facing with along with a 5 MP at f/2.2. The back camera is a 13 MP at f/2.0 with dual flash. Weight is fairly average at 5.5 oz. There is no notification light. So the ability to glance at your phone and see whether an email, text message, Facebook post, Instagram post or anything you’ve assigned an LED light color is flashing is now gone. In its place, the screen will now selectively turn on a small portion of the screen with the icon of the application when a notification comes in. Not as useful by far, but still better than nothing. GUTS, WIRES, & SILICON: The Moto G is running a quad core Qualcomm S410 which is a fairly low to midgrade processor with a Adreno 306 graphics chip. The S410 is actually quite a big improvement over the S400 despite being granted just 10 higher in the naming nomenclature. The S410 uses 64 Bit computing, is a quadcore vs dual core, better efficiency and uses ARM v8 which is a superior instruction set. Basically, don’t be fooled by the low processor number, this processor can handle most peoples’ daily routine. Don’t expect to run mobile high performance games at max here, but this will easily handle mundane tasks. Furthermore, remember, low to midgrade processors tend to be more power efficient leading to, you guessed it, better battery life. Depending on the model you get, it will either be the 16GB/2GB Ram model or 8GB/1GB Ram model. I strongly suggest getting the 16GB/2GB Ram model. The 16GB model only had 11.81 GB free after OS. Android doesn't run all that well under load with just 1 GB of Ram. Battery is rated at 2,470 mAh and is fairly impressive in how long it takes to drain the battery. With a lower resolution screen and a low to midgrade processor, the battery life on a sub 3,000 mAh battery phone is very impressive. Battery is NOT removable. After extended use of this phone, two days is plausible if you aren't a big movie or game player. I get up at 6:30 in the morning and after checking email, Facebook and a few other apps, my phone is down to 95% by 9:00 am. Finishing my day at 5:00 has my phone down to 83% despite usage all through the day. Turning into bed at 10:00 pm has the phone down to 68%. I can go two days without a recharge, but I'm also not streaming video or playing games. Your mileage will of course vary. The reviews aren’t kidding about “all day battery.” See my screenshot for more information. 31% usage on 15 hours with frequent, but short usage. As usual, there is the standard Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS/GLONASS. iFixit hasn’t done a teardown of the 2015 Moto G, so I cannot be sure who’s making what chip. Odds are though it’s Broadcom providing the Bluetooth/GPS chip. There is NO NFC. I found that I rarely used NFC on my Nexus 5, so not a big deal to me. There’s an accelerometer and the regular gambit of sensors. There is however an FM radio that doesn’t rely on WiFi or a data plan. It does however require you to plug in headphones as they act as the antenna. The specification page says that the phone works with microSD cards up to 32GB. This is inaccurate. I currently have a 64GB microSD card working perfectly with over 30 GB of music on it. You will need to have the phone format the microSD card first before you can start moving files on to it. The Moto G 2015 apparently only reads FAT32 format which Windows will not format a larger than 32GB memory card to. Motorola I believe stated that up to 32GB as some larger cards may perform inconsistently. See my photo for more information. THE DIGITAL BITS, SOFTWARE: Motorola has adopted stock Android+, where the + is a few optional Motorola apps which are relatively useful. There is no Samsung Touchwiz, or LG, HTC or other manufacture skin on the phone that so regularly slows down devices running such skins. So if you like stock android, this is a huge benefit, out of the box virtually stock Android. My model shipped with Android 5.1 Lollipop. You get to decide what your phone looks like, the power is yours. Motorola has included a few Motorola apps which are pretty useful in learning your routine to keeping the screen off during your regular sleep hours, what to do based on certain motions of the phone, who’s calls and text messages to block and let through based on your calendar and so on and so forth. The best thing is that none of these are mandatory and you can completely ignore them should you wish to. It’s all up to you. USB OTG is enabled, but you do need a third party software package like the Nexus Media Importer application to read USB hard drives and flash drives. Mice work without any additional software. The microUSB port will not however connect through a wired CAT5 adapter to the internet (or at least mine didn’t play nice). If you’ve previously been on an Android phone, the transfer is super simple via either the built in app “migrate” or by Google’s cloud backup. The real nice software bit is that you don’t have to install every Google App in this process. Don’t want Google Keep/Wallet/Etc? Don’t install it. CONNECTIVITY: The phone will work with GSM and CDMA carriers, which includes all of the four major carriers in the US and their subsidiaries. Be aware T-Mobile and other GSM buyers, if you order directly from Motorola, you’ll get the XT1540 model which DOES NOT HAVE BAND 12. That band is required for voLTE which is a higher bandwidth form of data. Regular LTE and HSPA+ are supported. The CDMA version does have band 12 but lacks many of the bands to access GSM carrier frequencies. LOOK MA, I'M A PHOTOGRAPHER, THE CAMERA: The camera is a 13 megapixel at f/2.0 with dual flash with a front facing camera at 5 MP at f/2.2. Low light shots are mediocre at best, but well to moderately lit environments has the camera performing at a $500 smartphone level (see photo). Autofocus is reasonably fast and flash is bright. Stock software includes HDR, Panoramic, video recording as well as built in a QR/bar code reading software. There is no image stabilization software which may create some blurry photos, but you may be able to find some camera software app that can mitigate that. Considering that this phone costs $179 for the 8GB/1 GB Ram model and $219 for the 16GB/2 GB Ram model, the camera is beyond expectations. OH CRAP I DROPPED IT IN WATER, OH YEAH IT'S WATER RESISTANT: It’s amazing that a $179-219 phone is shipping with IPX7, which allows for 30 minutes submersion in fresh water without damage. How many people themselves or know someone who has damaged a smartphone by getting it wet? I’m guessing nearly everyone. With the Moto G 2015, you can carry on like normal when it rains, not freak out when someone spills a drink, and wash your phone under the faucet should it get dirty. Why can’t every brand follow Motorola on this? NOW FOR SOME CELL PHONE PHILOSOPHY: This phone is rock bottom cheap. But it’s not $199? Guess what? Phones selling for$199 never cost $199. They were really $500+ and $649 phones being sold at $199 with contract were in reality over 24 months well over $700. The $199 iPhone is a myth designed to sucker people into buying a phone and paying more than retail for it. John Ledger at T-Mobile bust this myth open and everyone is following him. Now, the question is, will this budget phone do the job? Ask yourself, what do you primarily do on your phone? Text? Calls? Email? Browsing? Youtube? WeChat? Amazon? Facebook? Candy Crush? Tweet? Instagram? If you answered yes to any of those, this phone is for you. Why spend $649 on a high powered phone that you will not use the capabilities of? Save that $430 and spend in something you will like gas, rent, food, etc. Or even better, invest it and when you need a new phone, buy it with the earnings from your $430 investment. Buy smart, and buy what you need and what you’ll actually use. And odds are, this phone will fit your needs just right at an absurdly low price. TLDR: Pros: Cheap, awesome battery life, decent camera, water resistant, back plate customization and microSD card Cons: No voLTE, no notification light, no NFC, no removable battery, midgrade resolution and midgrade performance