Motorola Moto E (2015) first impressions

You might have read about our coverage for the new Moto E (2015) which was launched in India last week. Well, we have a review unit in house and are ready with un-boxing video with our initial impressions about the device.

The new Motorola Moto E (2015) sports a 4.5-inch qHD IPS LCD display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection and a resolution of 540×960 pixels having 245ppi pixel density. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 chipset having a Quad-core 1.2GHz processor with Adreno 302. It comes with 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage which is much appreciated as it was one of the primary reason some of the people were disappointed due to limited storage. Alike the previous generation, it supports expandable storage upto 32GB via an external microSD card. It features a 5MP rear camera and a front-facing VGA camera which can record videos upto 720p. With 23% more battery than last time, the handset now runs on 2390mAh battery and the latest version of Android 5.0.2 Lollipop.

Spending a few hours after we shot the un-boxing video (attached above), we fairly got the first impressions of the device till now. The handset compared to the previous generation is definitely an improvement. It comes with a larger display (4.5-inch over 4.3-inch) though its not that significant. As mentioned above the new Moto E comes with 8GB internal storage that was like one of the greatest improvements over the previous generation. Due to 4GB internal storage and only 2.14GB being available to the user, the number of applications that one could install was very limited. In the newer model, total memory available to the user is 4.18GB out of 8GB which again might feel less for some. Motorola should have implemented this expandable memory solution much like the Android One handsets which make sure there is no multimedia content on the on-board storage.

The new Moto E also has a VGA front-facing camera which is just there for the sake of it to make it selfie ready. The battery though looks 23 percent higher but it would depend on actual use how much long we can run on a full charge. The rear snapper looks nothing different and probably features the same sensor from the previous generation. The handset supports dual SIM standby with 3G supported on both the micro SIM cards.

Talking about the design, the new Moto E sports better looks. It comes with removable colored frame which just adds to the package. So now, both the SIM card slots and microSD card slot is hidden under the frame and there is no further user involvement possible. Personally, we like the red frame with the black body and blue frame with the white body that we tried at the launch. There might be better combinations but they still need to be discovered. The new design also removes the false chrome lining on the front-bottom which has been used in the new Moto G and Moto X for true stereo speakers. Rest, it remains the same no LED flash, back with the same Motorola logo thumb-rest in the middle.

This review unit which we have got is 3G-ready smartphone priced at Rs. 6,999 but soon a 4G supported variant will be coming to the Indian market as committed by Motorola at its launch. Stay tuned for the full review soon.