Gadgetory

hey how's it going guys this is Dave TD so if you follow my channel in the seven or eight months that have been doing this I've never made a smartphone review but I picked up a moto G last week I thought it was a very interesting device and I made a video and it's an inexpensive phone it's priced at $180 for the base model packaging is pretty simple the box opens up phone is sitting there underneath the phone are some pamphlets and a pretty simple USB charger it's just the basics the front of the Moto G is covered in Gorilla Glass 3 it's rockin the same 5-inch display as last year I'm glad they didn't make it bigger than last year's Moto G because a 5 inch screen is nearing the limit for one-handed use for a lot of people it has a single speaker at the bottom here and despite it looking like it could have a second speaker for stereo it's just an earpiece on the top the front also has a proximity sensor and a 5 megapixel camera which we'll get into later the back of the device has a grippy texture that is new for this year's moto devices it's really nice to hold and it's not too soft it actually feels like it'll be durable and it won't just start peeling in a couple months at the bottom we have a micro USB charging socket and on the top we have a headphone jack with a mic on the left side of the device we have no buttons and on the right side it has a volume rocker with the power button it's got that textured power button that a lot of Motorola phones have so you can feel for it without looking I've always liked this little detail with the Motorola phones the one thing that bugs me about the exterior of the Moto G are the two recessed slots that the earpiece on the speakers sit in these slots collects dust and grime really easily I mean they're simple to clean out I blew it out just before I shot this but you will see dust and stuff build up in here pretty quickly the whole device has an IP X 7 ingress rating so it can supposedly get a little wet the official statement is that can be submerged in a meter of water for half an hour just make sure you snap the back cover on really tight because it has rubber seals to keep water out but here's the thing even though it's fun to watch mkbhd underwater motorola doesn't cover water damage on their warranty so it's really not to be used underwater like this I just did it for you guys because I'm an idiot but if you do bring it underwater when you're done make sure to remove the back cover and dry it off because there's gonna be water underneath there the back cover comes off pretty easily and inside you'll see that there's a microSD slot so you can add lots of stars to the phone it's always a nice touch you can replace the back cover with a handful of other colors or even a flip case from Motorola they both have black rubber seals to help with water resistance the flip cover has the same diagonal pattern as the regular back cover but it's made of a softer rubber and it feels more premium the front of it has a nice suede material which helps you keep the screen free of smudges but in case you care using the flip cover does make the phone a little bit thicker than normal so smartphones have become pretty slippery over the years smooth phones are pretty and all but they don't have much grip the Moto G is grippy and it looks good doing it I mean look at that traction right I really like this material in terms of its size it's bigger than an iPhone 6 but it's smaller than a g4 I'd say it's most similar in size to the 2014 Moto X it's quite a bit bigger than the first generation Moto G but it's still comfortable to use in one hand and comparison to more premium smartphones the bezel on this screen is a little wide but seriously for 200 bucks I'm really happy with it the screen itself is a 5 inch IPS screen 1280 by 720 it's nicely sized but I actually think it's the weakest feature on the phone viewing angles are okay resolution is okay at 294 ppi brightness is again okay it's just a little on the dim side but the colors are noticeably muted and I get it it's a $200 phone they had to cut some corners somewhere right I'm just telling you for the sake of the review this is one of the corners they cut the screen it's not a bad screen but for the average user this will probably be the weakest link on the phone just so you know the mono speaker at the front gets loud but it does clip pretty hard at higher volumes here's what it sounds like the main camera on the back is the same camera as the one on the Nexus 6 from last year and that was a pretty solid camera it also has a two-tone flash which helps to keep colors balanced when using a flash there are some advanced camera controls available like manual exposure and timers and stuff but it's still a pretty simple menu which i think is a good thing for this kind of phone the pictures come out pretty good when you have lots of light and the colors seem pretty accurate and it's still pretty decent in lower light settings videos record at 1080p with 30 frames per second and the dynamic range is actually pretty good I'm surprised and really pleased that they put such a respectable camera in $180.00 phone camera up front is 5 megapixels it isn't amazing but it works it's running Android lollipop 5.1.1 now motorola runs a really light skin over the UI I've always liked their gesture controls so things like double twists for launching cameras double chops for turning the flashlight on they all work well and somehow it doesn't accidentally trigger very often games running okay on the Moto G hearthstone had an error message about insufficient specs it's still playable but it's not particularly smooth there's also a bit of input lag when it comes to endless runners like Sonic if you're a hardcore gamer you're not gonna love the performance on this device now I don't like synthetic benchmarks especially for phones but I ran some just for kicks the phone is sufficient for most basic smartphone stuff but if you're after like blazing performance for games or just super snappy interactions this isn't that kind of phone the performance for most other things though is good it never feels super sluggish or anything there are some occasional hiccups but nothing serious last thing is battery life so it's 24 70 milliamp hour battery it's bigger than even the Moto X from last year so when you take a big battery and you combine it with a not so bright screen and a not so fast processor it lasts a long time I got almost 2 full days of heavy usage screen time of around 7 and a half hours and it's good stuff ok so just a quick recap 2015 Moto G has a decent 5-inch screen at 294 ppi a mono speaker that gets pretty loud but doesn't sound amazing a 5 megapixel front-facing camera all this covered in Gorilla Glass 3 on the back we have replaceable covers that are nice and grippy and a really solid 13 megapixel inside it has a very beefy battery that will get you through a couple of days a Snapdragon 410 processor with one to two gigs of RAM depending on whether or not you upgrade at the base model and that's sufficient for most smartphone stuff eight or 16 gigs of storage again depending on whether or not you upgraded it from the base model and it has an expansion slot so you can always add to that all of this in a water-resistant package it is missing things like AC Wi-Fi there's also no NFC there's no wireless charging but for the most part these are things that you're not going to get any $200 phone ok so some closing thoughts here for $180 I think this is one of the best budget smartphone so you can get for 2015 it's got a fantastic camera for the price and everything else about it is really solid for the basic smartphone user if you're coming from iOS and you're using like an iPhone 4 or 4s and you've been interested in trying out the Android ecosystem this is a pretty good gateway device it's inexpensive and the Android experience is pretty stock and if you're coming from an Android phone depending on the phone that you're coming from this could be a bit of a side grade or it could be an upgrade I mean it's your decision to make that's the end of the review I hope you guys liked it if you have any questions or comments type below I spent a lot of time on this one because it was my first smartphone review if you guys liked it give me some thumbs and just write below if there's anything you liked or disliked about this video but it's been nice I'll see you guys next time