Gadgetory

last year the moto G was one of the most impressive budget smartphones we've ever seen and last week Maral announced a brand new Moto G the Moto G so which is the better phone and how do they compare I'm sailor Martin this is PocketNow and this is the new Moto G versus the old moto G ask your motorola blindsided us all by creating an entry-level smartphone that was not only surprisingly great but also extremely affordable we'd seen this done before on other platforms like Windows Phone with the Lumia 520 but very few Android smartphones before the Moto G were both affordable and worth buying last week Motorola upgraded the Moto G with newer hardware while keeping the same low price what's new what's different and most importantly what's better let's find out at a glance it's possible to mistake the 1st and 2nd generation Moto G's for one another you're close to the same size have all the same button import placements and even have the same camera layout with a much love dimple around back but there are two major hardware differences that are a dead giveaway one the speaker's the new Moto G has front firing audio while last year's does not it emits sound out of its single rear speaker which flanks the image sensor to physical footprint yes the two are relatively close in size but the Moto G is noticeably bigger it's eleven point six millimeters taller 4.8 millimeters wider and weighs six grams more but it's 0.6 millimeters thinner most of the differences between these two phones are under the hood and even those are slight both come with one gigabyte of RAM 8 or 16 gigabytes of fixed storage a Snapdragon 400 SOC and the same 20 70 milliamp hour battery the only differences are the cameras from 5 to 8 megapixels on the back and 1.3 to 2 megapixels upfront a micro SD card slot on the new Moto G and the display the old Moto G came with a 4.5 inch 720p IPS LCD the new Moto G's display is 0.5 inches larger diagonally with the same resolution the old Moto G's display may be a hair brighter more vibrant and more balanced and it's marginally more crisp but they both look great for the price both also come with a swath of interchangeable back covers if you felt the original Moto G was too small the new one is exactly what you need it's sort of the same story with software as well the original Moto G was quickly updated to KitKat after its launch now it's running Android 4.4.3 the new Moto G ships with Android 4.4.4 and the differences are marginal at best the launcher on the new Moto G looks a lot like the Google now launcher sans Google now integration the o Moto G still runs a legacy launcher the differences you'll notice are the shortcuts to the app drawer and how the app doors look the opener G has a solid black background and the legacy tab for widgets the new Moto G's background is translucent and to add widgets you'll need to long press on a blank space on the home screen other than that the software is practically identical even including Motorola's add-ons like moto assist or migrate as you would expect performance is almost identical as well opening apps task-switching scrolling zooming and the like all happen at virtually the same time after all with the exception of size and a few odds and ends these are practically the same phones likewise benchmark scores are almost identical these phones are by no means powerhouses they aren't meant to be their budget phones and they perform accordingly you can play some games without a problem but you can also push them to their limits quite easily especially with just one gigabyte of RAM what isn't clear is how much the additional screen real estate will affect battery life we haven't had the new Moto G long enough to attest to its stamina but before we were moderately pleased with the stamina on the original Moto G we have a feeling the display might cut some time off the battery life but for the full take on performance and battery life you'll have to check out the full review of the new Moto G in the coming weeks call quality and networks peaks will be roughly the same as well considering they have the same radio support though the u.s. model the new Moto G has support for the 900 band on HSDPA one of the most welcomed overall improvements is the camera don't get us wrong you can't expect too much out of this sub $200 phone but it is a market improvement over the original in our short testing it's more reliable and consistent its pictures appear more true to life it has higher dynamic range out of the box it isn't as quick to overexpose and it has a wider field of view the old moto G's picture seemed cold and Stark the newer Moto G has more resolution to work with and manages to take pretty impressive photos by comparison unless we forget those dual front-facing speakers on the new model don't get too jazzed about them yeah we're happy that their front firing and that makes some difference but they're not all that much better than the single speaker on the old model they're not much louder but the sound is definitely more full and doesn't distort as much at full volume and best of all you can change the launch phrase to anything you want hello computer and best of all you can change the launch phrase to anything you want hello computer it's nice to have two speakers blasting sounds straight at your face but this is no boom sound folks that's for sure frankly we were really impressed with the original moto G it was a killer deal for a phone that wasn't half bad for anyone looking to not break the bank for a no-contract smartphone the Moto G was the obvious choice but now with the new Moto G were only more certain of that recommendation it's bigger has a better camera expandable storage and newer software the build feels more premium and the phone looks nicer and has front firing audio if you are pleased with the original and are looking to upgrade to something new the Moto G is a fantastic Buy once more but even if you feel the newer Moto G is a little too large you can probably still find an older Moto G for a killer price so keep your eyes out for that as well folks thanks for watching and supporting pocket now if you would like to help us out even more and you enjoyed the video be sure to click the like button below and subscribe to the channel you can find us around the web on twitter facebook and google+ at pocket now I'm Tyler Martin Casper tech on Twitter and I will see you next time you