Gadgetory

we spend a lot of time in pocket now talking about high-end and luxury smartphones but there's a whole other side to the mobile market a more affordable sector often dismissed as too laden with underperforming products to warrant much attention well this year Motorola and Nokia have done a very good job surprising us in this area delivering the low-cost Moto G and the Lumia 520 we've reviewed each one separately now it's time to put them side-by-side to see which one is truly el cheapo supremo I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is moto G versus Lumia 520 now what these smartphones are each very affordable from most perspectives there's still a sizable gulf in price between them here in the States the Moto G sells for between 179 and 199 depending on storage option while you can get a Lumia 520 right now at the Microsoft store for less than half that cost just $59 out the door of course everyone wants to save as much money as possible so the question becomes what do you give up if you go for the Nokia phone over the Motorola 1 and is the sacrifice worth the savings let's find out out of the box probably the first thing you notice is the difference in design philosophies at work here as a simplified version of the high-end Moto X the Moto G exudes a pebble light feel with rounded contours pleasing to the hand and also Motorola's characteristic finger dimple on the soft touch casing around back the 528 keeps the soft touch paint job but appears more like a soap dish in profile with harsher edges up front in a more straightforward casing that makes it feel thicker in the hand even though it's over a millimeter thinner the 520 also packs a much less impressive display the 4-inch WVGA panel looking pixelated and washed out next to Motorola's larger 720p screen the lumia screen is also much more reflective meaning it's tougher to read outdoors and internally Nokia makes a processor sacrifice as well the 520 s dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 not as modern as the new quad-core Snapdragon 400 in the Moto G with only half as much RAM on the Nokia as well pop open the back plates though and the Lumia starts throwing punches of its own while the battery is significantly smaller on the 520 it's also removable meaning road warriors can pick up some $5 replacement packs from Amazon or Ebay or wherever and just swap them in as needed not so for the Moto G's embedded power plant also the 520 offers microSD expansion to augment its 8 gigs of on-board storage with the Moto G you're stuck with either 8 or 16 gigs depending on which model you choose the commonalities return when we return to the basics neither phone packs 4G NFC or anything more fancy than Bluetooth 4.0 and some multicolored battery doors these are impressive budget devices but remember there's still budget devices unfortunately neither one really acts like it on the software side now the differences between Windows Phone 8 and Android jelly bean soon-to-be KitKat have been well-documented to boil it down rather succinctly Android will be a fit for you if you're a gmail user who is heavily invested in Google's ecosystem and Windows Phone will be a better match if you're an Outlook user but more interestingly each of these phones is a solid performer for what I'll call general use by that I mean something like the daily use test I conducted with the Moto G last week if you're the kind of person who reads a little bit texts a bunch keeps up with friends on Facebook Twitter and Instagram shoots a snapchat photo every now and then watches the occasional film on Netflix or YouTube needs to catch a bus needs to drive a car needs to pretend to crash a car loves gaming loves music stays organized stays in touch and generally uses a smartphone for all the things a smartphone can do each of these does a splendid job on the software side the limited system memory makes multitasking a little bumpier than usual on both but overall responsiveness is spot-on and each device delivers taking the phones out of the lab for some testing revealed much of the same parity in terms of capabilities callers came through clear as a bell on att's Network here in Greater Boston with both phones delivering excellent sound both via earpiece and speakerphone callers said the Lumia was a bit clearer while the Moto G offered better noise cancellation firing up the five megapixel cameras reminds us of the low-end nature of these smartphones neither has what you might call knock out features with the bare minimum in terms of shooting options each is expandable with third-party software lenses or apps but shooting with default settings reveals that the cameras are capable of beautiful color and depth in some shooting situations and milky noisy output in others side-by-side and moderate lighting they're comparable shooters but get them into low light in the Lumia is the winner relatively speaking also we prefer shooting with the Lumia thanks to its two-stage hardware key which makes focusing easier so while we'd naturally rather have a high-end camera phone with us if we had to choose one of these four optics we'd pick Nokia's product even given Motorola's advantage of the LED flash that might seem like a slam dunk for Nokia in the outdoorsman Department but hold your horses there lumberjack the Moto G features Motorola's water-resistant nano coating meaning it can hold up to nature's splashes and even though the warranty probably won't cover it it'll even hold up to a shower even if you get it in the spray a little that's in direct opposition to Nokia's own user manuals advice for the 520 so phone abusers take heed the Moto G may be the better fit for you compromises aside all this leaves us with a pair of phones that have no business being priced as low as they are the Lumia is outstanding voice quality expandability and superior camera will appeal to some while the Moto G is better display a more robust ecosystem and all-weather ruggedness will make it worth the premium to others we think the Lumia 520 is probably the better value for someone free to jump between platforms but really that's just a function of its absurdly low price point both will make you reconsider what a budget phone is capable of and each is an absolute steal if you live in the right market that's going to do it for this one folks we hope we've made your budget phone shopping a little easier this holiday season if you want more details on each of these phones don't forget we have a full review of the Lumia 521 that's the t-mobile version of the 520 and the motorola moto G full reviews of each at pocketnow.com and here on our youtube channel page and while you're visiting our channel page feel free to subscribe so you don't miss future videos also follow us on social media on facebook instagram twitter and so on and thank you so much for watching once again this has been michael fisher with PocketNow we'll see you for the next one you