The Moto X Style/Pure Edition may be Motorola's flagship darling, but the Moto G is the company's best-selling smartphone to date mainly because it only costs $179.99.
For its third iteration, the price stays the same, but the phone's design and upgraded internals have been polished. It's a win-win all around. Here are my first thoughts after playing with the phone for a few moments.
The Moto G resembles a mini Moto X Style/Pure Edition and that's not a bad a thing. The screen comes with a 5-inch display made with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. It's still only got 1,280 x 720 resolution, but it looks alright. Obviously, not as sharp as a 1080p display, but this is a $179.99 phone we're talking about here.
The Moto G runs Android 5.1.1 Lollipop and has 4G LTE. Like the Moto X Style, it'll be upgraded to Android M when that becomes available later this year.
The processor is marginally faster thanks to the 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor and newer graphics; I didn't see any lag or stutters while opening apps and browsing the web seemed speedy enough, which is great because budget devices often cut corners here.
One thing I didn't check during my limited time with the device was the amount of RAM on the Moto G phones. There are three versions of the Moto G: 8GB storage with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage with 2GB of RAM. It's possible I might have tested the 2GB model, and if that's the case, that would explain why everything operated so smoothly. 1GB of RAM for Android is just not enough these days.
IMAGE: MILES GOSCHA/MASHABLE
Both cameras also received a boost. The rear-facing ones has 13 megapixels (up from 8 megapixels) and the front camera is a 5-megapixel shooter and the front camera (up from 2-megapixels). On the second-gen Moto G, the back also had a single-LED flash, but on the new Moto G, it's a dual-LED flash.
I didn't have any chance to test the cameras outdoors and in better lighting, but the camera shutter seemed to be quick and photos and selfies looked pretty decent.
The newest feature to the Moto G is its water-resistance: IPX7-rated, meaning it's submersible in three feet of water for up to 30 minutes. While that means your Moto G will be safe if it falls in a pool, it also means it will be rain and toilet bowl safe.
Battery life is also a teensy bit higher at 2,470 milliamp-hours; a full day of use seems about right.
The Moto G will also be customizable through Moto Maker, Motorola's online customization too. The phone won't have options for leather and wood, but you will be able to pick from a number of different colors.
The third-gen Moto G is available on Motorola.com, BestBuy.com and Amazon.com starting today. Brick and mortar Best Buy stores will get it on August 2.
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