[Moto G General] lavafire:
Had Moto G for about 24 hours now, I am so impressed with this phone. I really want to let everyone know about it :D I have compared this phone a lot with Samsung S4, not because I hate it, instead it was my last phone and I have used it for months, so have a good idea of what I am on about :P

Screen

Some may consider the resolution on this phone being too low, compared to the high end flagship phones this is about 100 ppi less. But does this mean the screen is bad? No. In fact, I am loving it more than the AMOLED on Samsung s4. First of all, I am just going to say that above 300ppi I can't tell the difference. To me, 400+ ppi = higher battery drain + requires more CPU + requires more GPU. Just why? Maybe there are some untold benifit of higher ppi screens, but to me I just don't see any advantage what so ever. Apart from the fact you could say to your mate "my phone's ppi is higher than yours...". So this to me is a big thumb up!

Speed

Before we talk about anything else, I want to mention speed of this phone. My S4 was running stock android 4.3 means I should see a massive different when I switch to this phone. But the reality is not the case, it really doesn't appear to be that much of a difference. There may be 1/5 of a speed difference when opening apps, but that is like 0.2 seconds? Even for inpatient person like me, it is more than acceptable. At the end of the day, it make you think what Samsung is doing with their snapdragon 600, when moto g can keep up using a snapdragon 400... This is on stock android, don't even mention touch wiz... But seriously find a review video or go to a shop and see it for yourselves.

Software/ROM

Well not much to say here, it is running basically stock Android 4.3 with a few minor tweaks e.g. camera.

Storage

8gb or 16gb, it is always the question. Previously i'd say get 16gb, more future proof, however I choose 8gb this time. Not because of the 50gb gdrive storage (pointless if you have no internet connection), instead you could get OTG so if you really want to watch films on trips you can do that. Otherwise, 5.5gb is enough for general app installs. For photos, turn on auto google+ photo back up (or dropbox backup whichever fits u better) then delete the photos on your phone once they are uploaded.

Camera

Haven't really tested it, but at least ok from what I can see and don't expect it to match DSLR :p

Hardware/Ergonomics

+ Curved back, easy to hold. I especially like the dented "M" logo, it gives more grip, helps when I need to touch the top of the screen.

- Phone is a bit heavy, for people like reading lying down for a long time might be a bit of a pain.

+ Back cover is removable, awesome! In fact, there a lot of covers coming out soon.

- Although, back cover is hard to remove and a bit slippery, not so awesome.

+ Volume key & power key on the same side.

- Clean design, coming from HTC and Samsung, I really enjoy this kind of simple design. I don't like the HTC/Samsung logo on the most obvious place on your phone kinda ruins the look of the phone.

+ No physical keyboard (some may consider this to be a minus instead of a plus), I am just glad don't need to worry about menu wearing out over time

- Speaker on the back side of the phone

+ Due to curved back, no speaker sound is actually trapped when you place it on the back

+ Both headphone port and micro-usb port are located middle of top and bottom side of the phone respectively, again just simple and nice to look at

- No 4G connectivity. Not a problem for me, as I don't even get 3G where I live, a lot of people living in cities might find this some what a deal breaker.

- No removable battery

- No expandable storage

Battery Life

All i am going to say is 4.5 hours screen on time, 60% left. :good: I am not convinced the stats is accurate, so testing it right now to see if it is really that good.

Update: second time, 4hours22min screen on time, 8 and half hours on battery, 43% remaining.

FM Radio

I was never a radio fan, always thought it was kinda out-of-date technology. Then I moved to an area where there are hardly any 3g/2g coverage at all on the way to work, karma i guess... You might say just download music from google music/sportify, but I don't change my songs frequent enough and it just gets old. Conclusion: always better to have a phone that has FM radio than a phone that doesn't.

Notification light

It is plain silly to me why some OEM would even consider not include a notification light on their phone. *cough* iphone. *cough* windows phone. It make things so much easier, when all you need to do is glance at it rather than turn on the screen, then turn it off again just to check if your missing anything important. There is no more needs saying, it is just playing annoying without one, so another plus.

Value for money

For most of the people, money is a key factor when buying a new phone. Even if the price is not a burden, you might still get the same feeling as me, thinking it cost quite a lot and make the promise to use it for 2 years or more. Well, with this phone you won't get that. In fact, I brought mine thinking I will use it as a back up phone since no other phone has its spec in its price range. But after I started using it, I couldn't put it down. Now I am not even considering getting nexus 5 which was going to be my main phone.

What I look forward to

Hell this is XDA, obviously I want lots and lots of ROMs XD. But I also can't wait for 4.4 to come out and ART to be stable. I imagine it would make this phone even faster. Saw some comparisons between Dalvik and ART, have to say ART wins hands down especially considering it is still in development stage.

Final thoughts

So happy with this phone, and mostly happy about Motorola stepping up and giving us this product. This is important in the sense, they are fighting a price battle for us, the consumers. We should show some support to let the other OEMs know it is not about how much they spend money on advertising, it is giving us a great product with a reasonable price instead of throw in some latest chips and mark it £599 rubbish which is basically what is happening right now.

Tips

I would recommend everyone get this phone, and get the 8gb version. Since it cost so little, no one could moan at you when you get a new phone next year :p