Moto G (1st Generation) - Best Budget Android Phone

Moto G is an Android smartphone developed and manufactured by Motorola Mobility. Released on 13 November 2013, the phone was initially aimed at emerging markets, although it is also available in developed markets as a low-price option.

After six months on the market, the Moto G became Motorola's best-selling smartphone ever, and was the top selling phone in Mexico and Brazil.

The Moto G was succeeded by the second generation Moto G in September 2014 and the Moto G (3rd generation) in July 2015 and the Moto G4 in June 28, 2016.

Specifications

The phone features a 4.5 inch LCD IPS screen, originally launched with Android 4.3 "Jelly Bean" operating system (currently upgradable to Android 5.1 "Lollipop") and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor clocked at 1.2Â GHz, paired with the Adreno 305 GPU running at 450Â MHz clock speed.

The phone is closely related to the Moto X that was released three months prior, although there are some key differences despite their similar appearances. The Moto G is not able to have active notifications, quick capture, and touchless control like the Moto X due to the Moto X using a special processor that would be cost-prohibitive for the Moto G. In addition, the Moto G has a removable back cover so that users can customize the phone in whatever color they want, the opposite of the Moto X's sealed back that is held on with an adhesive.

The original Moto G did not support LTE, due to the standard's lack of adoption in emerging markets. On 13 May 2014, Motorola unveiled an updated variant of the phone, the Moto G LTE, which added LTE support, a gyroscope, and a MicroSD card slot which is compatible with cards up to 32Â GB. Some early problems with speed class 10 cards have been solved with the latest Android version 4.4.4. By January 2015 the Android Lollipop 5.0.2 OTA update started rolling out and September 2015 Android Lollipop 5.1 version roll out in India. As of March 2015, Motorola has been slowly upgrading handsets. Motorola started releasing Android 5.1 Lollipop OTA update for Google Play Edition on April 2, 2015. UK 5.1 Lollipop update started June 12, 2015. Indian version has also been updated to 5.1.

Availability

The Moto G was released first in Brazil and some parts of Europe. It was released in Canada and United States on 22 November 2013 and 2 December 2013 respectively. In India Moto G was the comeback phone for the company's Indian subsidiary. It used the unique strategy of selling via only a single e commerce player namely Flipkart; this proved to be a major success. The Moto G Google Play edition is a global GSM model available unlocked from Google Play. In the United States, the Moto G is available for Verizon, Republic Wireless, Boost Mobile, Sprint (Sprint Prepaid), Cricket Wireless, U.S. Cellular, StraightTalk and Consumer Cellular customers. Moto G was released in India on 6 February 2014 in an exclusive deal with Indian e-commerce company Flipkart.