The segment of phones around the 10K mark has been a heated one since a year or so now. Mostly because people of tier 2 and 3 towns in India have a budget around that, when it comes to smartphones purchase. Also, then there is the reasoning that the youth wants to upgrade a phone after 1-2 years of use, so why spend more. Whatever the case may be, one thing is for sure that this segment of mobiles phones is where all the action is.
Moto G3 also known as Moto G third gen is one of the latest launches in the segment. We got our hands on this 4G ready device and have been playing around with it since a little while now. Here is our review of this neat little smartphone that provides the perfect bang for your buck. Read on to know more.
Design
Motorola has been an innovator since day one. Let’s not forget they are the ones who introduced the world to the wonders of mobile telephony. The Moto G3 is not a fabulous, nevertheless a good device to look at. It has its own set of design features that sets it apart from the others. We got the white version to review and at first we thought, gosh this smartphone will get dirty easily. However, to our astonishment it does not. If you manage to put a smudge on the back panel, you can easily wipe it off. Thanks the light grooves on it. All the muck just goes away with a light wipe of a cloth.
The front of the Moto G3 sports a 5-inch HD display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Above that the users get a front camera with proximity sensors and at the bottom Motorola has placed the loudspeaker. The power and volume keys are located on the right of the phone, while the charging port is at the bottom and the audio jack is at the top. As said before, we are great admirers of audio jacks on top as one can slide the phone in the front trouser pocket and connect the headphones to listen to music without any worry.
A rounded silver rim runs on the sides of the Moto G3. The back panel holds a 13 MP camera right in the middle that has a silver trim around it going down an inch with the Motorola logo on it. The logo has a slight indent that makes the user hold the phone in a better manner. Remove the back panel and you will find 2 SIM slots and a microSD card slot. The battery cannot be removed on this phone. You ask why? That’s because this phone is water proof. You can drop it in water and nothing will happen to it. Just remember not to keep it there for more than 30 minutes or water will start to seep in.
Performance
The Moto G3 is a phone that is not the best performer out there, but can run easily with the big boys. Under the hood Moto G3 has a Qulacomm Snapdragon 410 chipset that has a 1.4 GHz Quad-core cortex A53 CPU and 2GB RAM on it. For storage users get 16 GB memory, out of which only about 11.8 GB is available for use. If you need more, you can install a microSD card on it (up to 32 GB).
We ran few mid to high-end games on it and the phone did not flicker. It managed most of them well. Heating was a bit of an issue with some games, nonetheless it would cool down quickly once you shut them off.
Moto G3 has a 13 MP rear camera with auto focus and dual LED flash. This camera is a treat to work with. The colour reproduction is great and one can easily take good HD videos at 30 FPS. The front camera has a 5 MP sensor on the Moto G3, which is not bad either. We quite loved clicking images indoors and outdoors. For low light we used the flash and results were pretty good.
We tested the Moto G3 with Antutu benchmark and it scored 24,068 points. Not bad for a phone at this price. The phone comes with Android 5 Lollipop OS and its native apps. If you are shifting from a previous Android phone, then you might feel some things are missing as this is just the native and basic OS skin supplied by Google. However, the Play store is now overflowing with thousands of apps to take care of all your needs. If you want a feature on the phone, we are pretty sure you will find the right app for it there.
Verdict
The screen of the Moto G3 is the department where we felt the phone could have done better. The response time is a bit low and colours could have also been better with deeper blacks. Motorola has added few neat features on the Moto G3. Some worth mentioning include the double downward flick. This turns on the flash light. Another gesture one can do is to quickly open the camera when in standby mode. Just swoop flick the phone away from you and it turns on the camera. For this to happen swiftly one would need to practice a little.
All this is good, but what really blew us away is the impressive battery life. The 2,470 mAh battery lasted for almost 48 hours straight with normal daily calling and Wi-Fi on. Now that is what we need from a mobile phone. This phone is worth every penny spent on it. This is our recommendation of the month and one can pick this water proof marvel with closed eyes.
Pros
Excellent battery life
Inexpensive
Good Cameras
Cons
Screen not the best
Slight heating issues
