Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/12/review-googles-179-moto-g-puts-every-single-cheap-android-phone-to-shame/

by jseliger • 13 years ago

351 259 13 years ago

Google is making a big play on smartphone for everyone model. Now if they could get carriers to agree to cheaper data model, their hand would be really strong. To some extent this favors T-Mobile and other no-discount/cheaper plans carriers.

skelsey4• 13 years ago

They don't need to. You can get an unlimited data + 100 minute no contract plan from t-mobile for $30/month.

mortehu2• 13 years ago

Where's that? I can only find $50, $60 and $70 plans:

http://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans/individual.html

aarkling• 13 years ago

It's not 4G though... If you want 4G, it's at least $50, $60 or more for more data.

aphexairlines• 13 years ago

Unlimited 2G data. LTE is limited to 5GB per month. I've hit their throttle before, and while it's nice that you don't go dark, it's not for normal use.

rokhayakebe• 13 years ago

Google's play is to bypass the carrier altogether, which they will do as soon they get broadband in many homes and use their own souped up wifi routers to create a network that will allow you to be forever internet-connected. And when you are not, they will roam.

virtuallynathan• 13 years ago

I think this is Google's long term plan, and its a pretty great one. You will literally be connected anywhere on the globe with Google Fiber based HetNet wireless, and wifi beamed down on the rest of the earth from Balloons.

ForHackernews4• 13 years ago

That's what Republic Wireless does now, and they just launched with the Moto X at a surprisingly low price: https://republicwireless.com/

martinald• 13 years ago

This is getting really interesting. Between this, the Nexus 5 and the various Lumia's a $649 iPhone is starting to look very, very expensive.

Smartphones at the moment seem to have got 'good enough'.

mpg332• 13 years ago

macs are also a premium price compared to PC's....not sure how comparably this is

Macha• 13 years ago

And the Mac market share compared to PC market share shows which is far more dominant.

_delirium• 13 years ago

Apple seems to be aiming to fill the cheaper price points with tablets. Their idea seems to be, $1k+ laptops, $300-$900 iPads.

Within those price points they're nowadays pretty reasonably priced. There used be a significant "mac tax" versus similarly specced PCs, but a MacBook Air or Pro these days compares pretty reasonably to the stuff Dell is putting out. If you want a dual i5 with 128 GB SSD and 8 hours of battery life, the Macbook Air's $999 price point is within the norm.

The main market they aren't competing in is sub-$1000 laptop form factors, like the Chromebooks. That seems to be less an unwillingness to compete on the low end, and more a disagreement over what it will look like: Google is betting on a netbook-esque form factor at ~$400, while Apple is betting on a tablet form factor in that price range.

JohnTHaller5• 13 years ago

True, which is why Apple commands a relatively small share of the PC market and why the entire Mac desktop/laptop and OS X business is only about 12% Apple's total revenue (last I checked last year anyways).

The Moto G is $179 and is, honestly, quite a bit of phone. Compare that to the iPhone 5c which is $549, over 3 times the price. Macs are about as much of a premium over PCs (comparing entry level hardware costs, not equivalent builds, as that would be a lower multiple).

Realistically, Apple is setting themselves up for the same type of market share in the phone business they have in the PC business. Android is at 52.2% of the market and climbing in the US (where consumers are currently insulated from the actual cost of a phone though this is starting to change) and at over 80% and climbing internationally. It's looking like it will be Android in a position analogous to Windows in the smartphone market.

glogla4• 13 years ago

I don't really think so.

For iMac, this is pretty much true, you can get computer equivalent to 27" iMac (except for Mac OS and all-in-one construction), for a lot less money than 21" iMac.

But with laptops, you would be hard pressed to find something as good or better and at the same time less expensive than rMBP 13. With 15", the prices are about comparable, but looking at our local eshops, for the price of 13", you get thinkpad or elitebook with 1600*900 TN panel and rotary storage. That sucks.

mmahemoff• 13 years ago

Apple used to cover all bases. There was iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, all the way up to the biggest iPod. So in the early 2000s, people at every level of the MP3 player market could be part of Apple's universe (which led to more PC sales and further MP3 sales and upgrading).

They've still not done this with phones, so they've left a giant hole for Android to fill, which in turn makes the platform more attractive to developers.

krakensden• 13 years ago

There are two editions of the 5, so they are probably moving in that direction. That, and older models do a reasonable job of filling the low end niche...

hayksaakian2• 13 years ago

the problem here, is that they make SO MUCH MONEY that offering a (truely) low end model, or making any drastic changes is a great risk to their bottom line

interpol_p• 13 years ago

Apple wasn't really covering all price ranges with those products — they were covering all use-cases.

For example, the shuffle seemed more aimed at people who wanted something easy and light to clip on while exercising.

The nano seemed to cross-over slightly with that market, and also attract people who wanted something tiny but full-featured. (I.e., it was the size that differentiated it, not price.)

I don't think many people thought "Oh, I'll get a shuffle because I can't afford a regular iPod."

The fact that Apple continues to offer the previous years' iPhones is actually kind of unusual with regards to the structure of their past product lines. It's how they are trying to cater to different price brackets rather than use-cases.

superuser22• 13 years ago

iPhones are not intended to be purchased for $649 except by the very impatient (or people who break/lose their uninsured phones). If you wait your 2 years, it's $100 or $200 on-contract.

Of course it's different in emerging markets where contracts aren't the norm, but smartphone prices in the US are pretty damn close in terms of 2-year TCO.

glesica4• 13 years ago

I, and quite a few people I know (admittedly perhaps not average consumers) refuse to sign contracts partly because the phones are so expensive to replace, and breaking the phone doesn't get you out of the contract. That means you need insurance, which adds to the cost. I would rather fully own my device, have the flexibility to switch carriers, and be able to downgrade my plan if my phone breaks or my needs change.

simbolit• 13 years ago

in 'emerging markets' like germany more and more people are getting PAYG sim cards due to the prices being much much cheaper. so much cheaper in fact, that it often makes economic sense to buy a phone unlocked and pair it with PAYG, compared to the on-contract alternative.

Negitivefrags• 13 years ago

I don't understand why people in America are so keen to pay for expensive monthly plans.

I pay $5-$10 dollars per month on average for my cellphone on prepay. It doesn't make sense all to buy a phone on plan.

tostitos19792• 13 years ago

Your math isn't correct. If one switches to T-Mobile in the US, you get pretty substantive savings. The con is that you don't get a phone subsidy.

I did the math a while ago. Don't know how it holds up. As a datapoint, we pay between $90-$100 for two phone lines with T-mobile. Includes 500MB data/tethering per phone, unlimited minutes in the US and text messages.

berkut3• 13 years ago

This.

I've just bought a Lumia 520 as a play phone / replacement while I send my HTC One back to be repaired (due to it continually rebooting / crashing - I'm otherwise generally very happy with it).

I had an iPhone 3GS and 4S as well before the HTC One, so I've tried the three main platforms.

Windows Phone is actually very nice for the basics of webbrowsing, sending texts, calling, etc. It has its faults (limited app selection, screen's not amazing, the font hinting is a bit poor), but I'm very impressed with it (and I'm a Linux dev by trade who hasn't touched Windows for many years).

notdrunkatall2• 13 years ago

Wow, $70 for that phone? I've been using an old Nokia E71 with a straight talk plan for a couple of years now because I didn't want to spend a few hundred on a phone. Looks like it might be time for an upgrade. How's the browser on it?

numo16• 13 years ago

As a daily Windows Phone user, android user, and former iOS user, I'm curious to hear what apps you think are missing? I moved from my iPhone to Lumia and am only missing a google hangouts app (due to google choosing not to support the platform).

pedrocr2• 13 years ago

It's tempting to think of the Moto G as some kind of "Nexus Jr.," a cheaper way to buy into the clean UI and quick software updates that Google's reference phones have always received. However, Google is making no promises about versions of Android beyond version 4.4, and speculating about whether Android 4.5 or 5.0 or whatever will roll out to the Moto phones as quickly as KitKat is a pointless exercise.

Again shooting themselves in the foot.

stusmall2• 13 years ago

How so? The quick software updates is a selling point to devs but not so much to consumers. We aren't their target market. It seems like a good place to cut costs since you don't have the huge reaccuring engineering costs and there is much more freedom on part selection

alexmat• 13 years ago

Anecdotal point, but my Mom is much happier to get an update with a new phone than to have an old phone updated.

pedrocr2• 13 years ago

Google is interested in building Android as a platform. Having 80% of your install base stuck 4 versions behind[1] is a crappy way of doing it. Even after they've moved more and more of the platform into the Play frameworks you're still leaving users without a bunch of improvements to the core platform, not to mention security fixes. iOS is miles ahead on this front exactly because it controls the hardware. That Google doesn't do the same now that it also controls the hardware seems short-sighted.

Building a 150$ great phone would allow them to set a feature/quality floor for the market. If they forced their suppliers so the hardware in these phones is properly supported upstream, targeting new versions of Android should be pretty easy. When Ubuntu launches a new version it doesn't need to go and retrofit it to the thousand different types of laptop out there. The state of Android though is that the GPU/Camera/whatever drivers are binary blobs locked in to a specific kernel version.

[1] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

CJefferson• 13 years ago

Guessing (possibly incorrectly), one reason they might not want to promise upgrades is in case the hardware simply can't handle it.

cmelbye• 13 years ago

Probably true, but they're still shooting themselves in the foot. Apple is still supporting a device from 2010 with software updates.

stusmall2• 13 years ago

The hardware could be completely capable of handling it but the software isn't. A lot of times when you buy an ARM SoC it comes with a supported kernel from the manufacturer and some documentation(but sometimes for various reasons a lot is missing). To ensure that you can always port the newest version of Android to a phone you need to ensure you can port the newest kernel. Limiting yourself only to well supported mainlined chips or to chips that you have all the documentation you need to maintain your own branch greatly limits your options and can run up costs a ton.

justin663• 13 years ago

If Google's plan is to leave the high-end of smartphones to its Android "partners" and stake out the low end with Motorola, that seems pretty smart. Its partners get to keep the high-margin hardware business that Google doesn't need anyway, Google puts a floor on how bad the low-end phones can be and still make it to market. And yeah, Google isn't in the position of competing with companies that it needs.

naner• 13 years ago

The Moto X and Google's own Nexus series appear to be pretty high end. I don't think this is their plan at all.

justin663• 13 years ago

Motorola doesn't manufacture the Nexus phones.

minalecs• 13 years ago

the moto x and Nexus line has always been considered mid tier, not the latest everything and many compromises made but not low end.

cabbeer• 13 years ago

The divide between "High end" and "Low end" devices is beginning to blur. The improvements to high end devices are providing diminishing returns, while all the "essentials" have trickled down to low end devices.

glesica4• 13 years ago

This is actually why I've got a Moto G on order. This will be my first smart phone. Before I heard about the Moto G I always assumed my first smart phone would be a Nexus device, because I refuse to sign a carrier contract and I would rather have a dumb phone than carry around something that cost $600 in my pocket every day.

But with the Moto G, I get a cheap-ish device with all the features that actually matter to me (high res screen, good camera, reasonably fast processor, decent amount of RAM) and it doesn't come with a contract or a crazy price tag.

I saved $150 over buying a Nexus 5, and I doubt I'll even notice the difference (if anything, I'll like it better because, IIRC, the Moto G is a bit smaller than the Nexus).

bane• 13 years ago

Right, by this point high end phones should be much more powerful, with much more memory and battery life and more special features or similar. But the delta between high and low is mostly GPU and to some extent CPU speed and screen resolution.

For example, I'd expect by now that 64GB would be the default for mid and high end phones with 128GB and 256GB as options. Instead we're still seeing "high-end" phones at 16-32GB.

mtgx• 13 years ago

I'm not so sure they will just "leave the high-end market" to the rest, but they may try changing things up at the high-end, such as with highly customizable "ARA" phones:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/7/5185768/dennis-woodside-in...

katemcintyre• 13 years ago

And yeah, Google isn't in the position of competing with companies that it needs.

Why not? Motorola's Moto X is pretty high end and Google is spending $500M on just advertising it this year[1], beating Samsung's and Apple's ad spending. In watching a couple of hours of primetime TV in the US, I usually see 3 to 4 Moto X ads, and almost the same number of Windows 8/Surface ads. However, sales seem to be quite sluggish[2].

Motorola can't be making all that much money on Moto G and it seems to be Google's loss leader just like Microsoft's Lumia 520/521 at $69 to $99 unlocked(Surprised the article didn't mention it at all or compare it against the Moto G, it's a surprisingly fast phone for that price). Meanwhile Motorola's losses continue to grow every quarter and continue to be a drag on Google's earnings [3] . I guess the pressure is on Motorola to deliver, but even if this phone sells well, I doubt it's going to help them unless they're going to make money from ads and/or Google Play sales on those phones.

[1] http://9to5google.com/2013/07/11/moto-x-would-be-most-heavil...

[2] http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-motorola...

[3] http://mobilenewsblog.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Sc...

Touche5• 13 years ago

The Lumia phones are not fast. Fast scrolling, sure, but apps take 3-4 seconds to open and don't stay in memory very long.

natch• 13 years ago

I love this "puts a floor on how bad the low-end phones can be" -- YES that's the really great thing about this. Very good for consumers, and competition, and the mobile ecosystem, and keeps pressure on Apple and everyone else involved to keep cranking up the awesome.

Someone• 13 years ago

A floor, at $179? I bet companies will find a cellar or two below that price point, at lower quality. $179 is a lot of money to many people, even inside the USA.

jaredmcateer• 13 years ago

179 off contract, on contract it will probably be $0-$50

nnnnni• 13 years ago

$179 is way too much for a phone that sends all of your login information for different pages and services to Motorola's servers in plaintext...

ye2• 13 years ago

What are you talking about?

laureny• 13 years ago

Just the regular "NSA/Google is evil/wake up people" troll.

Ignore and carry on.

ehPReth2• 13 years ago

http://www.beneaththewaves.net/Projects/Motorola_Is_Listenin...

wyclif• 13 years ago

Forget it, he's rolling.

nly2• 13 years ago

It's completely unlockable and reflashable from what I can tell

zobzu2• 13 years ago

just like nexuses. still sends all the info to google by default, that's not something we can deny.

in fact, even if you flash it, you'll want google play services, and it then still sends all the info to google again.

So unless you can live without gapps (some apps won't even work without it nowadays, due to calls to the proprietary API), you're a little screwed.. well thats unless you wanna port FirefoxOS to it or something.

quaffapint2• 13 years ago

I can't wait for a Verizon version (apparently 1Q 2014) to pare up with PagePlus, so I can dump my VZ contract and only pay half of what I do now.

localuser2• 13 years ago

I bought 3 moto g's and on the day they arrived switched the entire family to tmobile. I had enough of Verizon and now my bill is $100 a month. Can't beat that.

quaffapint2• 13 years ago

I would like to leave VZ too, but I'm simply too afraid that the coverage will not be there on tmobile and at&t - and especially I need to consider the WAF.

mhb2• 13 years ago

I'd like to do that. Which plan?

linux_devil2• 13 years ago

Right move to target market in India and China , its way affordable than Iphone 5C and comes with the brand name too.

aseembehl• 13 years ago

Unfair to compare Iphone 5c with Moto G. Iphone 5c vs Moto X is a more meaningful comparison.

linux_devil2• 13 years ago

Comparing only with respect to price and only with respect to articles which referred Iphone 5c is targeting Asian markets especially India and China.

JohnTHaller5• 13 years ago

We're comparing entry level but quality phones. 5c is Apple's entry level phone at $549. Moto G is Motorola's at $179. There are lots of cheaper Androids as well as Androids that match the 5c in CPU and screen for less money as well as deals you can get on refurbished/last years phones from both companies, but we're specifically comparing what a new entry level phone is.

hbharadwaj• 13 years ago

Not yet. They need to beat Lumia 520's price. Agreed, the specs are higher but most people in that space don't care.

vidarh7• 13 years ago

China is overflowing with cheaper, better spec'ed phones than the Moto G. And their own homegrown high end phones that compete for the Iphone end of the market, like e.g. Xiaomi and Huawei phones priced in the same price range as the iPhone.

ttflee• 13 years ago

Xiaomi competes for the consumers who are jealous of the UX of iOS but could not afford a real iPhone. Also Xiaomi fails to match the demands to its flagship products time and time and always runs into shortages.

hrjet• 13 years ago

Yes, India might be a target, though by the time it goes through customs, it won't be $179 anymore. It will be more like $250 - 300. At that price range there are many other good alternatives available here (especially rebranded Chinese ones, that work quite well).

msoad• 13 years ago

I love watching race for enabling next billion people with cheap smartphone. We will see double of people on Internet today just in five years.

alan_cx• 13 years ago

Well, all I can say is that until last week I was still using my Nokia 6500c. This Moto G is the fist smart phone that for me does enough to warrant the price; UK £120, unlocked. So, I bought one.

bcraven• 13 years ago

I am in the same boat. Had it for a few weeks now and loving it!

sushidev• 13 years ago

I've got good recommendations on Lenovo A820 (http://www.gsmarena.com/lenovo_a820-5462.php) which has about the same price but a little lower. What would you buy? A Moto G or a Lenovo A820?

TrainedMonkey4• 13 years ago

It looks like Moto G has slightly better screen, newer OS, and better integration with Google services, while A820 has micro sd slot and better camera. If none of that is critical for you - I would say get a feel for both of them and go with one you like better. There is nothing fundamentally better about specs on either phone.

coolnow• 13 years ago

Keep in mind the A820 has an MTK SoC which could affect the timely adoption of later firmware vs the Moto G's Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, which is well supported by many ROM authors.

001sky• 13 years ago

Is Moto-G now good enough to replace an iPod touch? for a no-contract 'smartphone' that doesn't need to be up on 4g all of the time (say w/good wi-fi acesss)? Because it sure seems like a better deal in terms of functionality. The main limitation/constraint IMHO is the memory [8 or 16 GB NAND flash], which seems arbitrarily low. (ie, >5 years out of date).

blinkingled2• 13 years ago

Yeah barring the storage part - it is definitely a great iPod Touch replacement. You might be able to live with the 16GB if you stream stuff instead of playing it locally. There are many media player apps (Archos one that I use is great - even the free version) that can play videos from SMB shares etc.

av5002• 13 years ago

Archos developer here, glad that you like the app :)

vidarh7• 13 years ago

If you just want a media player, pick up almost any current generation chinese Android phones from Alibaba/Aliexpress. Many will be as cheap or cheaper, with plenty of them offering 1920x1080, and pretty much all of them supports 32GB or 64GB SD cards.

kombine3• 13 years ago

My Lenovo P780 was only $80 more expensive, but its battery has the highest capacity on the market, 4000 mAh. The phone holds the charge for >2 days of quite intensive use. I had Samsung Galaxy Note before this one, but now don't understand why anyone would choose top end phones from the brands like Samsung or Apple, if half of the cost of a phone goes to profit their shareholders.

eli2• 13 years ago

If battery capacity is your main issue, you can do better with an aftermarket one. I got a 4500 mAh for my Galaxy S3 for $30! Of course, it requires a new case because it's enormous...

kombine3• 13 years ago

It wasn't my main issue, until I got it. I was very restricted with my Samsung before, because I would always end up with dead battery during just a one day of intensive usage. As for the size, it's absolutely manageable, maybe a little thicker than most of the 5" phones.

btian2• 13 years ago

Does your phone support LTE? Does it run a modern version of Android? Does it have a modern SoC? Does it sync with my Fitbit? Is it widely available in the US? Can I get after sales support?

kombine3• 13 years ago

Does your phone support LTE?

I don't know if it does, but I live in Europe so that is not an issue for me.

Does it run a modern version of Android?

4.2.1

Does it have a modern SoC

It has more than enough horsepowers for what I do on a smartphone. It's quad-core, as for details - I never bothered.

Is it widely available in the US? Can I get after sales support?

Again, I don't know much about US, but I would imagine that a big company like Lenovo would be present there in one form or another.

benhamner• 13 years ago

don't understand why anyone would choose top end phones from the brands like Samsung or Apple, if half of the cost of a phone goes to profit their shareholders.

When consumers spend money to buy products, where the money goes (whether it's costs of production or shareholder profit) almost never factors into the purchase decision.

btian2• 13 years ago

Rightfully so. For instance, a new manufacturer comes in, and has high costs due to inefficiencies and lack of economies of scale, how does that help me in making decisions?

While low prices can make purchase more compelling, the lack of profits never does.

MichaelMoser123• 13 years ago

I bought a Lenovo A820 for my daughter; it's a great phone for the price, can only recommend it.

another point is build quality - the Lenovo phone comes in a metal case, not some plastic.

suchusername• 13 years ago

I like my Nexus 4. They barely mention it.

yachtintransit• 13 years ago

I'm surprised they didn't mention more about the Bluetooth 4.0 (low energy) support. I would take ble support over NFC . good writeup otherwise.

vidarh7• 13 years ago

That price point is now full of phones with 1920x1080 5" screens; 1280x720 is very much "last year". The camera specs are beaten roundly by my year old $200 phone. The physical design is almost identical to said year old phone (which is to say it looks pretty much like the Galaxy SIII).

And said phone also has removable battery, dual SIMs, and support for a 32GB SD card.

This might put ever single "cheap" Android phone of a brand well known in Europe and the US to shame, but from the specs given it's middle of the pack fo cheap Android phones overall (it's likely to be a bit faster and with better graphics performance than most low end Android phones, but lower resolution and lacking camera and storage e.g.)

KVFinn2• 13 years ago

That price point is now full of phones with 1920x1080 5" screens; 1280x720 is very much "last year". The camera specs are beaten roundly by my year old $200 phone. The physical design is almost identical to said year old phone (which is to say it looks pretty much like the Galaxy SIII).

I think you missed the fact that that's the non-contract no subsidy price... Your $200 dollar phone was probably 500 or 600 off contract so this costs about 1/3 as much.

vidarh7• 13 years ago

You are jumping to (wrong) conclusions. My $200 phone was without contract. .

Here's a few examples of current Chinese phones in the Moto G's price range or below:

2GB RAM, Quad Core MTK CPU, 5" screen, 12.8 megapixel camera down to $121: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Full-1-1-i9500-MTK6589-S4-Pho...

MTK based Galaxy S4 clone for <=$150: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Mtk6589t-S4-1-1-Perfect-Galax...

Note 3 clone for ~$190: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/3200mAh-battery-Galaxy-N9000-...

Most of these phones are very good quality and the main "problem" to be aware of is that the MTK SoC's are not the fastests alternative. Then again, neither is the one in the Moto G.

glogla4• 13 years ago

That, or he has non-branded phone straight from china. You can find quite some interesting things on dealextreme or similar site, if you're feeling adventurous.

nicholassmith• 13 years ago

It looks great, but as I've mentioned here before, I have some concerns about the cost. It's a great short term boon to consumers getting a device of this high quality at this price point, but the margins have to be razor thing on it, so how do they make money for R&D? What about Company X? What do they do, slice prices to match to keep market share or hope they retain a profit share? If they slash where do they get the R&D budget from?

The smartphone market is starting to get truly interesting, I just hope it doesn't get dominated by the companies with the deepest pockets, it's a short term gain for consumers (we all like things cheaper), but could long term stagnate the market.

Brakenshire• 13 years ago

You can see this with Jolla- interesting new entrant, aims to provide a less monolithic, more hackable device, built on the Nokia N9, which was widely acclaimed. But it's double the price of the Moto G, with equivalent or even slightly worse specs.

If Google is selling its handsets at or near cost, and relying on the long-term value of advertising and data, then it will be almost impossible for anyone without the same revenue streams to engage in serious competition.

dageshi• 13 years ago

I guess if you're google, you might worry that someone could come along and do this to you. Someone say for instance Amazon decides to sell a very good quality phone at near cost and starts to capture marketshare. From Google's perspective, better for them to preemptively do that if that's where the market is heading anyway.

pekk• 13 years ago

Assuming the only spec that matters is a CPU frequency etc., which is as incredibly silly and naive today as it always was

TrainedMonkey4• 13 years ago

Google is not in business of making money with selling hardware like Apple and Samsung. Google is selling a platform, and then makes money from people using it.

a3n• 13 years ago

And then makes money from people using the people that use the platform.

notdrunkatall2• 13 years ago

You worry too much. Google can afford to blow some cash on a long-term strategy. They'll be fine.

Company X will either sink or swim. If they sink, Company Y will take their place once Google's long-term plan reaches maturity and the value of their phones begins stagnating.

It's a cliche that so many people hate to hear, but the market will sort it out.

Consumer electronics is one of the least regulated sectors worldwide, yet it has been advancing by leaps and bounds for some three decades, and the diversity of companies large and small in the consumer electronics space has never been greater than it is today.

tjbiddle• 13 years ago

Exactly. Google can afford a long-term strategy - but, as much as I support Google, competition is healthy for any market.

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

Thin margins are great. Innovation typically happens more when margins are thinner. When profit is easy it's easy to be lasy, which we've seen. It'll be nice to see the market tighten up more and people actually have to earn money by servicing the customer.

pandeiro• 13 years ago

I've used this phone and the lack of dual-band wifi causes some issues with wifi-connectivity. Its range is less than my Nexus 4 and it will sporadically lose connectivity over wifi, more often than other Android devices I've used.

kunai• 13 years ago

I'd extend this statement and say that the Moto G puts every single cheap phone to shame. Not just Android. It becomes very hard to justify a Lumia at $400 or an iPhone 4S at a ludicrous $450 when we have a flagship Nexus at $350 and now the Moto G at $179.

Combine that with the defiant cries against consumerism and wastefulness with Project Ara, and Google has really raised the bar by quite a bit for what a mobile phone OEM is capable of. It will be interesting to see what happens 3, 4 years down the line when the market fully resaturates with more price-friendly and DIY-friendly phones.

Zigurd2• 13 years ago

Moto G is a great balance of price and performance. It is also much more sensible for a Google-owned OEM to pursue a distinctive niche in the market than to compete with Google's partners across their whole product line.

BUT that's just one handset. Nobody knows what Motorola will do next. Is Google shining it up to sell? That would be sensible.

Motorola is a huge addition to Google's headcount that produces far less than the typical Google product group. Motorola competes with Google's partners. Google would be better off with Motorola as an OEM partner than as a subsidiary.

ForHackernews4• 13 years ago

My understanding is Google bought Motorola primarily for their patent portfolio, so they'd have some weapons to aim at Apple and ward off lawsuits through mutually-assured destruction.

Is it possible for them to sell off Motorola's hardware operations while retaining their IP?

Zigurd2• 13 years ago

Many people assumed this is what would have happened by now. Maybe it's a problem Google is avoiding: What if OEM + patents adds up to nowhere near $12B? Google risks distracting management and annoying partners by dithering.

dools• 13 years ago

I hope someone at Motorola loves the Pro+ as much as I do and they bring out a low end candy bar qwerty.

Every time a company releases a new touch screen keyboard, God kills a kitten.

dschiptsov• 13 years ago

Why, it is Nexus 4 with half of RAM and cheap plastic case.

ye2• 13 years ago

Except you can't buy Nexus 4.

yc-kjh• 13 years ago

Battery NOT User-Removable. Phone NOT User-Buyable.

userbinator• 13 years ago

To me this was a huge WTF? If they went to the trouble of making the back easily detachable, why did they deliberately do that? Almost feels like they're trolling the user: "Ha! Fooled you!"

Even more so when they officially refer to it as the "battery door" in the documentation! https://motorola-global-en-roe.custhelp.com/app/answers/prod...

downer90• 13 years ago

Seriously. I take major issue with devices that you can't cut the power to.

As far as I'm concerned, that renders it as an eavesdropping apparatus.

If I can't remove the battery, I'll never know when the microphone is truly off. I'll never know whether it's logging GPS geolocation data or not.

contingencies• 13 years ago

Half price Firefox OS phones like the ZTE Open are more impressive and better for your freedom.

Google want your communications, thinking, location, habits... this is worse than Mastercard or Xperian issuing you a phone. It's fundamentally evil, regardless of how they dress it up.

Support Mozilla FirefoxOS and internet freedom.

glogla4• 13 years ago

While Firefox OS is indeed impressive and good for freedom, for someone used to better screen the 320*480 screen of ZTE Open is pretty terrible to use.

I hope that soon we can get something like Moto G with FxOS.

therandomguy• 13 years ago

This is what I though iPhone 5c would be.

auctiontheory3• 13 years ago

I don't get it. If you're using a smart phone for all the things that smart phones do (audio, photo albums, video), 16GB just isn't enough. Even my 32GB iPhone requires active file management to avoid hitting the limit.

fastest963• 13 years ago

I have not had a phone with over 32GB for the past 2 years and yet I've never had to perform "active file management" or delete any media from my phone. I consume all my music through Grooveshark and Play Music and watch videos on Netflix or YouTube.

auctiontheory3• 13 years ago

Do you only use your phone at home or when you have Wi-Fi access? (Do you live in South Korea?) Most US cellular data plans don't allow very much streaming audio, let alone video, before you hit a cap. Certainly not a month's worth.

Source: I've easily hit my cap when I mistakenly turned off Wi-Fi.

evandena• 13 years ago

I think the target demographic isn't a heavy media consumer, so going with lower storage keeps the price down. Also, cloud.

ceras• 13 years ago

I stream music and browse the web (including FB) almost every day of the week and I've never hit my 2GB data cap. My 16 GB hard drive is more than enough.

fidotron4• 13 years ago

I think questions need to begin to be asked about Google getting close to giving the hardware away in return for user information. It gets dangerously close to the kind of practices that got MS in trouble, especially the way it ends up poisoning the market for anyone else.

The problem is competition is good, and if users want their privacy they probably should be going to pay for it, but I'm profoundly uncomfortable with essentially condemning those that can't afford it to having to surrender their rights to privacy.

DCKing• 13 years ago

"I'm profoundly uncomfortable with essentially condemning those that can't afford it to having to surrender their rights to privacy."

You appear to be implying that you can get extra privacy by buying a more expensive phone. However, the Moto G does not actually seem to be any more or any less invading of privacy compared to any other Android phone out there (and arguably not moreso even compared to Windows Phones and iPhones). Even if those phones are much more expensive than it.

Furthermore, the inevitable popularity of the Moto G only means that you will be able to load it with a custom ROM that gives you as much control as you want, like Cyanogenmod/OmniROM without Google apps.

Google rightly gets flak for privacy issues, but I think you're going too far by getting the privacy debate into hardware pricing as well.

fidotron4• 13 years ago

OK, I admit it's not a perfect viewpoint, but I don't think any is!

The problem here is these things should be private by default, with the option to break from that, since installing things like Cyanogenmod have external dependencies (like PCs) that cost money and people may not have access to. Features such as weather forecast widgets should not break if you choose not to share your location with Google, and right now many will.

Further, I think Google are monopolising areas such as push email to such a degree they should be forced, MS in EU style, to give you a choice of accounts you can use to access things on the device when first started up. For example, there is no technical reason you couldn't use your twitter (or any OAuth) account as your ID, even when accessing Google services like the Play Store, but they are using all this to weasel Google+ in everywhere.

raldi• 13 years ago

The laws Microsoft ran afoul of were under the general category of, "Things you're not allowed to do if you have a monopoly", and the court found that Windows was a monopoly, primarily because the switching costs were so high.

Do you feel Google has a monopoly (i.e., tremendous market share, high switching costs)?

If so, in what?

lnanek2• 13 years ago

As someone in the US, I'm not really willing to buy a phone with no LTE in this day and age, and carriers will loathe to put them in stores. I think even HTC's Facebook phone from last year is a better attempt than this, goes for free on contract, and could probably be obtained as cheaply off ebay. I doubt this is really meant to sell in the US anyway, though.

Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame

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