<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"We really didn&amp;#039;t think anyone would be able to beat the value found in the Nexus 5, but somehow Motorola has done it. The Moto G is, for the money, quite an achievement. To pack a quad-core processor and a 720p screen into a phone that costs just \u00A3135 is amazing. What&amp;#039;s more impressive, is that Motorola has kept the build quality up, placing the Moto G far beyond the likes of Samsung&amp;#039;s more plastic fantastic offerings. If you are in the market for a cheap smartphone, it&amp;#039;s the handset to go for. Here&amp;#039;s why. Hardware and Design It&amp;#039;s not going to win any prizes for its size and weight, but the Moto G certainly feels tough. In the hand, it feels a bit like an iPhone 3G, albeit with a matte back. Sizing is 129.9 x 65.9 x 11.6 mm and the whole thing weighs 143 g, which is chunky by modern standards, but not overly so. The main thing is that the phone is solid and well put together and crucially, it doesn&amp;#039;t feel cheap. Handsets of this price range typically have a nasty feel to them, with flex in the chassis and a back that is hugely fingerprint friendly.  Motorola has taken a no fuss approach. There isn&amp;#039;t anything exciting to say about the design of the Moto G, other than it just works. You can of course spice things up with a different coloured back or case for the handset should you fancy it, but even the standard black version we reviewed here was perfectly fine. On the back of the phone is a 5-megapixel camera unit, flash and speaker grille. On the front, a 1.3-megapixel camera as well as a 720p 4.5-inch screen. Interestingly, the Android keys are software based, rather than being touch sensitive keys below the display. Presumably this is to save on cash. On the internal hardware front, you have a quad-core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chip, alongside 1GB of RAM and either 8GB or 16GB of internal storage. Battery life is covered by a 2,070 mAh battery which we found could just about cope with moderate use of the phone.  We will go into the functionality and real-world user experience of the Moto G later, but the bottom line is, it feels fairly quick compared to anything else at \u00A3135 off contract. The hardware is impressive for the money and we like that Motorola has kept it simple and played it safe. It could be thinner and it could be lighter, but given the cost, we don&amp;#039;t mind. Camera The 5-megapixel snapper in the Moto G doesn&amp;#039;t even come close to what the rest of the flagship smartphone competition offers, but then it&amp;#039;s not particularly bad either. Rather than focussing on raw image quality, which would bump hardware costs up, Motorola has instead looked at how they can improve camera functionality and usability. As such, the UI is as simple as it could possibly be. You tap anywhere to take a photograph and the phone will snap away fairly rapidly. Swipe left and you have more complex settings, including an HDR mode and the ability to shoot slow motion video. Swipe right and the gallery of pictures you have taken will open up. It&amp;#039;s simple, well thought out and great for smartphone beginners. If you haven&amp;#039;t thought about owning a smartphone before, or find the concept intimidating, the Moto G will make things simple where it matters.  As for the front facing camera, 1.3-megapixels is more than enough for video calling or taking the odd selfie. The 720p display also lends itself nicely to viewing pictures on the Moto G - it&amp;#039;s bright and has decent colour saturation and impressive viewing angles for a phone in this price bracket. User Interface and Apps The Moto G runs Android 4.3 out of the box, with a promised update to Android 4.4. Like the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7, the version included is left untouched from stock. This means no nasty widgets and silly animations, which tend to slow down the more budget side of Android phones. On the Moto G, things are plenty fast. Again, it all relates back to the way that the Moto G has been approached, that is, things have been kept simple. Let&amp;#039;s take the start-up process. Motorola has something called Motorola Migrate, which is basically a quick way of transferring photos, videos, contacts and pretty much everything else from your old Android phone. &amp;gt; Android 4.4 KitKat review It&amp;#039;s a simple way of getting yourself set up on a new device and, provided your older phone runs Android 2.2 or later, works perfectly. Then there is the rest of the UI, which is as fuss free as it needs to be. The app drawer boots up rapidly and so do the majority of applications themselves.  Google Maps is nice and quick, as are the rest of Google&amp;#039;s stock apps, including Hangouts, Chrome and the contacts app. Having been spoiled slightly with the Nexus 5 and KitKat, it will be nice to see how the Moto G changes with the latest version of the operating system, but for now, it&amp;#039;s as slick and smooth as we have ever seen Android on a phone that costs this much. Music and Movies This is where the Moto G&amp;#039;s screen comes into its own. Traditionally we wouldn&amp;#039;t recommend budget smartphones as movie watching material, but with a 720p screen on board, the Moto G is perfectly adequate. That 4.5-inch display makes the device more than suitable for the odd &amp;#039;on the bus&amp;#039; rental of a TV show or movie from Google Play.  Unfortunately, the base 8GB of storage isn&amp;#039;t ideal, while those who opt for the 16GB version will still find themselves limited in storage due to the lack of microSD expandability. The competition This is where the Moto G starts to run away with things a little. Heading over to things like the Carphone Warehouse website and looking at SIM free deals, the \u00A3149 Galaxy Fame strikes us as the closest thing to the Moto G. It has a single core processor, Android 4.1 and a 3.5-inch screen with 320x480. The spec difference alone make the Moto G worth it. Of course you could take the eBay route, but we think you will struggle to find anything with a quad-core processor inside below the \u00A3200 mark. Verdict We are very impressed with the Moto G. The bottom line is, nearly all the faults we have with it are excusable when you hold it up against the rest of the similarly priced competition. Quite simply it represents stellar value. We think Motorola&amp;#039;s no fuss approach to design is a good one, and the use of matte plastic and Gorilla Glass 3 means the phone is nice and solid. If you are in the market for an entry level smartphone, there is nothing better right now.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/smartphones/news/a531318/motorola-moto-g-review-the-only-choice-if-youre-on-a-budget/>