Motorola had a launch event held in Mumbai today to showcase the new Moto E 2nd Gen to the media. The device is a successor to Motorola Moto E which was a highly successful to bring smartphones to the masses at an affordable price. The Moto E 2nd Gen improves on the strong points of the older phone and taking over the fight against other budget segment players. I got some hands on with the new device and there are lots of changes done to the little fellow.
First up the 4.3 inch display has been grown to a much required 4.5 inch with a better resolution of 960 x540 pixels. The screen is pleasant to look at and has decent viewing angles. The newest addition on the front is a VGA camera, something sorely missed on the older model. While the Snapdragon 200 on the spec sheet sounds familiar, the processor is now a Quad Core chip clocked at 1.2GHz and the device has 1GB of RAM. There is a 4G LTE model as well that comes with a better Snapdragon 410 processor.
At the back the device has a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a secondary microphone at the back. The camera is capable of 720p video recording but is surprising to see that Motorola still hasn’t given a flashlight in the updated device. The device runs on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop and was very responsive. Motorola has kept the software stock while baking a few features from its other models. The new Moto E now has Moto Display which lights the screen up when there is a notification allowing the user to glance at it. Quick Camera launch using the signature double crank gesture along with other apps like Moto Alert and Moto Migrate.
The shape of the device is more or less the same and the back is now non removable. Under the back is a big 2390mAh battery. The device also promises 1 day battery life which seems achievable with the current specifications. The side cover pops out to reveal two sim card slots and a MicroSD card slot, something quite unique and cool to look at. While the device is available in only two colors (White and Black) these shells are available in multiple colors. The phone is now available exclusively on Flipkart for Rs 6,999.
