Published in Mobiles

Moto E 2. Gen LTE now official

by on26 February 2015


Starting at $150, same screen, new SoC and LTE

Motorola has revamped the entry-level Moto E to include a new processor with LTE support, but the screen and much of the spec remain the same. The first-generation Motorola Moto E is powered with Snapdragon 200, an entry level Qualcomm chip that doesn’t come with LTE.

The original Moto E has been around for quite some time now and this 960x540, 4.3-inch screen phone is selling for around $94 in the US and €94 across most parts of Europe. It does not have LTE, and relies on 3G and HSUPA with speeds up to 21Mbps. The Moto E successor was already leaked by a US retailer that showed us most of the specs.

The new version that you can call Moto E second generation now has LTE support as well as a new 64-bit chipset. The screen grew to 4.5 inches, but the screen resolution stayed at 960x540 which means it won't be as sharp as the old, 4.3-inch Moto E. The screen uses IPS LCD technology, as well as Gorilla Glass 3, but we are still upset about the relatively low resolution.

The SoC of choice is Snapdragon 410, a 64-bit quad core Cortex A53 clocked at 1.2GHz and the phone comes with 1GB of RAM. The Snapdragon 410 has Adreno 306 graphics as well as LTE support.

The built in storage grew to 8GB, up from 4GB on the first-gen model, and the phone comes with Android 5.0 out of the box. There is still a micro SD option on the phone if you need more storage. The main camera stayed at 5 megapixels, with a f/2.2 aperture lens. It can record 720p videos at 30FPS. The front face camera is VGA resolution only, but this is still an upgrade from the Moto E 2014, since the previous version of the phone didn’t have a front-facing camera at all.

The battery grew from 1980 mAh with the first generation model to 2390 mAh with the new Moto E second generation. The phone sells for $150, which about the same price as Moto G on Amazon and it comes in black and white. In case you want some other color you can get a Motorola Band phone wrap in Golden Yellow, Turquoise, Blue, Raspberry, Purple or Red.

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The Moto E 4G LTE is the first to launch and there will also be a less expensive Moto E 3G coming soon. The competition in this ~$100 market is getting extremely rough, as phone makers realise that not too many people want to spend $500 – $600 on a new phone. The $150-priced Motorola E sits too close to Moto G second generation that currently sells for $179 / €175 sans LTE. Many carriers across Europe blackmail their customers into getting much more expensive data plans in order to get the LTE speeds, and with this in mind LTE phone in $150 makes a tougher sell.

The future-proof dream however, will be a nice sales pitch.

Last modified on 26 February 2015
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