If you are the epitome of laziness and would love to do the shopping online if only the prices were as good as they were on real life then you’ll be interested in knowing that Motorola now have the Moto G 4G LTE variant up for grabs to buy from their official website. The price is $219, and you will be getting the best version of this smartphone available and considering it was a low-end device it were an excellent edition to spend the extra money on. Anytime you can snap up a bargain made from quality manufacturers and has all the bells and whistles you need plus LTE then I concur it’s a great deal. The Snapdragon 400 SoC won’t blow you away, but it is the industry standard for the market it is competing again. If you want outstanding gaming performance, this won’t happen but if it’s just for general use, it’s more than enough.
The specs between the original Moto G and the 4G LTE variants are exactly the same. They both have a 4.5-inch display, screen resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels, the pixel density is 326 ppi, the screen technology is IPS LCD and it weighs 143 grams. It started off with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean OS but has since been updated to 4.4 and now close to the latest software version possible on any Android-based operating system with 4.4.2 KitKat. The display also features the extras that all the good handsets do such as a light sensor, proximity sensor, scratch resistant glass and it is a multi-touch touch screen.
The camera is lackluster at only 5 megapixels on the rear, and the front shooter is 1.3 megapixels. The good news is the camcorder is 720p HD 1280×720 resolution, and that’s all you need for a good picture still to this day. Many prefer that size because the higher the quality, the more data it also uses so 720p is a good combination of efficient data use and still up there with a great quality picture. For a low-end smartphone, you can’t complain about the camera quality either.
There is a pair of significant distinctions between the two handsets though, and they are the LTE radio and there’s an additional feature that a lot of people don’t know about in the expandable storage system. The original Moto G lacks a MicroSD card slot for extra storage, and it only came out with 8 GB of built-in storage space, and that’s before the Android OS was done filling a few GB worth of software and apps. The new LTE version, however delivers the same 8 GB but also storage expansion of up to 32 GB with microSD and microSDHC card slots. The cards come separate to keep the price down, but all you have to do is head to the nearest retailer and pick up the card and slide it in the existing slot to enhance the amount of data it stores. This idea is not just for Moto phones, but continues way outside into the Android ecosystem and even the best smartphones out there including the Samsung Galaxy S5 use the same method. The only different is the specifics with the card so make sure you are buying the right one. Ask the customer service representative in the store to avoid any confusion.
If you like software and that plays an important role in your decision, you’ll be pleased to know that the Moto G is upgrade-able to the Android 4.4.3 KitKat. This roll out started nearly two weeks ago now, and if you’re buying the handset now, there’s a real likelihood the update will be waiting for you to download OTA. If there is no information waiting in the notification bar, it might still be on its way to you, or you can try to check manually by going to Settings > touch About phone > touch System updates, and it will scan for the update and ping back the response. You can keep doing this until it becomes available. It’s also possible to check what software version you are currently on by touching the Settings app > touch About phone and look at the SW version.