Motorola has finally introduced its much-rumored Moto E, a budget handset with decent specs, aiming to kill the feature phone.
The Moto E arrives as the successor of the widely popular Moto G, which proved to be Motorola's top-selling device ever. The Moto G came with very good specs for its price point, and enjoyed tremendous success worldwide. The Moto E aims to take it one step forward and offer an even cheaper alternative, with the ultimate goal of dismissing feature phones once and for all.
Motorola's new Moto E doesn't hold much in terms of specifications, but it does come with a dirt cheap $129 price tag unlocked and contract free, while also running Google's latest Android 4.4 KitKat operating system.
For this very low price point, users will get a basic smartphone with basic specifications, as expected. The Moto E sports a 4.3-inch screen with a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels and packs a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor under the hood, clocked at 1.2GHz and paired with 1GB of RAM.
Because it comes with a very low price tag, however, Motorola had to make more notable sacrifices in some departments. Most notably, the Moto E has a 5-megapixel camera with no flash, but it has no front-facing shooter. The handset also comes with only 4GB of internal storage capacity, but at least it has a microSD card slot for additional memory. As expected, LTE is out of the question.
Overall, the new Moto E comes with quite modest specifications, but nevertheless it is more tempting than a feature phone that doesn't really offer anything.
"We're pushing the boundaries of the value equation even further with Moto E, a new class of smartphone that's fully loaded and fairly priced - a perfect combination for savvy shoppers and first-time smartphone buyers. Because smartphones haven't always come at smart prices and we believe that people shouldn't have to compromise on quality, style or experience," Motorola touts in its latest company blog post on Tuesday, May 13.
"The fact is, about 70% of mobile phone users in the world are still using feature phones that can't unlock the full wonder of the mobile Internet, in many cases because they don't think it's worth the $337 for a smartphone (the average selling price globally in 2013)," Motorola further explains. "We believe it's time the feature phone era came to an end and that quality smartphones are made accessible and affordable for all. Say hello to Moto E and join us in officially saying goodbye to the feature phone forever."
The new Moto E budget smartphone will be available in more than 40 countries worldwide through more than 80 partners, launching over the next few weeks. Interested customers in the U.S. can already pre-order the handset from Motorola's website at this link.
