Skip to footer

With Moto G, Google's Motorola takes aim at emerging markets

The Motorola Moto G packs a 4.5-inch HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and a bargain-basement price. 

|
Motorola/Google
The Moto G, from Google's Motorola, will be available in a range of colors.
  • By Matthew Shaer

Google's Motorola Mobility has unveiled a new smart phone aimed at budget-minded consumers. 

The 8GB Moto G, which will be rolled out this week in Brazil and some parts of Europe – a wider launch is expected over the next couple months – is set to be offered unlocked for the equivalent of $179. (The 16GB model will sell for $199.) For that price, you'll get a colorful aesthetic inspired by the Moto X, a 4.5-inch HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and the Android 4.3 operating system. 

"[P]rice-conscious consumers who don’t want to pay $600 or more for high-end smartphones have been left with two bad options," Motorola reps wrote in a blog post today. "The first is to buy cheap, new smartphones made with second-rate technology that don’t do justice to modern apps and experiences like navigation, video chat and games. The second is to buy 'low cost' versions of premium products that were released two or three years ago and are already obsolete. We think there should be a better option." 

So how does the Motorola G handle?

Well, in a hands-on test over at PC Pro, Jonathan Bray finds the design "pleasant enough" and the performance a "mixed bag," with less-than-spectacular speed. 

"This isn’t a phone to set the world on fire, but we do like the direction Motorola is taking with the Moto G," Mr. Bray writes. "For the money, it offers an awful lot of hardware – especially that lovely display and the waterproofing – the design is appealing, and software is mercifully clean. It looks as if Android finally has something to rival Nokia’s excellent Windows Phone-based budget Lumias – and we think they’re going to sell a boat load." 

In related news, Motorola, which had been hoping for a breakthrough hit with its Moto X phone, saw only 500,000 Moto X units shipped in the third quarter of this year, according to Strategy Analytics (hat tip WSJ). That's far, far behind the numbers put up by Samsung Galaxy S4 and Apple iPhone smart phones during the same time period. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to With Moto G, Google's Motorola takes aim at emerging markets
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2013/1113/With-Moto-G-Google-s-Motorola-takes-aim-at-emerging-markets
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe