Motorola’s second-generation Moto E smartphone proves that you don’t need to spend a great deal of money to get an excellent company phone. The gadget provides a compact 4.5-inch display, fast performance and friendly battery life.
Plus, it gives you provides you a clean Android experience, without a lot of ineffective bonus. And you’ll get all that for under $100 off-contract, without any have to sign a pricey two-year contract. Motorola’s Moto G is another friendly option; it offers a roomier 5-inch screen, however its performance and battery life drag the Moto E (examine the chart below.)
2016: Best Budget Business Phone
Key functions:
- Excellent efficiency
- Long battery life
- Stock Android
- Budget friendly rate point
You don’t need to invest a great deal of money to obtain a really excellent company phone. Motorola’s second-generation Moto E smartphone is proof of that, offering decent efficiency, long battery life and premium hardware for an unbelievably low cost: simply $130 off-contract, with no costly two-year arrangement connected. In addition to having nice hardware, the Moto E is one of the only budget-priced handsets to deliver with the current variation of the Android os, which is loaded with productivity-boosting new functions.
As the smallest smartphone in the Moto line, the 4.5-inch Moto E is positioned as the lowest-end device behind Motorola’s 5-inch Moto G and 5.2-inch Moto X. But the Moto E easily withstands the Moto G, offering similar performance for a lot less cash. So does that make the Moto E our preferred phone for company users on a budget plan?
Design
Regardless of its budget plan rate, the Moto E actually feels and look pretty slick. It likewise feels extremely solid and well-made, though it’s a bit chunky as compared to more expensive models.
Our testimonial unit’s body was made from matte-black plastic. I particularly like the soft-touch back, which provides the device an all of a sudden luxurious feel. The back likewise has the same gentle curve and trademark dimple as the other phones in the Moto line. Combined, those design includes make the Moto E feel exceptionally comfy in my hand.
The no-nonsense black-on-black design of our evaluation unit is ideal for a work phone. Motorola also provides a white version (which is likewise envisioned in this testimonial), and both the black and the white models can be embellished with colorful bands; the plastic perimeter of the Moto E really pops off so you can swap it out. The phone’s SIM tray and micro-SD card port are also concealed under the band.
As compared to a lot of contemporary phones, the Moto E feels extremely compact, measuring 5.11 x 2.62 x 0.48 inches with a 4.5-inch screen. However at 5.11 ounces, it’s far from the lightest phone at this screen size. Still, it’s smaller sized and lighter than the Moto G (5.57 x 2.78 x 0.24-0.43 inches, 5.25 ounces).
Display
The teeny, small 4.3-inch screen of the initial Moto E, released in 2014, was a bit too confined for my taste. The second-gen model’s 4.5-inch screen is still smaller than average, however huge enough for fundamental efficiency tasks. Browsing my e-mail inbox was comfortable, though I felt a bit boxed in throughout more screen-intensive jobs like editing a spreadsheet in the Google Sheets app.
The 960 x 540-pixel IPS panel is a quite low-res in addition to being small, though that’s common for a spending plan phone. Text on Web pages and in documents was still reasonably crisp and understandable, as long as I didn’t zoom out too far.
The screen is brighter and more vibrant than display screens on the majority of competing phones. In our tests, it showed a larger color gamut than the Moto G did. And this Moto E’s screen peaked at 393 nits of brightness, which is brighter than the Moto G (303 nits), along with the smartphone average (371 nits). That makes the screen much easier to see outdoors, or in direct sunshine, which is a perk for mobile business users.
Performance
The Moto E is no speed demon, but it’s quickly enough for basic efficiency jobs– and a great deal faster than in 2014’s version. Browsing around the interface felt nice and smooth, and most apps ran without a hitch. I experienced the occasional moment of stagnation when releasing and switching between apps, however.
On the Geekbench 3 test, which determines overall efficiency, the Moto E scored 1,282, which is a bit much faster than the Moto G (1,153). Both scored far lower than the smartphone average (2,072), but that’s normal for spending plan handsets.
The Moto G operate on a modest 1.2-GHz Snapdragon 410 processor and 1GB, so don’t expect too much and you will not be dissatisfied. If you want to inspect e-mail, search the Web and run a few apps, there’s lots of power here. On the other hand, if you can’t stand the occasional hiccup throughout heavy multitasking, you ought to purchase a much faster phone.
Storage
While the initial Moto E had a scant 4GB of onboard storage, Motorola mercifully doubled the brand-new design’s storage to 8GB. You can likewise increase that by as much as 32GB with a micro SD card, offering you plenty of space to save lots of files and documents on your smartphone.
Notices
Like other phones in the Moto line, the Moto E includes some useful software features that could make you more efficient. That consists of an easier way to see and act on inbound alerts and notifications in the form of Moto Display, which lets you see signals without touching your gadget. When a new email arrives, for instance, the phone will pulse a picture of your e-mail app, showing a white icon on a black background in order to conserve battery life. You can push and hold the icon to reveal a preview of the message, then swipe as much as rapidly reply, or swipe laterally to dismiss the message. Because you do not have to switch on your phone whenever your phone ringings, you can spend less time fussing with it and more time working.
Operating system
While most budget phones run on older variations of Android, the Moto E ships with a fresh installation of Android 5.0 Lollipop, the most recent version of Google’s mobile os. In addition to tons of cosmetic updates, Lollipop adds a bunch of brand-new features that company users will value.
Among my preferred additions is Priority Mode, which lets you customize how when you get specific kinds of notices and notifies. For example, you can guarantee your morning meetings aren’t interrupted by a buzzing smartphone by setting Priority Mode to only notify you to messages from specified relative, associates or workers throughout that block of time every day.
Lollipop also offers much better methods to multitask than previous variations of Android did. As constantly, you can tap the square button to the left of the Home button to view your most recently used apps, but now the list can consist of multiple pages from specific applications. For example, it can reveal your inbox and an in-progress e-mail draft as separate items, so it’s easy to jump back and forth between them.
Other good functions for company users include incorporated wireless printing and much better encryption for messaging.
Voice commands
Lollipop likewise provides friendly assistance for touchless controls. Simply turn your phone on and say, “OK, Google,” to trigger the voice-command prompt. At that point, you can release commands to examine the weather condition, set a suggestion, conserve a note or schedule a consultation in your phone’s calendar, simply by saying a couple of words. The nice aspect of touchless controls is that they let you quickly and easily total otherwise troublesome tasks. But unlike the Moto X, which responds to voice commands even when the screen is turned off, the Moto E (in addition to the Moto G) only reacts from the home screen.
Videoconferencing
One of the huge sacrifices Motorola made to accomplish the low price point of the original Moto E was leaving out the front-facing video camera, which made the gadget completely ineffective for videoconferencing. Luckily, a front shooter was included on the new Moto E, so you can use a video-chat app like Skype or Hangouts to fulfill from another location with clients or coworkers. Do not anticipate fantastic video quality; a selfie I snapped was rough and dull, and whites were completely blown out. Substandard web cams are common for smartphones, as well as though the Moto E’s cam is a bit worse than average, it’s great for fundamental video calls. Sadly, the Moto E’s speakers are a bit quiet, peaking at 74 decibels (81 dB is typical), so you’ll wish to see to it you’re in a quiet space, or utilizing headsets, prior to initiating a video call.
Battery life of Budget Business Phone
This is where the Moto E truly shines as best budget business smartphone. The phone ran for a 8 hours and 32 minutes in our battery test, which replicates constant Web searching with the screen set to 150 nits of brightness. That’s a lot longer than the Moto G (6:30), and it’s likewise longer than the smartphone average (8:22)– quite outstanding for a budget phone. Long battery life like this is a big perk for company users who need a gadget that can last through the end of the day and beyond.
Value of Best Budget Business Smartphone for 2016
So just how friendly a bargain is the Moto E? A $150 smartphone might not seem that low-cost, particularly if you’re used to purchasing subsidized handsets with two-year contracts through big providers like AT&T or Verizon. The distinction is that the Moto E comes without the costly agreement connected, so you can buy the phone up front and select a far more affordable monthly strategy through a little carrier.
Still not convinced? Consider how pricey the latest flagship phones are when bought off-contract. The Galaxy S6 costs $600, while the iPhone 6 is $650. That must put the value of the Moto E into point of view.
Moto E vs. Moto G
If you’re in the market for a spending plan company phone, there’s actually no reason to select a gadget aside from among these phones; they are by far the best smartphones you can purchase for the money.
The Moto E begins at $120 for the variation without 4G LTE connectivity, however I would strongly advise the $150 LTE design, which offers faster Internet speeds. Meanwhile the 5-inch Moto G starts at $180 without LTE, or $220 with it.
Size and cost aside, the Moto E’s other huge advantage is that it offers two extra hours of battery life compared with the Moto G. Otherwise, the 2 phones provide similar efficiency and the exact same software functions.
The bigger Moto G is still a terrific choice if you actually want that additional half-inch of screen area to work with. But we think that budget-minded company users with only fundamental computing requirements may be better off going for the Moto E rather.
The bottom line
Spending plan budget business smartphones merely don’t get better than this. The Moto E offers a solid design, great battery life and exceptional software application for a rate that’s lower than that of many lower phones.
That doesn’t mean you won’t see the phone’s imperfections if you hold it up versus costlier designs. The Moto E has a low-res display screen and middling performance compared to flagship phones, and its 4.5-inch display may feel a bit cramped, depending on what you’re used to.
However for the cash, you can’t beat it.
