Say goodbye to the Moto G and hello to the Moto E. Okay, maybe it’s not goodbye, but Motorola announced a new smartphone this week with the hashtag #GoodbyeDumbPhone. The Moto E is being released side by side the already popular, quick and inexpensive Moto G. The plastic white phone looks much like the Moto G and higher-end model, the Moto X. The Moto E also comes with customization options via the Moto Maker website. You can choose a plethora of colorful backings. Moto E includes 4G LTE service, and is a whopping $129 without a contract, running just slightly less expensive than the $179 Moto G and the brand new $219 Moto G 4G LTE. Preorder shipments to US customers will taken until June 3-6.
The budget Android comes with a 4.3″ display, 4GB of internal storage, and it supports microSD cards up to 32GB. Stylistically, it’s boring compared to the Moto X customization options, but the price of the Moto E is hard to beat with its addition of 4G out of the box for less than $150. It also comes with Android KitKat (4.42) and Motorola is guaranteeing upgrading the OS as updates roll out, as it does with all its current Moto Androids.
The value is hard to beat, and Motorola is definitely banking on the market of cheap handsets with the “#GoodbyeDumbPhone” hashtag in its video. Could this be the death of the flip phone? One can only hope as a tech aficionado, but cheap is still cheap. The Moto E appears to come without a front-facing cam, and its 1.2GHz dual-core A7 Snapdragon CPU and a single-core Adreno GPU are piddly compared to any flagship. All of this said, considering how well the Moto G turned out, there’s hope and promise for the Moto E. And, if nothing, Motorola is definitely changing the smartphone hardware game by appealing to frugal consumers.
Goodbye dumbphone, indeed.