The Moto G is an Android

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

developed and manufactured by

Motorola Mobility Motorola Mobility LLC, marketing as Motorola, is an American consumer electronics manufacturer primarily producing smartphones and other mobile devices running Android (operating system), Android. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese te ...

, at the time a subsidiary of

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. Released on 13 November 2013, the phone was initially aimed at

emerging markets An emerging market (or an emerging country or an emerging economy) is a market that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not fully meet its standards. This includes markets that may become developed markets in the future or we ...

, although it was also available in

developed market In investing, a developed market is a country that is most developed in terms of its economy and capital markets. The country must be high income, but this also includes openness to foreign ownership, ease of capital movement, and efficiency of m ...

s as a low-price option. After six months on the market, the Moto G became Motorola's best-selling smartphone ever, and was the top selling phone in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. The Moto G was succeeded by the second generation Moto G in September 2014.

Specifications

The phone features a 4.5 inch

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not em ...

IPS screen and a

Qualcomm Qualcomm Incorporated () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software and services related to wireless techn ...

Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor clocked at 1.2 GHz, paired with the

Adreno Adreno is a series of graphics processing unit (GPU) semiconductor intellectual property cores developed by Qualcomm and used in many of their SoCs. History Adreno is an integrated graphics processing unit (GPU) within Qualcomm's Snapdrago ...

305 GPU running at 450 MHz clock speed. The original operating system was Android 4.3 "Jelly Bean", with later updates to 5.1 "Lollipop". The phone is closely related to the Moto X that was released three months prior and look similar, although there are some key differences. The Moto G is not able to have active notifications, quick capture, and touchless control like the Moto X due to the Moto X using a special processor that would be cost-prohibitive for the Moto G. In addition, the Moto G has a removable back cover so that users can customize the phone, instead of the Moto X's sealed back that is held on with an adhesive.Motorola announces the $179 Moto G, a lot of smartphone for not a lot of money
''

Yahoo! News Yahoo News (stylized as Yahoo! News) is a news website that originated as an internet-based news aggregator by Yahoo. The site was created by Yahoo software engineer Brad Clawsie in August 1996. Articles originally came from news services such ...

'' (November 13, 2013) The original Moto G did could not use the

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a mobile telephony standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement ** LTE Advanced Pro, a further enhancement * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers * Leukotrie ...

network because the standard had not been adopted in emerging markets at that time. On 13 May 2014, Motorola unveiled an updated variant of the phone, the Moto G LTE, which added LTE capability, a gyroscope, and a

MicroSD Secure Digital (SD) is a proprietary hardware, proprietary, non-volatile memory, non-volatile, flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA). Owing to their compact size, SD cards have been widely adopted in a variety of port ...

card slot. By January 2015 the Android 5.0.2 "Lollipop" OTA update started rolling out and in September 2015, version 5.1 rolled out in India. As of March 2015, Motorola has been slowly upgrading handsets. Motorola started releasing the 5.1 update for Google Play Edition on April 2, 2015. In the United Kingdom, the 5.1 update started on June 12, 2015.

Availability

The Moto G was released first in Brazil and some parts of Europe. It was released in Canada and the United States on 22 November 2013 and 2 December 2013 respectively. In India, the Moto G was released on 6 February 2014 in an exclusive deal with

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

company

Flipkart Flipkart Inc. is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bangalore, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories such as con ...

. The Moto G Google Play edition is a global GSM model available unlocked from

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

. In the United States, the Moto G was available for

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...

, Republic Wireless,

Boost Mobile DISH Wireless L.L.C., doing business as Boost Mobile, is an American telecommunications company and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. Boost Mobile is the List of mobile network operators in the United States, fourth largest wirele ...

, Sprint (Sprint Prepaid),

Cricket Wireless Cricket Wireless LLC is an American prepaid wireless service provider, wholly-owned by AT&T. It provides wireless services to thirteen million subscribers in the United States as of 2022. Cricket Wireless was founded in March 1999 by Leap Wir ...

, U.S. Cellular,

Straight Talk ''Straight Talk'' is a 1992 American romantic comedy film directed by Barnet Kellman, and starring Dolly Parton, James Woods, Griffin Dunne, and Michael Madsen. The film follows a woman who leaves her small-town life to move to Chicago, where ...

and Consumer Cellular customers.

3G variants

Wind Mobile in Canada distribute an AWS version that appears to be using a modified XT1032 baseband.

LTE variants

All LTE variants have 8 GB storage and microSD card slot that takes cards of up to 32 GB.

Critical reception

* Digital Trends – Editor's Choice Award * IT Pro Portal – Best Buy Award * Trusted Reviews – Product of the Year at the 2013 TrustedReviews AwardsJohnson, Luke. (December 20, 2013
Motorola Moto G named 2013 TrustedReviews Product of the Year - News
Trusted Reviews. Retrieved on May 23, 2014. * Trusted Reviews – Best phone under £250 of 2013 * Expert Reviews – Best budget smartphone up to February 2014 * PC Advisor – Best budget smartphone up to May 2014The 11 best budget smartphones 2014: What's the best budget smartphone?
PC Advisor (May 22, 2014). Retrieved on May 23, 2014.

References

External links

* {{Motorola phones Android (operating system) devices Motorola smartphones Mobile phones introduced in 2013 Discontinued smartphones