Hands on: Motorola Moto E (2015) review

At the back end of February this year, as I was packing my bag for MWC 2015, Motorola delivered a surprise package to TechRadar towers.
Quite like a child abandoned on an orphanage's doorstep, there was a small box waiting and upon bringing it into the warm we found it to be Motorola's own "press conference in a box."

• Buy Motorola Moto E - Global GSM - Unlocked - 4GB (Black) at Amazon US for $108.70

It's a smart idea considering inside was the Motorola Moto E (2015), and heading to a full blown press conference for this would likely have been a misstep - so it being delivered directly into my palms was great.
The second generation Motorola Moto E is an upgraded version of 2014's Moto E, one of the best affordable handsets you could pick up last year.

Motorola has packed in a bunch of new features on the refresh and given the design some major tweaking as well. The Moto E aims to offer the Moto G features to a fresh audience with a lower price.
In fact you can pick up the second gen Moto E for just £99.99 (around $150, AU$190) SIM free, which means it finds itself up against the EE Kestrel, Nokia Lumia 535 and Sony Xperia E3.

Design

The design is pretty similar to what we saw on the original Moto E. It's still got a plastic body with a rounded back. All the buttons remain in the same easy to reach places with the metal unlock and volume rocker on the right hand edge of the phone.
The headphone jack sits in the middle at the top and the microUSB slot continues to sit in the bottom middle of the handset.
The Motorola logo is emblazoned on the back in a small indent to body and the main camera sits above it. I always find myself placing my index finger in the Motorola logo dent, giving what feels like a little extra grip but probably isn't. The camera is a little larger now with a nice looking silver rim around the edge of the sensor.

The back panel is made of a softish plastic that picks up grease and dirt really quickly. It was less noticeable when playing with the white version of the handset but it showed up immediately when using the black model.
You've got the choice here of either black or white, I much prefer the white version but the black one still looks good when it's clean.

Motorola's biggest change to the design on the Moto E 2015 is the omission of the removable back panel – it's now a removable plastic edging.
When peeled away from the body it reveals the pure edges of the phone to insert the SIM and microSD cards.
It can be a real struggle getting the plastic edging off the phone and once I actually thought I'd broken it off. I hadn't, but it's pretty flimsy and it wouldn't be difficult to do when getting frustrated with it.

It does also mean you can replace those edges with some jazzier colour versions such as yellow and blue to give it a slightly different look but these will cost you extra directly from Motorola.
Losing the removable back panel also means the battery can't be replaced and that was a selling point of the original Moto E.
Coming round to the front of the phone you'll find 4.3-inch display. Above that sits a forward-facing snapper, a new addition to the Moto E, on the top right hand side next door to the long earpiece.
The phone isn't particularly thick considering the price range of the handset, but it isn't exactly slim either at 129.9 x 66.8 x 12.3 mm, whilst weighing in at 145g. It does fit in the hand nicely, and you can get a decent grip round the handset.
Don't expect the back of the phone to look as pristine in a couple of months' time either, I managed to be a bit of a klutz and drop it within the first day of using it and scuffed the bottom after only one drop.
I imagine dropping it a few times could do some serious damage to the outer look of the phone, so be careful out there.

Display

The 4.3-inch display comes with a 540 x 960 pixel resolution resulting in a pixel density of 245ppi. Don't expect a high quality affair here, you're getting what you pay for but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Personally I feel 4.3 inches is a little too small, I feel the optimum for a smartphone is between 4.7-inch and 5.1-inch but that's all down to personal taste. That said, it's easy for your thumb to hit the top of the screen whilst using in one handed.

The bottom and top bezels are out of proportion here as the usual hardware buttons have been adapted into the screen this time around. It means it looks a little top heavy when using the handset.
Video content doesn't look stunning, but it doesn't look down in the pits either and considering how little you're spending it's quite impressive.
The display is protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass 3 technology to help stiffen it up a little and after a quick drop onto paving slabs, by accident I must add, the display sustained no damage.

Putting the Moto E 2015 display onto maximum brightness was a bit of a let-down. I did that whilst outside and struggled to see the display well on a sunny day, otherwise brightness seemed pretty average and didn't really cause any problems.
If you've got poor eyesight this may not be your bag - I found myself squinting to see the display whilst outside, even though I've got what I consider to be 20/20 vision.
Viewing angles have never been strong on this range and once again I struggled to see some of the screen when at the wrong angle, but considering the price of the second gen Moto E you really can't complain too much.

Performance

The new Moto E comes with an upgraded Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz. That comes alongside 1GB of RAM and should give it a bit of an upgrade under the hood but isn't going to blow anyone away particularly.
It is still an impressive feat to get such a good chipset into such a low price handset and in our small amount of time using the handset we didn't notice anything worrying in terms of performance.

• Buy Motorola Moto E - Global GSM - Unlocked - 4GB (Black) at Amazon US for $108.70

Battery

One of the positives on the original Moto E was its strong battery life, and we're hoping things will be even better on the new Moto E as it's been upgraded from 1980mAh to 2390mAh.
Considering there isn't particularly anything different here to power we'll likely see even better battery life on the new Moto E (2015).

Check back for our full review where we'll give it a proper test and really put it through its paces.

The essentials

One of the biggest benefits of the Moto E is it comes with the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system on board in its purest stock form. It means all the latest features from Lollipop are here, and it's an impressive feat on a low end handset.

Arguably the biggest benefit is the addition of LTE in the new phone meaning you'll now be able to get a 4G signal and swift download speeds with the Moto E (2015).
This is a feature we felt was potentially held back from the original Moto E just for this update but it is good to see such a low end handset get what a couple of years ago was considered a top end feature.

Camera

The 5MP rear camera remains on the Moto E. We didn't get much of a chance to play around with it during our hands-on but it was one of our biggest criticisms of the handset.
It's a shame to see this hasn't been upgraded on the new phone but Motorola has seen fit to add in a front facing camera.

It's a VGA shooter so don't expect anything impressive but it's better than not being able to take selfies at all.

Early verdict

Motorola all new Moto E will launch at £109.99, $149 (around AU$180) making it potentially the cheapest handset on the market running Android Lollipop out of the box.
It offers an impressive amount of features considering the price tag and has upgraded on a few already strong features for adding in a bigger battery and an even more powerful processor.
The biggest benefit comes from the addition of LTE connectivity meaning it's one of – if not the cheapest phone on the market offering super-fast internet speeds at such a low price point.
Camera wise the addition of a front-facing selfie snapper is a welcome one but it would have been good to see some upgrades to the poor main camera.
But for that price, can you really judge Motorola? At such a low price point it's impressive to have half of these features and if you're looking for a low priced handset you really couldn't go wrong with the new Moto E.