Moto E (2020) review: How much phone do you get for $149?

Our Verdict

The Moto E gives y'all a bones smartphone for $149 that's capable of taking skillful photos. Simply if you tin spend a little extra, opt for the Moto G Fast or Moto G Ability instead, as they evangelize better value.

For

Excellent portrait shots
In a higher place average battery life
Low cost

Confronting

Non a lot of processing ability
Dark display
No planned updates past Android 10

Tom's Guide Verdict

The Moto E gives yous a basic smartphone for $149 that's capable of taking good photos. Simply if yous tin can spend a little actress, opt for the Moto 1000 Fast or Moto M Power instead, as they deliver ameliorate value.

Pros

+
Excellent portrait shots
+
Above average bombardment life
+
Low toll

Cons

-
Not a lot of processing power
-
Nighttime display
-
No planned updates past Android ten

In many ways, the Moto E 2020 is at the heart of Motorola'south arroyo to smartphones. This seventh generation of Motorola's entry level handset is Motorola's latest endeavor to give budget phone buyers a low-cost option that still delivers on the key basics.

Moto E review: Specs

Price: $149
Screen size: six.4-inch LCD (1520x720)
CPU: Snapdragon 632
RAM: 2GB
Storage: 32GB
microSD: Yeah, upwards to 512GB
Rear cameras: 13MP main (f/2.0); 2MP depth sensor (f/2.ii)
Front end camera: 5MP (f/2.0)
Bombardment size: iii,550 mAh
Battery life (Hrs:Mins): ten:14
Size: half-dozen.iii x three x 0.34 inches
Weight: 6.5 ounces
Colour: Midnight Blue

But a lot has happened since concluding twelvemonth's Moto E6. In that time, Motorola has dabbled with the foldable Motorola Razr, introduced a series of speciality phones with the different Moto One models and fifty-fifty gotten dorsum into the flagship game with the Motorola Edge Plus. You have to wonder if Motorola's focus is on something other than the Moto E lineup, particularly at a time when the low-cost Moto Thousand lineup has produced the long-last Moto G Power, the intriguing Moto G Stylus and now the Moto Thousand Fast.

With Moto G phones ranging in price from $199 to $299, you lot take to wonder if in that location's still any room for the Moto E among the best cheap phones. Our Moto E review has found a capable budget device that volition appeal to anyone who hates to spend more than $200 on a smartphone. Simply there's goose egg nigh the Moto Due east that stands out, especially when a few dollars more than will get you lot a better phone in the form of the Moto G Power.

Moto E review: Price and release engagement

The Moto E costs $149 and goes on sale June 12. The Moto Due east is $50 cheaper than the Moto M Fast, which offers features a faster processor, boosted cameras and longer battery life. The Moto Eastward is likewise $100 cheaper than the $249 Moto G Ability and $150 less than the $299 Moto G Stylus.

Pre-orders are already underway for the Moto E, which hits stores unlocked on June 12 at Best Buy, B&H Photo, Walmart, Amazon and Motorola's own website. Carriers offering the Moto E will include T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, Heave Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Consumer Cellular, Xfinity Mobile and Republic Wireless. Verizon will also offering the Moto E through its prepaid service.

Moto Due east review: Blueprint

Yous're non going to fool anyone into thinking yous've paid more than $150 for your phone with the Moto Due east. Information technology's not that the phone looks unattractive, only the plastic materials, blocky edges and overall appearance confirms that it's a upkeep phone.

Fifty-fifty though the Moto E uses a teardrop notch to house its front photographic camera, there's notwithstanding a noticeable bezel at the superlative and along the sides of the phone. At that place'due south a pretty thick bezel along the lesser, besides — not iPhone SE-thick but prominent enough to stand out even among budget phones sporting more expansive displays.

Moto E review — (Prototype credit: Tom's Guide)

At 6.3 x iii x 0.34 inches, the Moto E isn't that much taller and wider than comparable phones. It'south roughly the same size every bit the 6.4 10 3 10 0.33 inches and noticeably thinner than the Moto Thousand Power, which has to accommodate a much bigger battery. While the Moto E felt weighty in my manus, the six.five ounce phone is only 0.ii ounces lighter than the TCL 10L, which struck me as a fairly light handset.

Moto East review: Brandish

The Moto Due east'due south 6.2-inch HD+ display is a scrap of a thwarting, and not because it's a LCD panel. That's the trade-off you brand with cheaper phones. Instead, my problem with the display is that information technology'south not very colorful or bright. Watching the trailer for 1917 via YouTube, I could brand out George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman trudging their way beyond No Man'southward Land in wide daylight, but anytime the scene shifted indoors, details were lost in the shadows. I noticed the same effect with Raiders of the Lost Ark on Netflix, where Marian's bar in Nepal was an indistinct shadow. Viewing angles are non-real so exist prepared to watch videos head-on.

Examination numbers from our lab back upwardly my experience. The Moto E display captured 100.6% off the sRGB color spectrum. The TCL 10L, which puts more than of a premium on the brandish, was more colorful at 122.one%. You'll also become more accurate colors with the TCL telephone, as its Delta-E rating was 0.22 to 0.39 for the Moto E. (Numbers closer to zero are more accurate.)

The Moto E's screen problems are compounded past the fact that the brandish merely isn't very bright. We measured a peak brightness of 388 nits with a low-cal meter. That's beneath the 500 and 501 nit measurements we got with the Moto K Power and Moto G Stylus, respectively. You'll definitely have trouble making out the screen when you're outside on a sunny mean solar day.

Moto E review: Cameras

Lower-cost phones have made a addiction of calculation extra lenses as of tardily, so in a sense, the Moto E feels decidedly old-school. There'southward a 13-megapixel primary shooter with an f/2.0 aperture, augmented by a 2MP depth sensor for improve portrait shots. That hardware produces pretty competent photos, though the Moto East can struggle with lighting.

Have this photo of the big honkin' burrito I ate for lunch while testing the Moto Eastward. The shot captured by the Moto Eastward does a decent chore recreating the colorful sauce topping the burrito, and you can fifty-fifty make out some of the beans and meat that make up the filling. But the light streaming in from a nearby window causes serious overexposure bug in the upper tertiary of the photo. That didn't happen with a shot I took with the TCL 10L.

Similarly, the Moto E also struggles when the lights are depression, as we can see in a dimly-lit night photograph of a cocktail perched on a bookshelf. The drinking glass containing my Rusty Nail blends into the groundwork, and the titles of some of the cookbooks appear fuzzy and out of focus, equally if the Moto E'south aperture struggled to let in enough ambient calorie-free. The outline of the cocktail glass is much more distinctive in the TCL 10L's shot, and the text on the book covers is sharper, likewise.

Outside in bright sunshine, though, the Moto E fares much amend. It accurately recreates the blueish sky surrounding a movie theater marquee and information technology even manages to capture the details of the picture palace'due south facade. The TCL 10L photo is much darker for some reason, with even the movie theater sign looking shadowy.

The Moto East's depth sensor really helps the upkeep phone smooth when it comes to portrait photos. While the blur consequence isn't in evidence on the left background of the Moto Eastward's shot, my daughter actually pops out of the frame, with the depth sensor handling her hair with ease. That aforementioned pilus flummoxed the TCL 10L, which applied its mistiness upshot to the edges of her hair on both the right and left side of her face. The Moto E's portrait shot is something you'd await from a much more than expensive phone.

Upwardly front, the Moto features a 5MP selfie cam that's more capable of producing decent self-portraits. There'south really no differentiating the Moto Due east's shot from what the TCL 10L captured with its 16MP front end photographic camera, though I think the Moto E did a better task handling the sunlight breaking through the orange tree around me. Like many phones, the Moto Eastward is a little too aggressive with smoothing out my face, only you can plough off the photographic camera's beauty style if you lot adopt.

Moto E review: Performance

With a Snapdragon 632 arrangement-on-bit running the show, no ane's going to fault the Moto Eastward for a performance powerhouse. And the 2GB of RAM included on the phone won't really aid you jump from app to app with relative ease.

Unfortunately, we can't actually tell you how the Moto Eastward compares to other phones, as the phone can't currently install the Geekbench 5 examination for measuring general performance. We were able to run 3DMark'south Sling Shot Open GL test to measure graphics performance, however, and the results don't put the Moto in a flattering lite. The Moto turned in a score of 949, which was well behind the results of the Moto G Power (1,734), Moto G Fast (ane,769) and TCL 10L (ane,747). Those three phones all use a Snapdragon 665 chipset, which is certainly a decent piece of silicon but non something that's going to accident away other handsets.

I saw that performance gap first-hand when using the Moto Eastward. PUBG Mobile ran on this budget handset, but with noticeable hiccups and dropped frames. The graphics weren't specially well rendered either. PUBG is a demanding game, only I didn't run into these problems when testing the Moto 1000 Power or TCL 10L.

I too noticed slight lag when switching between apps on the Moto Due east. Essentially, it'south a phone that can handle basic tasks, but forget about running graphically intense games or annihilation that requires a lot of processing ability.

Moto E review: Battery life

The Moto E makes a better showing when it comes to battery life, as the phone made the most of its comparatively modest iii,350 mAh ability pack. That allowed the Moto Due east to hold out for x hours and 14 minutes on our bombardment test, in which nosotros have phones surf the web continuously over T-Mobile'south LTE network until they run out of power.

By topping the 10 hour marking, the Moto E finishes slightly ahead of the average time for smartphones. However, it'southward no lucifer for other recent Motorola handsets, which benefit from bigger batteries. The Moto G Stylus and its 4,000 mAh lasted 12 hours and 14 minutes, while the Moto G Power used a massive five,000 mAh battery to endure for more sixteen hours. Those phones but cost $100 to $150 more than the Moto E and made our best phone battery life list.

Don't wait a quick recharge for the Moto E. Afterwards one-half-an-hour of recharging the drained phone with the included charger, the Moto Eastward was but up to 18%. That's well off the pace set by the Moto One thousand Stylus (29%), which is inappreciably a speed demon when it comes to recharging.

Moto E review: Software and special features

The Moto Eastward runs Android x, the latest version of Google's mobile Os. And that'southward all it may ever run, as Motorola told us information technology has no plans to do software updates across security updates for the phone. That'southward how information technology is for low-toll Android phones, simply it's still something you should be aware of when deciding which phone to get.

Otherwise, the Moto E features Motorola's ordinarily calorie-free hand with Android, in which the software experience is pretty shut to what yous'd get with the stock OS. The few tweaks that Motorola makes are helpful Moto actions such as turning on the phone's flashlight past making two quick chopping motions or placing iii fingers on the display to take a screenshot. My favorite Moto Action — launching the camera with a twist of the wrist — doesn't appear to be supported hither.

The Moto E'due south fingerprint reader is easy to set upwardly, and the sensor's location on the dorsum of the phone, well away from the camera lenses, is piece of cake to find. I never had any problem unlocking the Moto E, and information technology's proficient to see a polished security feature on such an cheap phone.

Moto East review: Verdict

If you don't want to spend that much coin on your next telephone, our Moto E review confirms that this latest Motorola release is a capable low-cost choice. Just be prepared for lackluster performance and a display that doesn't wow — compromises that budget phone buyers are willing to make all the fourth dimension.

The problem is, yous really don't have to make these sacrifices if you're willing to pay a bit more, and you can still buy a Motorola telephone in the process. The Moto M Fast and Moto G Power are both better phones than the Moto E, offer better functioning, longer battery life (much longer in the Power'due south example) and better bang for the cadet. They besides cost just $50 to $100 more depending on the model.

However, in this economy, even paying a little extra is a big ask. In that sense and then, the Moto E will satisfy people who've stretched their dollars just about as far as they tin go. At least they'll get decent bombardment life and much better cameras than a budget phone usually delivers with the Moto E.

Philip Michaels is a senior editor at Tom'south Guide. He has strong opinions about Apple, the Oakland Athletics and quondam movies. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.