The $120 USD dollar smartphone range is experiencing a boom. The number of phones that are produced whose prices are very close to the $100 USD range are growing in number as well as growing in specs.
Today, Motorola just released the Moto E into the market. Like the Moto X and Moto G that was not sold in many markets, the Moto E is available from today in some parts of Europe. It is available in the UK for £89 ($150USD).
What is the specification of the Moto E? You get a 1980mAh battery that combined with the relatively low-spec screen should allow for good battery life in excess of one day in use. The Moto E comes with 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS with GLONASS, Bluetooth 4.0, Micro-USB, FM radio and a 3.5mm audio jack. Under the hood of the Moto E operates a 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex A7 processor that runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat. . There’s 1GB of RAM and 4GB of internal memory, of which just 2.21GB is available. It is a joy to find that it supports up to 32GB microSD card.
A look at this low end smartphone by Motorola in a testament to the fact that the battle is hitting up at the low end smartphone race. The Moto G’s success is the reason why Motorola has released this phone. They realised that 70% of the world’s population are still using feature phone due to cost. At about £89 (N25,000) it is cheap with all those specs that it packs. While the Nokia X is running a forked version of Android Jelly Bean 4.1 on a 512 RAM device, the Moto E on the other hand powered by 1 GB RAM processor running the latest version of Google’s Android KitKat 4.4 and will be getting timely updates.
Once, when one gets a $100 phone, it is not uncommon for the smartphone to be running sub par specs–mostly running on 512 mb RAM and a very low spec configuration. Nokia and Motorola keep pushing–releasing superb phones while making them more and more affordable.
Nokia released the Nokia X that runs a forked version of Android that is called the Nokia X Platform. Many Android apps work on the phone and some that have not been modified for the Nokia X Platform are either not working well or not working at all–example is WhatsApp. I have been able to run almost all my favourite Android apps on the Nokia X including, but not limited to, apps like Falcon Pro, Tweetcaster, Plume, Instagram, Pocket, Feedly, AliExpress and the like. The Nokia X is selling for about $120 in Nigeria.
In the case of Nokia, they implemented the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) that is an open source project that Google makes available in the public domain that anyone is free to use and tweak as they please. That is what Nokia has tweaked here, making the Nokia X look somewhat like a combination of Asha and Lumia phone. Instead of providing Google services, Nokia replaced all Google services with their own–Map, Application Store, One Drive and the like. This is going to be introducing Nokia X users to Microsoft services.
Initially, the Moto G couldn’t compete with the Nokia X with respect to price. However, with the Moto E, there is a level playing field now while the specs of the Moto E is far superior to that of the Nokia X.
Nokia X vs Moto E
Motorola was bought over by Google and recently was offloaded to Lenovo. Motorola sold the Moto G and the Moto X in few markets–was sold in the US and some parts of Europe. But the Nokia X is being sold in mostly emerging markets. You cannot get the Nokia X in US or in the UK as at this time.
Nokia X is dual SIM while Moto E is using single SIM. The cost of Moto E is $150 while the Nokia X is selling for $120.
The Moto E is going to be getting timely updates while the Nokia X would too, but the update of the Nokia X is subject to Microsoft, the new home of Nokia mobile. There’s no way any version of Android greater than 4.1 can be uploaded to the Nokia X.
Other players that are battling in the low end smartphone arena are Samsung (GALAXY Ace 3 $94 runs Jelly Bean 4.1.2 with a RAM of 512), Tecno (Tecno L3 $89 with Jelly Bean 4.1 with a RAM of 512), Lenovo (Lenovo A516 $142 with Jelly Bean 4.2 and a RAM of 512), Nokia Lumia 520 ($130 WP 8, upgradable to WP 8.1 with a RAM of 512).
This is by no means the exhaustive list. We still have other smartphone makers like Gionee, Bee, SOLO making low end smartphones.
The users of these low end smartphones are usually first time smartphone users or folks that are using it simply as their second phone (common in Nigeria), so they may not bother with some lag they’ll experience–like I am experiencing with the Nokia X. But, I have lofty expectation with respect to the Moto E that’ll be running KikKat 4.4 with a 1gb of RAM. That’s huge.
But would Lenovo, the new owners of Motorola, sell the Moto E in Africa?
If you are asked to pick between the Nokia X and the Moto E, which one would you go for?
