Motorola just finished unveiling the Moto G in São Paulo, Brazil. Here’s everything you need to know about the device. Starting with the specs: It has a 4.5 inch 720p display. The specific technology used wasn’t mentioned, but I would be surprised if it was something other than LCD. Under the hood there’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 with four cores clocked at 1.2 GHz. Sitting next to that chip is 1 GB of RAM and either 8 GB or 16 GB of storage.
Speaking about the storage, that’s how Motorola is going to differentiate the pricing. The 8 GB Moto G will cost $179 on Motorola’s website. The 16 GB will cost $199. You’d be silly not to get the 16 GB model. Both models don’t come with microSD card slots, but instead come with 50 GB of free Google Drive storage for two years. Combined with the 15 GB of Google Drive space you already get and that’s 65 GB total.
The Moto G will also come with an FM radio, and some markets will be getting a dual SIM variant. While I’m on the topic of markets, the Moto G launches in Brazil today. Over the coming weeks, it’ll hit Europe, Asia, and other South American countries. Don’t expect to see the Moto G in the United States until January 2014. Motorola’s goal is to have the Moto G in 30 countries being sold by 60 partners by 2014.
As for software, you’re looking at Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with a promise to be on Android 4.4 KitKat “by January”. I’m not sure whether that means the last day of September or by the end of January, but either way, the company has promised an update to the latest version of Google’s OS.
Other notes: 2070 mAh battery, no mention whether the Moto G comes with a charger. It’ll come with a USB cable, that’s confirmed on Motorola’s own website, but they say nothing about the actual piece of plastic you usually plug into the wall. There will also be three different types of accessories. One, replaceable backs, like old Nokia phones. Two, bumpers, like the kind people usually put around their iPhones. Three, flip-covers, like Samsung likes to sell to Galaxy owners.
If I’m leaving something out, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try to answer.
Update: Hands-on video!
