Moto G4–A Departure from Tradition

The launch of Moto G4 has been adequately covered on various forums including those which predicted its configurations, design language, pricing etc. The phone, rather phones, were launched today by the new owners of the Moto brand, Lenovo. Some predictions came true, but it seems, Moto G, the budget phone which ruled the android market for three generations, is about to be lost in the crowd. What will remain shall be the name.

For a change, the phone had a huge bump in its specifications, right from the processors, RAM, camera, screen resolution etc. But there were few shockers too. For a start, the home button, which never was a part of Moto lineage, has arrived. I had shifted from Samsung (Galaxy SII) to Motorola (Moto X Play) and the transition couldn’t have been smoother. The home button was not missed on Moto X Play since android LP and MM were ready for button-less interface. So why the button now? All it might do is increase the non-screen real estate. Having a button in upgraded phone seems like moving back to prehistoric times of kitkat. Anyway that’s not all.

The screen has gone up to 5.5”. Moto G4 used to be the phone for people who wanted handy phone which was useable enough without being crammed for room. A 5.5” Moto G4 leaves a huge gap between the low budget  Moto E lineage and the more premium Moto X. It just doesn’t make any business sense. First of all you create a gap and secondly you pitch your product to compete against another product by you(Moto X Play. Moto X Play may now be forgotten for good since you get better configuration for less). A more sensible strategy would have been launching the second phone with 5.5” and keeping Moto G at 5” – 5-2”(5.2” being the sweetest of them all)

Moto G4 at Amazon

That brings us to a third shocker. They launched two Moto G4s. A Moto G4 and a Moto G4 Plus. Both have similar configuration, save for the RAM/Storage combinations. The plus version has the option of 16/32 GB ROM and 3/4 GB RAM, while the version without the plus moniker has 2GB/16 GB capacity. The plus version has an addition of finger print reader, integrated in the home button. What could/should have been done is to create 2 configurations in 5” model without the home button(so have a good screen to body ratio) and 2 configurations in 5.5” model ( which would have justified the “plus” moniker)  and each configuration would in turn deal with the memory capacities for each size. but that didn’t happen. So we have a Moto G which is not 5” anymore and effectively competing with Moto X Play( midrange) and lots of other 5.5” smart phones in the marker, including those by Lenovo. Is Lenovo out to kill its own lineage(K series) or the Moto lineage?

Speaking in terms of camera, the G4 Plus has a bumped up 16 MP camera. But those are just numbers. I personally like the 8 MP camera on Galaxy SII against my Moto X Play. So wouldn’t claim that the 16 MP upgrade would do much difference.

If you remember, there was another iteration of Moto G3, the Moto G3 Turbo, which was the first to introduce the Snapdragon 615 processor as against SD 410 in Moto G3 and 2 GB RAM as against 1 GB in G3. Other than that, there was nothing much to speak about.

And I personally dislike the addendums in name like plus, pro, Turbo etc. They seem to hint a lack of creativity.
Moto G4 at Amazon

Brief comparison between the three phones(Moto G3, G4 and G4 Plus):

Moto G4 at Amazon