I’ve been an iOS user since day one — back when it was called “iPhone OS” — and haven’t had any reason to leave Apple’s camp. Each day, I use iOS devices and apps, and for the most part, they “just work.” You could offer me a cheap Android phone or tablet and I wouldn’t have much use for it.
Or so I thought. Just in time for the holidays, 9to5’s publisher Seth Weintraub sent me an unexpected gift: a $99 Motorola Moto G (2nd Gen), also available on Amazon. That price isn’t a typo — for under $100 (half the price of the recently released sixth-generation iPod touch), Motorola is selling a full-fledged smartphone with a larger, higher-resolution screen than the $199 iPod, and for that matter the old iPhone 5c I decided to replace it with. You’ve probably heard that Amazon is trying a similar tactic with its $49 7″ Fire Tablets, which so radically undercut the price of Apple’s iPads that you can buy five for the same price as an entry-level iPad mini 2… and still have change left over. Since these products were developed by well-established companies, they’re budget-priced, but not junk.
I wanted to see whether the Moto G would have any value in my life, and how it would stack up against lower-end iOS devices. What I found was exactly the reason Apple leads the cellular industry in profits yet continues to lag behind Android in market share: the Moto G offers a more than “good enough” alternative at a price that anyone can afford. From my perspective, the existence of a good $99 smartphone is precisely the reason the iPod family has all but disappeared, and why even iPad mini pricing is arguably unsustainable…
What You Get For $99 From Motorola
- An Actual Smartphone With Solid Specs. For $199, Apple sells a 16GB iPod touch with a 4″ screen, one speaker, a 1.2MP front camera, 8MP rear camera with f/2.4 aperture, and a dual-core A8 processor. For $99, the Moto G includes a 5″ screen, stereo speakers, a 2MP front camera, a 8MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture, and a quad-core Snapdragon CPU. The iPod touch depends on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for all of its wireless functionality; Moto G also has GSM cellular hardware built-in, plus GPS, a non-trivial addition.
- A Wall Charger with Micro-USB tip. Apple bundles every iPod touch with a pair of EarPods headphones and a Lightning cable; Motorola bundles Moto G with a micro-USB-tipped wall charger, but neither headphones nor a standard micro-USB cable, both of which can be purchased very inexpensively.
Where Moto G Beats The iPod Touch (And Arguably The iPhone 5c)
- Price. In the consumer electronics world, certain price points are considered “magical” to spur sales — $299, $249, $199, $149, $99, and $49 are some of the best-established levels that bring in new customers. At $99, the Moto G is practically an impulse buy by CE standards, cheap enough to be nearly disposable. Apple won’t even sell you a not-particularly-great iPod nano for $99.
- Expandability. Motorola ships Moto G with a super-limited 8GB of storage capacity, but supports the addition of up to 32GB of removable microSD storage, for a total of 40GB at a time. Unlike Apple, which charges a $100 premium over the 16GB iPod touch for the 32GB model, you can get SanDisk 32GB microSD cards now for $10. I found an unused and forgotten 32GB microSD card sitting in a drawer — they’re that cheap.
- Screen. Moto G has a 5-inch, Retina-caliber display with 1280×720 resolution at 294ppi — an inch bigger than the iPod touch (or iPhone 5c), but with just enough extra pixels to hover right around Apple’s “Retina” level. The screen’s bright, colorful, and sharp; no iPod or budget iPhone user would have any room to complain about it. With most apps and games, it looks just like using a larger version of Apple’s iPod touch and iPhone 5c screens, sometimes with more real estate, sometimes with bigger objects.
- Accessory Compatibility. Moto G’s micro-USB port and Bluetooth 4 support make it compatible with thousands of audio, car, power, and other accessories — pretty much every USB or Bluetooth accessory the iPod touch works with, minus the need for Lightning cables. Since it supports 1.5-Amp charging, it also recharges very quickly, despite having roughly twice the battery capacity (2,070mAh) of the iPod touch (1,043mAh). (Apple caps iPods at 0.5-Amp charging and older iPhones at 1-Amp charging.)
- It Works As A Phone, Communication & GPS Device On The Road. So long as you self-supply a SIM card, Moto G can be used to make cellular phone calls and connect to the Internet using a cellular data plan. It can also be used for mapping, including the integrated Google Maps application, since Motorola actually includes A-GPS hardware inside; no iPod touch has that feature.
- It Doesn’t Feel Like It’s Going To Dent or Shatter The First Time You Drop It. I personally really like the iPod touch’s aluminum housing, which is highly similar to the latest iPads and iPhones, only smaller. But I would never even consider taking an iPod touch out of the house without putting a case on it. Moto G’s detachable plastic back doesn’t just feel more drop-safe than the iPod’s metal housing — it’s entirely replaceable with your choice of colorful rear shells ($15) or front and rear ($30) shells.
- A Few Android OS Innovations. As much as I’m accustomed to using iOS, I’ve felt for years that Android has some very compelling user interface features that Apple hasn’t caught up with. Android’s Google Now, Live Wallpaper, Daydream (screensaver) options, and multi-user support are all features that would work well in iOS. I’ve seen the debates between Apple and Android fans, so I know that (some) iOS users will disagree… at least until iOS gets the same or better features. But Android’s implementations currently trump iOS’s Proactive, Dynamic Wallpaper, lack of screensavers, and single-user UI. And Android’s virtual Home and back buttons, another topic of debate for some iOS users, are looking more like the right solution for iOS with every passing iPhone and iOS release.
The Compromises
- It’s Plasticky. Just like the iPhone 5c, the Moto G is a plastic-bodied phone with a glass face and a handful of small metallic accents, so it doesn’t feel “premium.” On the other hand, Moto G’s front is made from resilient Gorilla Glass 3, and the soft touch back feels like it was made to be flexed thousands of times without issues. And unlike the iPhone 5c, which had a $549 retail price (off contract) on day one, Moto G started at under $200. So instead of being “unapologetic” about its use of plastic at a high price, it feels like a solid value at a low price.
- Limited Memory & Performance. Unless you’re willing to shell out those few extra bucks for more microSD memory, the Moto G’s going to get cramped as soon as you start putting videos and games on it. Similarly, if you’re expecting ultra-smooth frame rates from 3D games such as Mortal Kombat X, you’ll find that the latest iPod touch offers noticeably better performance; the Moto G is closer to the fifth-generation iPod touch in frame rates, and maybe not even that fast. The difference isn’t as pronounced with puzzle games or simpler 2D titles such as Pac-Man 256.
- No-Frills Packaging + Device Setup Process. If you’re accustomed to an even slightly fancy unboxing experience, don’t expect anything from Moto G. Motorola’s plain cardboard box with clunky compartments is still less impressive than the generic white boxes Apple uses for refurbs. Similarly, there’s no white glove hand-holding during the Android setup process; even as a lifelong computer user, I felt like Motorola did nothing to make it easy to even turn on and start using the device, and although it was trying to use hints and clues, Android didn’t fare much better.
- 3G GSM and Micro-SIM. In addition to lacking support for LTE — the Moto G supports basic 3G/2G GSM, only — the second-gen Moto G requires a Micro-SIM card — which I haven’t used in an iPhone for 4 years. Cellular carriers still stock and will gladly supply fresh Micro-SIM cards, so this isn’t a huge deal, but Moto G explicitly doesn’t support Nano-SIM-to-Micro-SIM adapters, so you mightn’t be able to swap SIMs between phones.
- Which Android Versions? My Moto G shipped with Android 5.0, and I was able to update it to Android 5.0.2. Motorola apparently plans to offer 5.1.1 and 6.0 updates for this model, but as of this moment, the 5.0.2 phone reports that it’s “up to date.” Which it’s not. That’s apparently just part of the Android experience.
- Confusing UI. If you hope to hand an Android phone off to a kid or not particularly tech-savvy partner who’s already familiar with iOS, expect to hear a lot of early complaints about the non-intuitive UI. “How do I unlock the screen?” “How do I exit this game?” “How do I update apps?” Everything requires a little bit of additional learning, and typically an extra tap, swipe, or two relative to the same thing on iOS.
- Tough Migration. The Migrate app installed on my Moto G initially included an option to migrate some data from an iPhone, but when I updated the app, the iPhone migration option disappeared — and a message appeared noting that Motorola was discontinuing the app. Android fans hate it, but Apple’s a lot better at making it easy to move to iOS.
I’m certainly not a convert, and I’m not planning to stop using my iOS devices any time soon, but I have to concede that $99 Android phones and $49 Fire Tablets have succeeded in getting my attention in a way that their predecessors have not. As an iOS user, I have no need for a similarly-priced device with less impressive features. But at these prices, it’s hard not to just consider grabbing a spare emergency phone to keep in the car, or an extra tablet just for book reading or video viewing in a guest bedroom.
Officially, Apple’s not worried about Android pricing — cheap phones and tablets are easy for executives to dismiss as drawer-warmers, and analysts to write off as comparatively unprofitable. But once Apple users get a chance to try these devices for themselves, they may wonder what their extra dollars are actually paying for. And if cheap Android devices deliver “good enough” performance for most tasks, who knows what they’ll buy next?
More From This Author
Check out more of my reviews, How-To guides and editorials for 9to5Mac here! I’ve published a lot of different topics of interest to Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, and Apple Watch users, as well as a great holiday gift guide for iPhone users, a detailed holiday gift guide for Mac users, and a separate holiday gift guide for Apple photographers.
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For me personally, I’m a storage guy, and my desire to leave iOS finally disappeared when Apple released their 128GB iPhones (and Samsung removed the microSD card from theirs).
That and the larger screens. I can’t wait for even more storage.
Each year that passes cheapo phones will get better and more powerful….In 2020 these 99 dollar phones will be more than acceptable for the masses and Apple better take notice.
The same applies to Apple tho. they are not simply going to stand still. anyways i have the feeling the opposite will happen. Most of these cheap Android based companies are one of two things. fly by night and the introductory pricing that goes up and up and up with every release. you can only open mold for so long. same thing happened with computers, car etc. its only a matter of time before the economics catch up with us.
Interesting “What If?” style report. However, what Apple has going for it is the ecosystem. Anyone like myself, and, after years of conversations to convert them, much of my family, we are Mac users, iPad Users, iCloud users. The whole package/ecosystem that I think Android will be last to completely copy. Windows has the next best ecosystem for the “same/similar” experience across devices.
Apple’s aware of this problem and they’re just trying everything else first. Instead of dropping the prices (once it is dropped, it is different to bring it back up later), they’re moving toward the subscription plans for their iPhones alas the iPhone Upgrade Plan. This ensures they do not lose their profit margins and makes people think they’re getting the best bang for the bucks with Apple Care+ included as well.
They know what they’re doing and I don’t blame them for trying this first instead of going the last resort of dropping the prices. They will do that only at the very last minute when they have no choice because it will be the biggest gamechanger for them as they will start to eat into their cash horde for the first time.
Yep.
I’ve owned every iPhone/iPad fropm Day One, as well as Apple TV, MBA, iMac, etc.
But I’ve tried just about every case available for my small child to use an iPad Air as his fun, toss around tablet. 2 broken screens later I decided to pick him up the cheap Amazon Fire for $35 (Prime). It has the same apps he uses, plus is both more rugged (thanks to cheap plastic housing) and so cheap that if he somehow finds a way to break it, I can replace for practically the change I’d find in the couch.
In fact, cheap Android tablets are SO cheap that I’ve been searching the “open box” bin at Best Buy to pick up a cheap 7″ to root and play around with. O could go with anything from a white box tablet running Lollipop for $49 up to an open Galaxy Tab 4 for about $100. That’s cheap enough for me to be an impulse purchase “just for the hell of it”.
Even worse, for the price of an extra Smart Cover for my IPP I can have a “just good enough” Android tablet that does 90% of what my iOS devices do (granted, not nearly as polished).
I’m so invested in the Apple ecosystem that I can’t imagine ever leaving it, and I have a i6s Plus and iPad Pro for my “real” work, but for “just good enough” Android tablets (and phones) at dirt cheap prices, why not have a couple laying around just to play with?
My first experiment with a non-Android tablet was when HP’s webOS-based TouchPad went on a fire sale; I got one as a video player for my youngest daughter. Even for $99, it was so terrible that I wanted to throw it away after only a weekend of use. I’ve since tried a Kindle Fire and the Moto G. While the Fire isn’t bad but clearly isn’t iPad-class, it would be really hard to write off the Moto G as inferior to an iPod touch or low-end iPhone. They’re rivals, but Motorola has a much stronger value proposition. Every year, the Android devices seem to catch up to the point where fewer people will (or do) care. Apple isn’t widening the gap in performance or trying to reduce the gap in price. It’s concerning to me.
Just bought one for my girlfriend, that’s not as fast as a 6P but for 159€, this is really good(We have a 1st gen at my job and it’s still really fast and we didn’t even updated it to Lollipop).
For the migration you can go to the Application Settings in the phone Settings, find the migration app, and there will probably be an option to uninstall updates, try it to get back the iphone migration.
While I agree on most points in the article. You can hardly knock the phone for a “confusing UI” given the examples you list here. Anybody that is accustomed to using one particular system will initially be confused at using another system. I let my mom use my 6s, and she didn’t really know how to work it right away (she is coming from a 1st gen Moto G). After a minute of trial and error she got the hang of basic operations, but iOS wasn’t as intuitive to her as Android.
I could go into a lot more detail, but — despite the positives mentioned above — I would neither suggest nor agree that Android is equally intuitive to iOS, just different. From the setup process to unmarked unlock procedures to the initial burying of necessary/important features within trays and folders, a stock Android device requires a bit more assistance to figure out than a stock iOS device. It’s not night and day, but I think it’s fair to say that the Android experience is more initially confusing than iOS. That’s my opinion, backed up by experience.
It’s an oddly framed question. Who cares about the iPod Touch? And what iPhone user is tempted by ANY $99 device? Just screams crepeola.
The REAL question is will an unlocked $300 Asus 64GB Zenfone 2 (for example) tempt an iPhone only user like me away from a $700 Apple iPhone with only 16GBs? Since my wife and I buy two at once — that’s a savings of $800. Not to mention at that reduced price we can basically buy it outright instead of finance via whoever.
The only thing keeping me ‘Apple’ with my iPhones is iTunes Match and Apple Music. I’ve heard word it’s coming to Android. As much as I’d love that it could be a big mistake for Apple.
“And what iPhone user is tempted by ANY $99 device?”
I’m going to guess all the ones who bought “$99” or “Free” iPhones with two-year contracts. There are a lot of them.
There’s a big difference between a £99 device off contract and a £99 upfront fee with a 2 year contract.
In the UK I could get a £10/month sim and stick it in the former – or accept the £40-50/month associated with the latter.
Put it another way, surely not many people are fooled by the $99 iPhone (on contract) offers?
A $99 smartphone? That’s just plain crazy; who the frick will be such an incredibly expensive phone?? Here’s a better offer: $10 smartphone, running Android:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/12/a-review-of-the-10-walmart-phone-better-than-nothing-but-not-by-much/
[quote]The specs look like something out of 2007: a 3.8-inch 480×320 display, a dual core, 1.2GHz Snapdragon 200, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, and a 3MP camera.”[/quote]
Apple Music is already available on Android and I think you can listen to iTunes Match selection too. Come! Jump off the ship! I did and I never looked back. I do miss being able to buy music from itunes directly off my phone but I have an app set up so it wirelessly syncs from my mac. If I had an apple music subscription then I guess that wouldn’t matter.
So many great budget android phones… Moto X pure, Oneplus 2, Asus Zenfone 2, moto g, alcatel idol 3, and they all cost less than $400.
I think the phrase is “jump ship”, although going from iOS to Android may be more like jumping “off the ship”!
drowning in Android malware? ;-)
Are you serious you have no iOS apps that you won’t find on Android. For me there are dozens. The ones that do exist on both systems, the iOS version (e.g. Audible) is night & day better than Android (at least it was when I dallied with replacing my 4S with a Nexus 5).
I do like that for Android you can install replacement launchers like BigPhone (for my dad), but the app situation was dire even a year ago.
Honestly, what’s your take?
I’ve found a replacement for almost everything I used on ios. I still wish I could find a photo gallery that could rival ios, I’ve came close. To me there are apps on android that aren’t found on ios and will never be because of apple’s walled garden.
I bought the Amazon Fire 2015 on Black Friday for $35 + $10 for a 32GB sd card. Installed one of the roms available on XDA forums and I have a fast, disposable tablet for media consumption. I can read comics, books and view video. Do some web browsing and audio streaming to my bluetooth headphones. 40GB (8+32) tablet for $45. Do I wish that I had an iPad mini instead, of course I do. But the Apple tax is not just the 10-20% is used to be, it’s quite a bit higher now. Enough to be worth the effort of installing a rom on a budget shit-tablet.
The only thing that keeps me in the Apple camp is iMessage and FaceTime audio / video. The deep integration of these technologies in mine and my families’ lives is not replaceable. For this reason, I no longer feel the need to have the latest iPhone. A 16gb 5S is perfect to have as just the phone. The little 7″ Fire is doing all of the other stuff I want to do while mobile with aplomb.
The minute they put virtual back and home buttons in iOS is the minute i switch to a flip phone.
They already put a virtual back button in iOS. It appears at the top left of the screen. So which flip phone would you switch to if the Home button’s next?
That’s exactly why I switched. You can get a very great phone for way less than what Apple charges. I got a Oneplus One with snapdragon 801, 13mp camera, 4k video recording, 1080p 5.5 inch screen, and 64gb of storage for $350 last August. This thing blew my iphone 5 out of the water. Even when apple announced the iphone 6 and 6+ they both lacked 4k recording. It would of cost me $850 for a 64gb iphone 6+, yet I got 2 Oneplus Ones for me and my mom for less… I see no reason to buy an ipod touch over a cheap android phone, unless you have to have apple’s ecosystem.
Google’s ecosystem is really great and I love that I can choose between such a wide range of devices and still have my apps available unlike Apple’s limited approach. I wonder how the market will respond to Google’s Project Ara if it does come to market next year.
Talk usability, and not specs. No one “needs” 4k videos – that’s only useful for a specs wang-measuring contest. Tell me honestly if that OnePlus One takes good pictures and videos in comparison to even an iPhone5. I heard it didn’t.
To a certain extent, if you want a flagship phone (even yesteryears model) you get what you pay for.
oh, and btw Ara is a solution looking for a problem.
I wouldn’t switch myself, but this cheap phones are definitely an option for gifting. In my case, I’m getting an Android for my mom. Apple needs to take notice for sure.
WAIT! You write for a Mac site and you’re saying the iPhone 5c is made of plastic??? Polycarbonate isn’t quite the same as any old plastic.
WAIT! You’re commenting on a Mac site and don’t remember that Apple (via no less than Jony Ive himself) described the iPhone 5c as “beautifully, unapologetically plastic?”
I bought the 7″ tablet from amazon – i can honestly say that you get what you pay for… it is slow, can handle heavy tasks, struggles with most games, switching apps is problematic, their payment system messy up the country location if you use a foreign credit card, the screen loves finger prints, light bleeding from the sides, camera is crap — basically it is only suitable for watching amazon content – books are so-so (screen is a weird shape for books)…
This will be the same with a phone – when i’m at home, my phone goes naked – no case – holding the metallic phone in my hand feels like i have a strong sturdy product… not something that feels cheap because it is plastic… i also love the quality of the screen, how the apps work, and the quality over-all…
Cheaper phones are catching up to match premium phones, but there are often many catches, or sacrifices, or advertising bloatware on the device…
Personally, if i needed a second device – i’d consider a cheaper option… but for a main product, i want something that feels premium…
BUT – apple need to work on their prices…there is no need for their prices to be so high… 16gb should not exist as an option… and considering ipads are becoming thinner and mostly stuck with glue, they should be cheaper too…
I have cheap Android and Windows phones at home. iPhones are awesome but the OS is pretty boring and it’s cool to see what the UI is like on other platforms. I still like my iPhone 6 but that’s mostly because of iMessage and the update process. The iPhone is just as buggy as the other platforms and requires a force quit or reboot just as often as the other phones. That’s just disappointing especially when factoring in the price of the phone and the build quality. I’ll stick with my current iPhone for another year or two and see what Apple can incorporate into their future iterations to get me to buy another iPhone.
I would assume the opposite. I got a 1st gen Moto G for like $30 at the beginning of this year and at first it was awesome that I could play around with Android and see what it can do. But after more time went by I kept seeing reasons why I wouldn’t choose to actually use an Android as my real phone. So yeah, keep building those cheap phones so I can play around with them for laugh and giggles.
I have to admit that the current crop of cheap Android devices are pretty darn good. I was tempted by the Amazon Fire tablet myself, during black friday sales (it was on sale for 35 bucks!). I am sure the current Moto G is a great smartphone. However, the biggest downside to either device is the Android OS itself. Its a confusing mix of good and bad. As a former Android user, I can say that some features are great, like widgets anywhere you like, and Google Now. However, many others are terrible, like the battery life and camera, and the frequent crashes and glitches.
Let’s be clear: any focus on price does not even make it on Apple’s radar. They are currently garnishing 90%+ of ALL the mobile phone profits, so their path will not be swayed by price. That being said, I would have to certainly consider this phone if I was in a situation where I was paying for my own phone and could live with Android, as many users can.