Moto G review

Couple that with a rubberized rear plate which slightly hugs the side of the handset too, and the Moto G fits comfortably in the palm, providing a decent level of grip.

The Moto G features a water repellent coating which means you'll be able to whip it out in the rain without fear of a short circuit, but it is not waterproof - so no jumping in the pool with it.

You can even take the rear cover off and swap it for a different color, which Motorola is pushing as a big customizable feature of the phone. In reality however it just reminds us of our Nokia 3310.

Sure, changing covers is fun for all of five minutes, but the novelty soon wears off. Not to mention the back cover is also pretty tricky to remove - you need to really dig your nails in at the base of the handset to get it free.In fact, so much strength needs to be employed to free the cover from the Moto G we feared on more than one occasion that the thin plastic would snap - thankfully it never did.

Motorola did make a point that the younger generation like the ability to "customize" their handsets and this particular feature, along with the rock bottom price, reinforces the Moto G's credentials as a handset which may land in the laps of many teenagers.

The left side of the Moto G is devoid of any features, while the top of the handset only sports a centralized headphone jack. Both the power/lock key and volume rocker switch are located on the right of the G and these are easy to reach and responsive to the press.

On the base is a microUSB port, while under the removable cover is a microSIM port - but no microSD slot. That means if you want to expand the onboard storage you'll have to take to the cloud.

The 2070mAh non-removable battery housed inside the Moto G is claimed to give you all day battery life, and we put that to the test - skip ahead to our battery life and connectivity section to see how it got on.

The Moto G comes with a 4.5-inch, 1280 x 720 display and boasts a 329ppi pixel density. To put that in some perspective that's a bigger, higher resolution and more defined display than the iPhone 5S - not bad for a handset which is a third of the price.

Of course a HD display isn't the only key factor in a smartphone, but Motorola has managed to equip the Moto G with a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor and 1GB of RAM.

In terms of specs then the Moto G is actually giving the HTC One Mini,Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini and Nokia Lumia 820 a run for their mid-range, dual-core money - and once again the screen is bigger than these rivals. The Motorola handset even beats the Samsung and Nokia when it comes to resolution.

The camera on the rear of the Moto G is only 5MP and this is trumped by the S4 Mini and Lumia 820 and their 8MP snappers.

All in all the Moto G finds itself in no-mans land, with a complete disconnect between its price and spec list. This, of course, isn't a bad thing and on paper it offers outstanding value for money.