Moto E : specs and compares

Moto E specs are best seen in comparison to Lumia 520, the another affordable premium:

Feature	Moto E	Lumia 520
CPU	Snapdragon 1.2 GHz Dual Core	Snapdragon 1.0 GHz Dual Core
GPU	Adreno 302	Adreno 305
RAM	1 GB	512 MB
Internal Storage	4 GB	8 GB
External Storage	YES upto 32 GB	YES upto 64 GB
Screen Size	4.3”	4.0”
Screen Resolution	540 x 960	480 x 800
Double Tap to wake	NO	YES
Screen Protection	Corning Gorilla, with anti-smudge coating	Scratch resistant glass
LED notification	YES	NO
Camera	5 MP, Fixed focus, No Flash	5 MP, Auto focus, No Flash
Dedicated camera button	NO	YES
Manual camera settings	NO	YES
Navigation	YES (Google Maps)	YES (Nokia Maps)
Offline Maps	YES (Limited)	YES
Battery capacity	1980 mAh	1430 mAh
Removable battery	NO	YES
Weight	142 g	124 g
Thickness	12.3 mm	9.9 mm
Mobile Network	2G / 3G	2G / 3G
WiFi	YES	YES
SIM Type	Micro-SIM	Micro-SIM
SIM Slots	2	1
OS	Android Kitkat 4.4	Windows Phone 8
Upgradable	Yes (promised to next version)	Yes to WP 8.1 (available soon)
Ecosystem maturity	HIGH	UPCOMING
Wins	9 (of 19; 7 are equals)	10 (of 19; 7 are equals)

Clearly the Moto E is neck to neck with the features of Lumia 520. The final choice here I think boils down to the choice of the OS (and the ecosystem) and overall user experience. While Lumia 520, no doubt provides a top class user experience with WP 8 (and the upcoming 8.1 brings it closer to Android / iOS experience see the review on The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/14/5611992/windows-phone-8-1-review), apps are still lacking on the platform. Android has the app (and ecosystem) advantage; its not only apps, but it is easy to buy movies, books and music, not so with WP. While my dad is being using Lumia 520 for quite a few months (and I have used Lumia 800 for 2 years), there is absolute no slowdown even when loaded with tonnes of apps. I can't say the same about Android. My previous experiment with a low cost Android phone has been a disaster. And my experience with Nexus 7, after I loaded many apps has been less than stellar. But Moto E is probably different. That is my hope. I am going to use the device for next few days for all sorts of things and put out a report here. Till then enjoy your life :)

About this blog

Hello Internet!

I am V. Ganesh, and I generally write at (http://tovganesh.blogspot.in/). I have an immense interest in science and technology, and my work and past education has all in some way attuned my mind towards advances in these fields. I believe, I am lucky to live in a world that has moved from PC to mobile devices at an exceedingly fast pace, and now soon towards wearable computing. I have had extreme fun, writing weird mobile apps such as the one called mobihf (https://sites.google.com/site/tovganesh/s60), that does a full Quantum Chemical calculation on a pretty old smartphone. Yes, I do weird things. But then at the same time I also have been lucky to get my hands on these devices when I needed them. I am one of those, who has never used a "feature phone".

I bought my first phone, because I wanted to program it, and that was the number 1 feature I was looking for when I bought Nokia 6600 in 2006. Things have changed a lot since then. The power of today's phones are more that 100 times than the phone which I had used to write mobihf. But there is one pain point which I always consider to be hindrance in mass adoption and innovation: it is the price.

Sure today, I can afford an iPhone as a daily device. But the point is that one should be able to get quality that is at par with an iPhone, without going bankrupt. And price is a very important factor in the part of the world I live in. There are a lot of low cost devices available here. But hardly any one provides a premium device or a service at an affordable price.

That brings me to the next question. What does affordable exactly mean? I have a very simple definition of this: one should be able to buy a device / service by saving his/her 1 months salary. So when I was at grad school, it was anything below 10K INR, as that was the fellowship I used to get. (Since, I mostly live in India, my focus point will be from Indian perspective, but I hope the rest of you can connect the dots). Now I think that one has to actually cut down on this. If 10K is your salary then you cannot exactly survive one whole month without spending on food, transportation and possibly house rent. I didn't have to bother about the later three back in the grad school, but practically a truly affordable device should be around 5K INR. We are not yet there, but things are close. And there is one particular device that fueled my thoughts on starting this blog: the Moto E. That one device, for me defines what a affordable premium must be, much like what Tata is doing with their latest additions of the Nano car.

So, this blog will be trying to bring to your attention the devices, news, technology, research and other information that are all geared towards bringing affordable, but premium technologies to the masses. So that everybody is equally empowered and innovation thrives, not because you have money, but because you have genuine desire, need and genius to do so. This blog will be about the Moto E, not the iPhone; it may talk about the Tata Nano, not the BMW; and a Raspberry Pi but not the Thinkpad. Occasionally, I may compare a Moto E to iPhone; not to show what you are missing, but to show how close are you to the premium. All of this with a hope that I can one day have a team that will build a sub 5K device for every one that I envision here: (http://tovganesh.blogspot.in/2012/01/kosh-building-mobile-user-experience.html). As India sees a clear mandate for the next governance, there is hope, and there is this will that every one is doing what they are doing, because they want to see a developed India. Affordable premiums, is one angle of the whole story, it is one dot, in the bunch of dots we have to connect.

(coming up soon, Moto E, initial review ...)

(Note: This blog, unlike my other blogs will carry advertisements primarily to support myself to obtain the devices that I will be reviewing here)