Lenovo Group Ltd. (HKSE: 0992) (LNVGY)

[revlis]

New Moto G Leak: Motorola Adding Speed And 4G LTE To The Best Budget Smartphone

Following on from Motorola’s announcements of the new Moto X and Moto G handsets 2014 (and the Moto 360 smartwatch), the expectation has been that Motorola would be releasing an update to the Moto G 2014 edition to address the need for 4G in a number of territories.

Looking at the Moto G second edition handset recently here on Forbes, I labelled it as being ‘the number one smartphone‘:

I’m not saying that the Moto G is the perfect smartphone – too many people have their own favorite feature, so that’s an almost impossible target to hit. Neither am I saying that the Moto G will win in every single round of ‘specification Top Trumps’ because there are clearly phones with hardware numbers that are larger than the Moto G.

As an all-round handset, as the handset that is going to be rated as ‘above average’ and ‘exceeds expectations’ in almost every area, I cannot look past the Moto G in the current crop of smartphones.

That’s why I’m calling it the number one smartphone for 2014.

Hopefully the number one smartphone is about to get a little bit better, with the inclusion of 4G and an updated processor.

Moto G 2014 (image: Ewan Spence)
Moto G 2014 (image: Ewan Spence)

While Motorola has yet to announce the handset, online benchmarking results from Geekbench show a handset called ‘Motorola TBD’ in the list with specifications that would fit with an update to the 2014 Moto G. Specifically this TBD handset has a quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor and 1 GB of RAM. Between them these give a Geekbench score of 148, marginally higher than the first generation Moto G which clocks in with a score of 1142. It’s also worth nothing that the Snapdragon 410 is a 64-bit system.

In terms of operating system, the handset reports Android 4.4.4, although the expectation would be for the handset to ship, or to be upgraded over the air to Android 5.0 (Lollipop) after launch.

The first Moto G was released around seven months after the first Moto X handset (and picked up a slight specs upgrade three months after that). If Motorola were to follow that same plan, then this version of the Moto G wouldn’t be expected until late March 2015. That feels a little too far away for me, and it misses a number of important events that could drive awareness and adoption, such as Chinese New Year.

Given that benchmarks are appearing now, I’d expect the handset to show up sooner rather than later.


It would also represent the first Lenovo backed handset from Motorola Mobility, and the Chinese company will want to make a big impact with its first handset. The Moto G family is Motorola’s biggest selling smartphone, picking up critical acclaim and public acceptance. If the new handsets can gather sales to match the first handsets, that will provide a clear statement of intent on the future direction of Motorola in the hands of Lenovo.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2014/11/10/moto-g-2014-update-4g-lte/