With the launch of the Moto G (1st Generation), Motorola shook the entire industry by introducing a pure beast in a budget smartphone. Motorola knew exactly what an end user wants and hence placed the exact needy greedy stuff on the table. Need not say but the Moto G 1st Generation was a huge success, and Motorola nailed it with their excellent sales and services, that couldn’t be outclassed by any other smartphone manufacturers. In fact, there were many who tried their foot on the same domain but failed terribly.

But the reign of Motorola had to see a downfall after some Chinese manufacturers who entered the market, proving Motorola wrong in the worst possible way. These brands started offering specifications at lower prices. As low as almost half the price of the Moto G. Surely Motorola had to see some massive downfall in their sales. And even after their second iteration of the Moto G i.e. Moto G2, they weren’t able to replicate the success of the Moto G.

Thankfully in 2015, Motorola has announced their Moto G3, which is again priced very closely to the previous Moto Gs but this time around they have added loads of new features and specifications which can help Motorola catch up with their old success, hopefully.

BOX CONTENTS

BASIC OVERVIEW OF MOTO G3

The Motorola Moto G3 comes with a new and unique design which also happens to be waterproof. And it looks a lot similar to the new Moto X series (2015). In terms of design, it takes a lot of cues from the previous Moto G2. And it looks quite a lot identical to the Moto G2, especially from the front side. Although turning around, and the back has to say some other story.

The back of the Moto G has a grippy rubberized plastic back panel that can have a lot more grip than any other traditional back found on any other smartphone. In terms of specifications, the Moto G3 comes with a 5 inches of 1280 by 720p HD IPS display. Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor and 2GB of RAM. For the price of Rs 12,999 INR or 196 USD, I feel that the Motorola Moto G3 is absolutely a steal for the money and does check all the boxes when it comes to the best utility smartphone.

DISPLAY

The Motorola Moto G3 comes with a 5 inches of 720p (1280×720) HD IPS display, which is one of the best smartphone display, if not the best under this price point. The colors are accurate and the display is bright enough to be visible even under very bright sunlight. The display is covered and protected by corning Gorilla Glass 3. There are no physical or touch capacitive buttons with the Moto G3. Instead it comes with on-screen buttons, which in my opinion is a very nice add-on, considering the fact that it could be easily changed when Google rolls out the new update or new layout/ design of buttons in their next update. Overall I really liked the display of the Motorola Moto G3, and I don’t have anything to complain about.

BUILD

The Motorola Moto G3 is entirely constructed out of hard-shell plastic and glass on the front. And even though the word ‘plastic’ sounds cheap. The Moto G3 is super-durable and it feel really solid in the hand. Unlike other smartphones in this range, I don’t feel like breaking it or damaging it. Or in fact, I feel that even if I want to, it’s going to be a very hard time killing this Moto G3. And in my opinion, that has to say something for the part of the build that Motorola is offering with the Moto G3.

DESIGN

The design of the Motorola Moto G3 is very much similar to the design of the Motorola Moto G2, especially from the front. it has the similar dual front-facing speaker that we saw with the Moto G2, but sadly it’s not the stereo front facing speakers. In fact, only the bottom one works as a loudspeaker and the top one only works as an earpiece. Which in my opinion is kind of a disappointment as it could’ve been a lot better if this time around they could’ve incorporated a dual stereo front facing speakers. However even with a single speaker on the front the Moto G3 can go really loud without distorting the audio for the most part.

On the back of the Moto G3, you will see a different kind of design. And this design looks and feels very much similar to the design of the new series of Moto X’s from Motorola. The back has a stripe like a grippy pattern, which helps the device not to slip off of any surface or table, instead it keeps a well-maintained grip.

On the back, you also have a camera module, which moreover looks like a camera strip. Again this is one of those design aspects that looks very much similar to the one from the new Moto X series from 2015. Apart from you have the volume buttons and the power button on the right-hand side of the device. And the power button is ridged making it quite a lot distinguishable from the volume rockers.

It also has a metal frame going through all over the body of the smartphone. Now, with the black unit, it’s not that prominent but you can definitely feel the metal frame, much more easily. It also has the curved back and the Motorola dimple which is a kind of Motorola trademark by now.

The 3.5mm headphone jack is on the top along with a secondary noise reduction microphone and nothing else. And on the bottom you have the MicroUSB port for charging and data syncing and the primary microphone. You also have a tab to pull of the back cover from where you can remove and replace the 2 SIM cards from the SIM-card slots and also the MircoSD cards for the same.

Overall in terms of design I really feel that this time around Motorola has nailed it in all departments. With that being said, I don’t say that the design language of the Moto G/ Moto G2 is bad. But the Moto G3 has much more better and improved design than the previous generations, in my opinion.

PERFORMANCE

The Motorola Moto G3 comes with the Qualcomm’s MSM8916 Snapdragon 410 processor. Which is a Cortex-A53 Quad-Core processor clocked at 1.4GHz. It also comes with an Adreno 306 GPU which is more than enough to deal with all sorts of graphical needs that you’d expect this smartphone to push. Now of course there are better processors and GPUs out there, but then the price factors do definitely makes a hole in all those statement when it comes to comparing the Moto G3 with others.

Something that you have to realize that the Moto G3 is not a flagship smartphone offering from the Motorola. In fact if you are looking for a flagship smartphone offering, then Motorola has their ever so popular flagship smartphone offering the Moto X, and we will also be covering that here on TekhSquare, so do stay tuned for that.

But apart from that I really feel that the Moto G3 (3rd Generation) has lots of power packed in it. And even after, what all these other Chinese smartphone manufacturers are doing. In terms of performance, Motorola pulls it off really well, and in my opinion it is one of the best smartphones for this price range.

Now coming towards the RAM and ROM, and I purposely saved it for the end because the Moto G3 comes in two different flavors. The first model comes with 8GB of onboard memory and 1GB of RAM. And the second model comes with 16GB on onboard memory and 2GB of RAM. And quite surprisingly enough the price difference between both of the models is just Rs. 1000 INR or about $15 USD. Which in my opinion is not at all much for this huge gap. In fact, I am not really sure who’ll be buying the 8GB/1GB ROM/RAM variant to save up just $15.

But anyways, if you are planning to buy the Moto G3, then I will recommend you to go for the 16GB ROM/2GB RAM variant, because at the end of the day, the money spent will be worth for the long run if you are considering to pick up the Moto G3 as a daily driver smartphone.

#GAMING PERFORMANCE- Now, nobody can talk about the performance of any smartphone without talking about the gaming or the overall day-to-day task managing ability of a smartphone. So just for the sake of science, or maybe we can call it a demonstration. But we tried running few games so that we can test out its real life capabilities.

So while starting up with some of the fewer graphics intensive games like the Subway Surfers, or Jetpack Joyride the smartphone was handling everything like a champ. And with a hardware like this you kind of expect the same. But where we wanted to test out its real capabilities, was while running games like Asphalt 8, which will test out its actual hardware capabilities. And I must say, even at high graphics the Moto G3 was able to pull off some really smooth frame rates and very smooth game plays without even stuttering. Which is kind of big deal for a smartphone like this.

At times, it did throttle a little bit, but then it’s okay for a smartphone for this price range to throttle while doing some heavy and intensive tasks.

#DAILY DAY-TO-DAY PERFORMANCE- When it comes to handling day-to-day task the Moto G3 works flawlessly without any issue. And it handles everything quite easily. There isn’t anything much to say, but the Moto G3 works as it should, and it does it in the best possible way.

AUDIO QUALITY

The Moto G3 comes with a dual-front facing speakers, but sadly they aren’t stereo speakers. But only the bottom one works as a loudspeaker and the top one works only as an earpiece. Given the fact that only the bottom speaker will work while consuming media like audio or video, you won’t be expecting some high-quality stereo audio like the HTC One M7/M8/M9 or even the Moto X 2014/15. But the speaker loudness or amplitude is quite high to fill up a noisy room.

And I personally never really had any problem while consuming any media when it comes to the loudness of the speakers. And the fact that it’s front facing, I get to enjoy the music to its loudest point without directing the audio to some stranger. And that is a big plus for having the front facing speaker, even though it is just a mono speaker.

CAMERA QUALITY

The camera on the Moto G3 is quite a lot improved, and Motorola just can’t get over it. And they literally mention it everywhere when comes to the promotion of the Moto G3. And comparing that to the original launch of the Moto G, they never really talked about it. In fact for the most part they ignored it to their fullest extent. And this itself has to speak a lot for it.

The Moto G3 features a 13-megapixel camera on the back with an aperture of f/2.0 lens and dual-tone LED flash. Just on paper alone, this package promises a massive improvement compared to the 8 megapixel snapper found of the last year’s model.

The camera has the similar minimal interface as seen on the Moto X and the Moto E, which incorporates just two on screen buttons on the right-hand side for video recording and the front facing camera. And you can simply tap on the screen to take an image.

The overall controls in the stock camera app are pretty simple and yet allows you to take almost a good amount control over your image. And in my opinion, that’s how an optimal camera app should be. You can always slide form the left for more advanced controls. If not, then you can always have the simple yet effective tap to click a picture.

Now before we jump into the image/video camera quality of this Moto G3, I would first like to talk about the additional features that come with the Moto G3 camera. And I would’ve straight up ignored additional features, for the most part because they never really seem to offer any real value. But the Moto G3’s camera offers the twist gesture to launch the camera that was debuted in the Moto X two years back. And now finally made it to the Moto G series with this third iteration.

But this time around Motorola has expanded the gesture’s functionality – a second twist right after the first one switches the camera to the front-facing camera or vice-versa.

The Moto G3 3rd generation’s camera is quite similar to the one on the Nexus 6, even though there is no OIS or optical image stabilization system. The images produced are noticeably noisier than the one of the Nexus 6. That being said, Nexus 6 quite a lot expensive device than the Moto G3. And Moto G3 being able to come so close to the Nexus 6’s camera is itself a big deal.

The images clicked indoors are quite well balanced. In low light scenarios it sometimes just tends to be a little bit on the grainy side. But apart from that it maintains the color and the exposure quite well while keeping the noise level relatively low.

While taking the camera outdoors and it completely tells another story. The images are sharp, colors are saturated and very much accurate. At times, the images tend to be grainy, but for the most part they straight up look amazing and in my opinion Moto G3 has one of the best smartphone cameras out there for this price range.

HDR on this camera is something that I needed to talk about because clicking HDR on smartphone cameras, especially for this price point was never really a good experience. But the Motorola Moto G3 captures some of the best HDR images out there. And in my opinion it was quite a peasant experience to shoot with the Moto G3 camera, especially in HDR mode. It takes less time and also clicks in very high frame rate even in HDR mode, and just to show that, I clicked an image of a flowing river in HDR, and even after the constant moving current of the water, it was able to freeze the frame like it would do in a still non-HDR image.

Moto G3 Camera Sample

Moto G3 Low Light HDR Camera Sample

Moto G3 Front Facing Camera Sample

In terms of the video, the Moto G3 captures some decent fullHD video. Again there isn’t anything much to talk about in terms of video quality. But it does the job quite well. I will leave a sample video here for your reference and for you to judge the quality of the Moto G3 camera’s video quality.

*Sample Video Coming Soon*

USER INTERFACE

Just like any other Motorola Smartphone from the past, either it be from the Moto G series or either it is from the Moto X series. It always comes with almost pure stock Android. And this is one of the most sole selling reason for the Motorola devices especially the Moto G or Moto G3. Anyone who appreciates stock Android, will hands down suggest the Moto G3 for anyone looking for a smartphone in a budget price segment. The UI is smooth and responsive and the pure stock Android with no less to no bloat makes it one of the best experience budget smartphone.

SOFTWARE

The Moto G3 comes with Android version 5.1.1 out of the box. And is believed to get the latest Android update as soon as the Nexus device lineup gets it for themselves. Since there is no custom skin on top, the stock vanilla Android does justice for the most part. There are very few software add-ons that come with the Moto G3. And they are mostly to either the apps to migrate your data from one smartphone to other, or the Moto Assist app to help you out throughout the interface, if you get stuck somewhere.

WATER RESISTANT (IPX7 RATING)

The Moto G3 comes with a new water-resistant IPX7 rating which is new to the Moto G line-up. As a matter of fact, this is the first time when Motorola brought a water-resistant device to the market. Now, in my testing period I always used the Moto G3 as my secondary device and hence I was, of course caring less for its protection and using it more often than I should. So, particularly my Moto G3 got a lot of beating and loads of testing before it ended on my review table.

So while it did survive the rainy season, we decided to step up our game and submerged it completely under water to see if the device still survives. And it was no surprise to us, but the Moto G3 survived the full water submerge without any issue.

Motorola states that it is designed to withstand immersion in up to 3 feet of fresh water for up to 30 minutes provided the back cover is properly sealed. Although you get no warranty against water damage, and Motorola mentions this loud and clear in their statements.

CONNECTIVITY

In terms of network and connectivity, the Motorola Moto G3 (3rd Generation) comes with 4G Dual-Sim capabilities. Which can basically use either of your SIM card to use 4G network. Although the 4G network speeds aren’t that great as some other flagships out there, it is quite reasonable for this price tag. Apart from that it also comes with other standard features like the Bluetooth v4.0, A-GPS, GLONASS, and Beidou. And few sensors like Ambient light sensor, accelerometer and proximity sensor.

BATTERY LIFE

The Motorola Moto G3 comes with a non-removable 2470 mAh Li-ion battery. Which is decent on paper. But in real life it is an absolutely a killer battery. And for me it was easily able to get through more than a day. If I were to go somewhere without any charger on me, I would rely on the Moto G3 without any second thought, and it would never ever disappoint me. And having an amazing camera on top, always helps to make it a better package.

VERDICT

The Moto G3 is a very nice well-packed smartphone, that comes with almost with every bare essential needs that a budget smartphone owner would like to have. With a killer camera and somewhat okayish hardware, the Moto G3 might give you an illusion of a phone with an amazing camera and poor performance. But all thanks to Motorola’s optimization skills, it has an excellent camera and an amazing potential to perform very well in the hardest situation as well. I personally really like the Moto G3, and even after the fact that there are other competitors out there in the market, offering the same specifications at a lower price, I would hand’s down go with the Moto G3.

PROS

• Stock Android
• Optimised Performance
• IPX7 Water Resistant
• 4G Connectivity 
• All Day Amazing Battery Life

CONS

• Tad bit over-priced
• Heats up upon heavy tasks
• Weighs more, and is heavier than it’s competitors out there.

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