Moto G4 Review

27 Feb 2017

This is one review I didn’t think I’d ever be writing, given that it’s for an Android phone. That said, the main thing I care about is that a device works for me, not who made it or what it runs.

To date all of my smart phones have run various forms of Windows, mostly because the early Android ones were terrible in comparison and I lost interest in Apple devices before the iPhone came along.

However one of my goals for this year is to get some games released and it makes sense to target at least one mobile platform. As iOS would require me to buy at least two devices (one to develop and one to test) and Android only requires one (since I already have a perfectly good PC) I grabbed a Moto G4 as a dev device.

Specs

Hardware

I'm pretty happy with the size and weight of the phone. It fits in my hand nicely and doesn’t feel like it’d break if you dropped it. Personally I’m not too picky about how the design looks as long as it’s functional.

The only complaint I have is that the back cover feels a little flexible, and I’m not sure how many removals the plastic clips that hold it on will take, but it’s unlikely I’ll be doing it too often and replacements seem pretty cheap.

Performance

In short, it’s pretty much dealt with everything I’ve thrown at it. While some of the older Android devices were clunky and slow I haven’t had any issues with the G4 at all. Apps start quickly and there’s no lag between touching the screen and getting a response. Having 2GB of RAM definitely helps, as it seems to use around 1.4GB so a device with only 1GB wouldn’t have coped very well.

The camera’s auto-focus can be a little hit and miss, especially on tricky objects (black cat fur being the worst I’ve found) and obviously at this price the camera doesn’t have IS, but it does the job. I have a 70D so if I want to take pictures I’ll use that, not a phone.

I realised recently that almost every picture I’ve taken on a phone has never been used anywhere else. The G4 Pro’s camera probably would have performed better, but when I brought it I wasn’t intending to use it for anything other than development work, so spending an extra £80 for a bit more storage, finger printer reader and a slightly better camera didn’t seem worth it.

Apps

Much to the annoyance of several people I work with I’ve replaced pretty much all the Google apps with Microsoft equivalents. I think their Arrow launcher works far better then the stock one so that got installed pretty quickly. I use OneNote quite a bit and the Android version syncs nicely and behaves almost the same as the Windows one. The OneDrive app gives me access to my files as well as backup of photos/videos and since I have a 365 home subscription I’ve got 1TB of storage, which if more then enough for the stuff I want to keep in the cloud.

I do prefer Cortana to the alternatives, it’s just a pity that you can’t seem to replace Google Now completely (e.g. holding down the app button launched Now and you can’t see to change this).

Not having the Microsoft Maps is a pity as it has offline maps with route finding and navigation, but I can use my old phone for this.

It’s nice having access to the apps that just don’t exist on Windows devices but using them shows how little they need to be native apps. So far almost every app I’ve used could have just been written in Cordova and been deployed on every platform.

Battery life

This was an area where the older Android devices really suffered compared to Windows Mobile but they seem to have more than caught up now. I get between 2-4 days if I don’t spend too much time playing games, with 5-6 if I’m busy and not using my phone too much.

Remembering that background apps don’t get suspended takes a little getting used to, especially as quite a few of the games don’t realise they’re not in use and just sit there eating your battery. Once you get used to quitting these I’m only needing to charge it 2-3 times a week.

Overall

It looks like I’m going to stick with the Moto G4 as my main phone for a while. While the Lumia 950XL it’s replacing is faster, has more memory and a far better camera, the G4 does the job and has the extra apps and games that don’t exists for the Lumia, so it ends up being more practical.

As I can replace almost all of the Google apps with the Microsoft equivalents I don’t have a problem with it being Android, even though I tend to avoid using Google products where I can as I’d rather pay for stuff then have it paid for through targeted ads.