Moto G - [Threads Merged]

Cienciano · 27-03-2014 09:44PM

I ordered on Sunday evening from tesco and it was in parcel motel this morning.
Bloody hell, it's an impressive phone for the money.

Fresh Pots · 27-03-2014 09:51PM

Cienciano wrote: »

I ordered on Sunday evening from tesco and it was in parcel motel this morning.
Bloody hell, it's an impressive phone for the money.

Lucky you, they managed to lose my phone between signing for it in Belfast it not showing up as checked in.

SachaJ · 27-03-2014 10:08PM

Cienciano wrote: »

I ordered on Sunday evening from tesco and it was in parcel motel this morning.
Bloody hell, it's an impressive phone for the money.

Good phone alright but the call quality is a bit poor compared to the iPhone 4

Cienciano · 27-03-2014 10:16PM

SachaJ wrote: »

Good phone alright but the call quality is a bit poor compared to the iPhone 4

It's never going to be as good, but as sim free prices go, it's far far better value than any iphone.
TBH, if the camera was better and it had a memory card slot, I'd never bother spending the money a fancy phone. Coming from a galaxy s4.
But from one or 2 photos I took, it's fairly crap camera

TommyTheGun · 27-03-2014 10:38PM

After resisting buying an android phone for so long(because I hate my tablet), I purchased this as fed up with the dismal battery life and limited apps on my WP8 Nokia Lumia 920.

Bought sunday night, have it here now, updated to KitKat, €2.50 unlocked on ebay, bought for £123 from Tesco using PM.

Have to say, very impressed with this phone for such a relatively small price. App selection just unbelievably better than the WP8

great purchase, would recommend(so far anyway)

Tom

Supercell · 28-03-2014 02:34AM

I ordered one of these and can't wait to get my hands on it!
There is a CyanogenMod rom for it, any benefit of that over stock? Haven't used CyanogenMod before.

Do-more · 28-03-2014 09:38AM

TommyTheGun wrote: »

After resisting buying an android phone for so long(because I hate my tablet), I purchased this as fed up with the dismal battery life and limited apps on my WP8 Nokia Lumia 920.

Bought sunday night, have it here now, updated to KitKat, €2.50 unlocked on ebay, bought for £123 from Tesco using PM.

Have to say, very impressed with this phone for such a relatively small price. App selection just unbelievably better than the WP8

great purchase, would recommend(so far anyway)

Tom

I bought the Moto G before Christmas having had a WP for the previous 18 months for the same reason, the lack of WP apps, but as soon as I can afford it I will be moving back to WP.

There may be many more apps availabile for Android but that's not much use when the user experience is so inferior to WP.

OK neither is perfect, but android is still just so buggy and has so many niggles, that if you rely on your phone for work for example my experience has been that WP is far more reliable.

For example I have had to uninstall Skype as it causes a camera error on KitKat that requires you to reboot the phone every time you want to take a photo.

The ringer volume is very poor even with an app installed to supposedly boost the volume by 40%, if there is much background noise I find that I often miss the incoming email alert.

If the volume control gets accidentally knocked back two notches from the Max the phone ringer doesn't sound at all.

The default settings for the email alert is also illogical, it will only play a tone for the first email received so if you miss that you could have 5 more without knowing it. OK there is a notification light that you don't have with WP but that's not much good if you have your phone in your pocket. The settings can be changed of course but there is quite a learning curve to find out why things don't function as you would expect them to from the beginning. To make the changes you need to go down through menus for each individual email account there is no master control to say switch on or off vibration for email alerts. It's a lot of faffing around if you have a load of email accounts on the phone, I have 6.

I had another app for displaying message notifications which I had to uninstall as it would wake the phone at random times lighting up the display. Would wake me during the night if I forgot to leave the phone face down.

That's another thing, unlike in WP where your alarms will operate even if the phone is powered off, in Android you have to have the phone switched on so that means having to put your phone in silent and airplane mode every night to get your alarm in the morning.

That's just my own experience and personal opinion I am sure others may disagree but I found that on WP it was a much smoother experience and I didn't have anything like the same number of irritating problems I have had with Android.

same ol sh1te · 28-03-2014 09:52AM

Do-more wrote: »

I bought the Moto G before Christmas having had a WP for the previous 18 months for the same reason, the lack of WP apps, but as soon as I can afford it I will be moving back to WP.

There may be many more apps availabile for Android but that's not much use when the user experience is so inferior to WP.

OK neither is perfect, but android is still just so buggy and has so many niggles, that if you rely on your phone for work for example my experience has been that WP is far more reliable.

For example I have had to uninstall Skype as it causes a camera error on KitKat that requires you to reboot the phone every time you want to take a photo.

The ringer volume is very poor even with an app installed to supposedly boost the volume by 40%, if there is much background noise I find that I often miss the incoming email alert.

If the volume control gets accidentally knocked back two notches from the Max the phone ringer doesn't sound at all.

The default settings for the email alert is also illogical, it will only play a tone for the first email received so if you miss that you could have 5 more without knowing it. OK there is a notification light that you don't have with WP but that's not much good if you have your phone in your pocket. The settings can be changed of course but there is quite a learning curve to find out why things don't function as you would expect them to from the beginning. To make the changes you need to go down through menus for each individual email account there is no master control to say switch on or off vibration for email alerts. It's a lot of faffing around if you have a load of email accounts on the phone, I have 6.

I had another app for displaying message notifications which I had to uninstall as it would wake the phone at random times lighting up the display. Would wake me during the night if I forgot to leave the phone face down.

That's another thing, unlike in WP where your alarms will operate even if the phone is powered off, in Android you have to have the phone switched on so that means having to put your phone in silent and airplane mode every night to get your alarm in the morning.

That's just my own experience and personal opinion I am sure others may disagree but I found that on WP it was a much smoother experience and I didn't have anything like the same number of irritating problems I have had with Android.

:rolleyes: None of those are Android issues, all are specific to this particular phone (ringer volume, Skype app crashing camera, email notification issue etc). Maybe you should have got a high end phone (Nexus 5/GS4/HTC One/Xperia Z/LG G2 etc), this is a budget phone after all. IIRC the Samsung GS4 and HTC One both have alarm when the phone is off

Do-more · 28-03-2014 10:36AM

same ol sh1te wrote: »

:rolleyes: None of those are Android issues, all are specific to this particular phone (ringer volume, Skype app crashing camera, email notification issue etc). Maybe you should have got a high end phone (Nexus 5/GS4/HTC One/Xperia Z/LG G2 etc), this is a budget phone after all. IIRC the Samsung GS4 and HTC One both have alarm when the phone is off

That's the thing though, it seems that to get a decently functioning Android phone you need to shell out €400+ I was coming from a WP that cost €160 and probably I should have gone to a Samsung Ativ S or similar WP for less than €200.

Tom after all is coming from a Nokia 920 so I was warning him of some of the issues he might face. The Moto G might well be a budget phone but all over this thread people say that it performs better than many higher end Android phones.:rolleyes:

zarquon · 28-03-2014 10:37AM

same ol sh1te wrote: »

:rolleyes: None of those are Android issues, all are specific to this particular phone (ringer volume, Skype app crashing camera, email notification issue etc). Maybe you should have got a high end phone (Nexus 5/GS4/HTC One/Xperia Z/LG G2 etc), this is a budget phone after all. IIRC the Samsung GS4 and HTC One both have alarm when the phone is off

Sadly this is an example of common android bashing. People buy cheap android phones with lower specs and expect it to perform like an iphone 5s and then blame the OS. It would be the equivalent of putting high octane petrol into a fiat punto and suddently expecting the punto to break 140mph and then blaming the quality of the petrol when the punto continues to remain sluggish and unresponsive.

People like to compare apple and oranges regularly when bashing android.

SachaJ · 28-03-2014 12:00PM

Any know when a bug fix version of kit kat is coming out? I'm getting the constant requests to upgrade but after reading all the issues I've been avoiding it.

runawaybishop · 28-03-2014 01:12PM

any reason people are buying this from Tesco in the UK rather than a local meteor shop? I cant see the offer on tesco.com, is it the 16gb version for 150 yoyo?

edit: nvm, its the 16gb version alright

SachaJ · 28-03-2014 01:25PM

runawaybishop wrote: »

any reason people are buying this from Tesco in the UK rather than a local meteor shop? I cant see the offer on tesco.com, is it the 16gb version for 150 yoyo?

edit: nvm, its the 16gb version alright

I think in the meteor shops you are paying €150 for the 8GB whereas I got the 16GB for €150 from tesco direct (not normal trsco website. Look for tesco direct)

BionicRasher · 28-03-2014 02:12PM

Do-more wrote: »

I bought the Moto G before Christmas having had a WP for the previous 18 months for the same reason, the lack of WP apps, but as soon as I can afford it I will be moving back to WP.

There may be many more apps availabile for Android but that's not much use when the user experience is so inferior to WP.

OK neither is perfect, but android is still just so buggy and has so many niggles, that if you rely on your phone for work for example my experience has been that WP is far more reliable.

For example I have had to uninstall Skype as it causes a camera error on KitKat that requires you to reboot the phone every time you want to take a photo.

The ringer volume is very poor even with an app installed to supposedly boost the volume by 40%, if there is much background noise I find that I often miss the incoming email alert.

If the volume control gets accidentally knocked back two notches from the Max the phone ringer doesn't sound at all.

The default settings for the email alert is also illogical, it will only play a tone for the first email received so if you miss that you could have 5 more without knowing it. OK there is a notification light that you don't have with WP but that's not much good if you have your phone in your pocket. The settings can be changed of course but there is quite a learning curve to find out why things don't function as you would expect them to from the beginning. To make the changes you need to go down through menus for each individual email account there is no master control to say switch on or off vibration for email alerts. It's a lot of faffing around if you have a load of email accounts on the phone, I have 6.

I had another app for displaying message notifications which I had to uninstall as it would wake the phone at random times lighting up the display. Would wake me during the night if I forgot to leave the phone face down.

That's another thing, unlike in WP where your alarms will operate even if the phone is powered off, in Android you have to have the phone switched on so that means having to put your phone in silent and airplane mode every night to get your alarm in the morning.

That's just my own experience and personal opinion I am sure others may disagree but I found that on WP it was a much smoother experience and I didn't have anything like the same number of irritating problems I have had with Android.

This is the beauty of Android - you can set it up how you want.
There are apps to set up notifications, some allow the screen to light up some dont. some have popups some dont, some allow the notification light to be used etc etc etc you get the idea.
There are apps to silence your phone at certain hours - in fact the Moto G has one pre baked in called Moto Assist I think. I find it handy that the phone is on at night in case there is an emergency and someone needs to contact me I am reachable.
There are volume locker apps to stop accidental changes. once the screen is off you should not be able to increase or decrease the volume with the volume rocker.
You can set your email to alert you for all emails but that to me is a pain as I get loads and that would be really annoying. Again you can decide how you like it
The Skype issues seem to be varied across the board and not all are seeing them. I for example have no issue with a Nexus 4. I would assume Google are fixing this as we speak

I just find that Android is so customisable that it suits me but maybe as a business phone the Moto G is not the best choice and you would need to go high end like a Note or HTC One etc.

But for €129 this thing is the bees knees

nc6000 · 28-03-2014 03:16PM

Have any of you bought this from Meteor? Just wondering if it was locked to their network.

StaticNoise · 28-03-2014 03:30PM

Bought one in Meteor. It is not locked, but it might lock to the network of the SIM card that is first inserted, so do it yourself.

Sonics2k · 28-03-2014 05:54PM

Hey all, posting for a friend who bought the phone just today, but hers was locked to Meteor and she's on o2.

Can anyone recommend a seller on eBay or similar for the network unlock code? Much appreciated.

degsie · 28-03-2014 07:25PM

Sonics2k wrote: »

Hey all, posting for a friend who bought the phone just today, but hers was locked to Meteor and she's on o2.

Can anyone recommend a seller on eBay or similar for the network unlock code? Much appreciated.

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Motorola-Moto-G-Mobile-Phone-Unlock-Code-/111223239973

Sonics2k · 28-03-2014 07:49PM

degsie wrote: »

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Motorola-Moto-G-Mobile-Phone-Unlock-Code-/111223239973

Thank you kindly!

Do-more · 29-03-2014 09:12AM

BionicRasher wrote: »

This is the beauty of Android - you can set it up how you want.
There are apps to set up notifications, some allow the screen to light up some dont. some have popups some dont, some allow the notification light to be used etc etc etc you get the idea.
There are apps to silence your phone at certain hours - in fact the Moto G has one pre baked in called Moto Assist I think. I find it handy that the phone is on at night in case there is an emergency and someone needs to contact me I am reachable.
There are volume locker apps to stop accidental changes. once the screen is off you should not be able to increase or decrease the volume with the volume rocker.
You can set your email to alert you for all emails but that to me is a pain as I get loads and that would be really annoying. Again you can decide how you like it
The Skype issues seem to be varied across the board and not all are seeing them. I for example have no issue with a Nexus 4. I would assume Google are fixing this as we speak

I just find that Android is so customisable that it suits me but maybe as a business phone the Moto G is not the best choice and you would need to go high end like a Note or HTC One etc.

But for €129 this thing is the bees knees

Thanks, l will definitely look for that app to lock the volume rocker.

I have tried the Motorola assist app but don't find it a good solution, I would much prefer if I could just turn off my phone at night.

I know that Motorola are aware of the problem with the camera error but there is no sign of a fix being pushed out yet.

I now remember that it was the Nils lock screen app that was causing the phone screen to light up occasionally, which was a pity as it was handy.

I just don't get it that people think I need a €400+ phone when all I really want is something that can reliably alert me to the fact that I have an email or a phone call! Those should be basic functions for a smart phone and should be within the capabilities of a budget phone.

same ol sh1te · 29-03-2014 09:48AM

Do-more wrote: »

I just don't get it that people think I need a €400+ phone when all I really want is something that can reliably alert me to the fact that I have an email or a phone call! Those should be basic functions for a smart phone and should be within the capabilities of a budget phone.

You don't, you're just new to Android. As has been said, with Android if there is something you're not happy with seek a third party app that does it better. I'm on my fifth Android phone and at this stage I know what I want from it so I bought the Nexus 5 so its as close to a lean OS as you get, I them customise it with apps to perform the way I expect. I could get nearly the same experience from a Moto G. With iOS and Windows phone you don't have this customisability.

Do-more · 29-03-2014 10:10AM

same ol sh1te wrote: »

You don't, you're just new to Android. As has been said, with Android if there is something you're not happy with seek a third party app that does it better. I'm on my fifth Android phone and at this stage I know what I want from it so I bought the Nexus 5 so its as close to a lean OS as you get, I them customise it with apps to perform the way I expect. I could get nearly the same experience from a Moto G. With iOS and Windows phone you don't have this customisability.

Jaysus, you've changed your tune! You were the very first one to roll your eyes sarcastically and suggest I should have bought a high end phone.

jacksie66 · 29-03-2014 10:15AM

This post has been deleted.

same ol sh1te · 29-03-2014 10:16AM

Do-more wrote: »

Jaysus, you've changed your tune! You were the very first one to roll your eyes sarcastically and suggest I should have bought a high end phone.

Only because I thought you were comparing a high end Windows phone to a Moto G, I see now a few posts later you're not, you just didn't realise you have to put in the effort with a budget Android. Android is all about customisation, the high end ones are easier to live with, the lower end ones need tuning. Some lower end ones are horrendous, but with a Moto G you have something decent to work with

irishpancake · 29-03-2014 01:11PM

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Only because I thought you were comparing a high end Windows phone to a Moto G, I see now a few posts later you're not, you just didn't realise you have to put in the effort with a budget Android. Android is all about customisation, the high end ones are easier to live with, the lower end ones need tuning. Some lower end ones are horrendous, but with a Moto G you have something decent to work with

Yiz are going round in circles here lads.....

"do-more" already said he will be getting rid of Moto G asap, in favour of a WP!!!

And he/she has a litany of complaints re Android generally and Moto g specifically.

So be it!

J_E · 29-03-2014 01:30PM

Do-more wrote: »

That's the thing though, it seems that to get a decently functioning Android phone you need to shell out €400+ I was coming from a WP that cost €160 and probably I should have gone to a Samsung Ativ S or similar WP for less than €200.

Tom after all is coming from a Nokia 920 so I was warning him of some of the issues he might face. The Moto G might well be a budget phone but all over this thread people say that it performs better than many higher end Android phones.:rolleyes:

I understand that you prefer the WP environment but that is a silly statement to make. The firmware is to blame for most of the above issues rather than the hardware. Sorry to hear your phone isn't giving you what you want, I would suggest you root it to tweak/fix what is on the stock ROM but it sounds like Android isn't for you at all.

Do-more · 29-03-2014 02:39PM

irishpancake wrote: »

Yiz are going round in circles here lads.....

"do-more" already said he will be getting rid of Moto G asap, in favour of a WP!!!

And he/she has a litany of complaints re Android generally and Moto g specifically.

So be it!

WP isn't perfect either, but I find that it is a lot easier to use than Android without the need to install this app to solve this problem and that app to solve that problem! Probably just as well given the limited app availability :pac:

As Cydoniac says it is just a case that Android isn't for me, I don't have the patience to spend 6 months researching what apps I need to install to get my phone functioning normally.

irishpancake · 29-03-2014 02:57PM

Do-more wrote: »

WP isn't perfect either, but I find that it is a lot easier to use than Android without the need to install this app to solve this problem and that app to solve that problem! Probably just as well given the limited app availability :pac:

As Cydoniac says it is just a case that Android isn't for me, I don't have the patience to spend 6 months researching what apps I need to install to get my phone functioning normally.

Nothing is perfect, either in mobile OS's or life generally.

I am of the opinion that one almost needs to be an Android geek/anorak to get the best out of most Android devices.

There are so many variables, introduced by device manufacturers like Samsung or HTC, each with their own modified take on the OS, so much so that quite a lot of those geeky types, like myself, feel obliged to root and flash versions of Android much closer to AOSP or ROM's like Cyanogen.

But, Moto G is quite close to pure Android, as designed by Google, so if you find it unsatisfactory from a user perspective, Android is definitely not for you.

I like it, but that's because I like messing around with the OS, and have done so all my working life in the telecoms/IT space, but that's me!!!!

BionicRasher · 29-03-2014 05:01PM

Do-more wrote: »

WP isn't perfect either, but I find that it is a lot easier to use than Android without the need to install this app to solve this problem and that app to solve that problem! Probably just as well given the limited app availability :pac:

As Cydoniac says it is just a case that Android isn't for me, I don't have the patience to spend 6 months researching what apps I need to install to get my phone functioning normally.

These are not problems you are having (bar the Skype issue) they are the way Android is set up and it is preforming normally. Moto G is almost stock Android. I like stock Android the way Google intended it to be and I actually hate all the junk Sony, HTC, Samsung etc put in phones. That's why I stick to a Nexus or Moto G type device.

If it's not suitable for you then that's fine maybe WP is best for your needs.

I just like the options of setting it up exactly how I like and need it and having the opportunity to tweak it like a mad yoke on steroids!

ZeitgeistGlee · 30-03-2014 11:04AM

For anyone with the 8GB Moto G, how are you finding it space wise? Thinking about picking one up for a birthday present but it (assuming the usual 5.5GB available) seems rather on the low side to me given the size of a lot of apps these days.

Moto G - [Threads Merged]

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