Motorola's latest budget offering, Moto G Turbo edition, goes on sale in India, on Flipkart, December 10. Himanshu Juneja tells you what to expect from this Rs 15k, 4G-enabled smartphone.
For those who have been out of sync, the Moto G Turbo is the enhanced version of the hugely popular Moto G series of mobile phones. This is also the first time that Motorola has brought 'Turbo', a fast charging feature, to the Moto G line up.
Moto G Turbo brings along with it an HD screen with resolution of 720 x 1280p, a Snapdragon 615 Chipset, and 2 GB of RAM. The onboard storage capacity is 16 GB. Memory can be expanded by another 32 GB via a MicroSD card.
It is an obvious thing that there will be comparisons with the Moto G3 mobile phone, and the Turbo edition here looks very similar to its 'basic line up'. The design remains consistent, and people will be hard pressed to spot the differences. The dimensions remain the same, and so is the weight of the new device.
Screen
Motorola decided to keep the screen same down to the last detail, and this includes the the Gorilla Glass 3 protection as well. It would have been a swell development if Motorola had opted for a Full HD screen. It would have ensured an extra sheen on the Turbo edition's 'enhanced' claims. Looking at the growing trend and fierce competition, this disappointment should have been avoided.
Processor
Looking under the hood, the improved and faster Snapdragon 615 chipset has a better Adreno 405 GPU alongside to take care of the heavy duty tasks. This jump from Snapdragon 410 chipset and Adreno 305 is noteworthy. Gamers especially can look forward to better performances.
OS
The phone will be running Android's Lollipop OS (ver 5.1.1) out of the box, and going by the reports that Motorola has already started Marshmallow roll out on its devices, the Moto G Turbo should witness an OS upgrade to the latest edition early next year.
IP67 certification
Water resistance has been a big selling point for the Motorola phones for some time now, and while the Moto G 3 is IPX7 certified, its Turbo edition goes ahead and gets an enhanced IP67 certification.
This allows the phone to be dust resistant as well.
Camera
The camera remains the same, with the rear module being 13 MP and has a dual LED flash alongside. The front facing camera is again 5 MP. Motorola claims that there is zero shutter lag and optical image stabilisation onboard. This has to be a software-achieved stabilisation, which is more affordable.
Expecting the full-fledged hardware based OIS feature at this price point will be unfair.
If Moto G 3's camera performance is anything to be taken into account, users should get good results while capturing their favourite frames.
Battery
The Moto G Turbo comes with a 2470 mAh battery pack. Here lies one of the biggest enhancement -- Turbo Charging. Moto G Turbo offers fast charging for the busy users, allowing the phone to be juiced up for 6 hours worth of battery back up within 15 minutes of charge.
Expect the phone to be fully charged within 40 minutes or so, and this will come in handy for users who are hard pressed for spare time.
That Motorola will be bundling the Turbo charger along the handset makes up for a good overall package.
Colours
The Moto G Turbo edition will come in the all familiar black and white colour options. It wouldn't have hurt Motorola though to provide some refreshing new colours to make the Turbo edition stand out.
The handset has been priced at Rs 14,999 and it will be interesting to see if Moto G3 witnesses a slight price cut to keep itself afloat.
