The price of unlocked smartphones has dropped considerably with the official unveiling of the Moto G with specs about a year old but prices lower than high-end smartphones with a contract. It will also be sold by Verizon for prepaid service in early Q1 2014.
The Moto G without a SIM costs $179 with 8GB of storage, a 4.5" LCD 329PPI touchscreen, Android 4.3, 1.2 GHz quad-core processor and 5MP camera. The only major downside is that it does not support LTE with HSPA+ the fastest data option. It is customizable with many colors and will be updated to Android KitKat by January 2014.
As an added bonus the Moto G comes with 65GB of Google Drive. The battery is supposed to last a day. Google claims its a more "pure" Android experience without a bunch of "bloatware."
The Moto G launches in Brazil, U.K. and Ireland today. It will launch in the U.S. and India in early 2104. It's interesting that it was announced in Brazil where Motorola laid off thousands of workers after it was bought by Google.
It has a similar shape and design to the Moto X. The back cover can be replace with a choice of colors. Assist software learns how you use the Moto G and then changes the settings.
Since it is not top of the line, but awfully pretty and performs well, some are saying the Moto G is off to a good start.
The Motorola Blog states "Everybody deserves to be on the mobile Internet, and price shouldn’t stand in the way of anyone having a truly good smartphone to get them there."
The only problem Google doesn't understand is that people in developing countries and poor people in America can't afford the $35-$50 a month for service that equates to $420-$600 a year....
The last hold-outs in the U.S. for smartphones are not against the $100-$200 up front, they don't like the cost of the phone service, especially if they already have a landline.