Motorola Moto G Announced and Enters Budget Market at £135

Motorola has announced the Moto G smartphone, as a low-cost alternative to the Moto X - but unlike the US-made flagship, the Moto G is available in Europe.

The Moto G has a similar design to the Moto X, including a curved plastic back and waterproofing. The company describes the phones 4.5in display as its "hero feature" and the sharpest display in its class.

Motorola is pricing the Moto G at £135 for the 8GB model, SIM-free. For users who need extra storage, free access to 65GB of Google Drive is included with the Moto G. The 16GB model is priced at £159.

Another way in the which the Moto G is similar to the Moto X is with its removable rear covers, which come in a wide variety of covers, along with rubberised protection cases.

Camera

The Moto G has a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 1.3-MP front-facing camera. The camera app does away with a dedicated shutter button - both physical and on-screen - and instead photos can be taken by tapping anywhere on the screen. Zooming in and out is done by moving a finger up or down anywhere on the screen.

The Moto G has a 5in screen with a resolution of 720 x 1280 giving it a pixel density of 329 pixels per inch, and is powered by a quad-core, 1.2GHz processor with 1GB of RAM.

The phone will launch running Android 4.3, while Motorola guarantees the Moto G will receive an upgrade to Android 4.4 (KitKat) by next January.

The Google-owned company claims there are no good options in the sub-$200 price range, and claims the Moto G is the answer - "a premium experience" from a phone that is around a third the price of a SIM-free iPhone 5s or Samsung Galaxy S4.

Motorola claims the Moto G will last "all day" and provide 10 hours of 3G talk time.

Accessories

Following the footsteps of the customisable Moto X, the G will be sold alongside a range of exchangable rear covers and flip covers. The phone itself comes in black, while Motorola will sell a range of rear covers for £12 each, and flip covers similar to those used by some of Samsung's smartphones for £29.

Unfortunately, while the rear cover is removeable, this does not given access to the phone's 2,070 mAh battery, and there's no microSD card slot to increase onboard storage.

Software

In a dig at Samsung, Sony and HTC's "non-intuitive" Android skins, Google-owned Motorola says building a device on pure Android is the "crux" of its strategy in developing the Moto G.

By keeping the software simple, Motorola says the Moto G is one of the fastest smartphones on the market, booting from cold and opening apps faster than any of the rivals in its price range.

Although the phone looks similar to the Moto X, it misses out on some of the flagship's software features, including Active Notifications, Quick Capture and Touchless Control.