@srlawren wrote:
@mpcdesign you mentioned she has issues with the Moto G? What kind of issues, if I may ask? Do you know which G model she has (there have been several generations, and most generations have a few variations in different sizes and capabilities). The Android my mom uses is a Moto G5 Plus (not the S version that @Chanah suggests, which is also very nice) and it seems to meet her late-70's needs just fine. The cameras on the G series aren't going win any awards but maybe the newer variations (they're in the G6's now and the G7 series is coming up pretty soon) are pretty serviceable.
srlawren, I sure you're already aware of the points that I'm going to make, but I'll post my thoughts about the Moto G devices so that others may consider if it is worth it for them to get one.
Moto G series phones, for the most part, are better than used to be (and sometimes more expensive).
Moto G phones have always been targeted towards people who don't want to spend that much on a phone. Despite whatever shortfalls these models have historically had, whether it's the 720p screen, small screen sizes, mediocre cameras, and whatnot, I'll say that I believe the main problem with many of these devices was the lack of RAM and storage space.
Most of the time, you could live with the entry level cpu, the "just okay" camera, and lower resolution screen, but the way that many of these devices only had 1GB of RAM made it so that they would lag for sometimes a few seconds at a time (or even appear frozen) if running multiple apps at a time and trying switch between them. And the 8GB of storage in many of these meant either you couldn't install all the apps that you wanted, or that you would have to depend on much slower app loading from an SD card.
The Moto G3 was a strange animal in the sense that it was really the only version that included more high-end features (compared to what else was available at that time) such as the 13 megapixel camera and IPx7 water resistance
Espeically with 1GB RAM variants of the many Moto G-series devices, things were a nightmare during the initial installation of apps and Play Store updates. We're talking like 30 second pauses when the phoen doesn't respond, but then suddenly executing 10 screen/button presses at once. But this was really limited to the initital setup because of the pure number of apps being downloaded and installed right after one another. Usually, things were fine once everything was installed and up and running the way you like it as long as you didn't try to repeitively switch between multiple apps. Things were actually quite snappy most of the time.
The current Moto G devices don't have the RAM and storage problems. The current levels at the bottom end of 2GB RAM an 16GB storage doesn't sound like much, but it's probably enough for most basic users to get thourgh things without the type of lag that I described earler.
I'll say that I see the current Moto E series as really being more of what the Moto G devices used to be. The "Play" Moto G models are more low end than other current Moto G devices. We've been seeing things such as 1080p displays in many Moto G phones of late, something that was unheard of a few years ago.
