The Moto E (2015) Review
by Brandon Chester on April 21, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola
- Mobile
- Moto E (2015)
GPU Performance
The Adreno 306 GPU in Snapdragon 410 is more or less just a variant of the Adreno 305 used in the Snapdragon 400 series SoCs. Because of this, there's not likely to be much improvement in terms of overall GPU performance when comparing the Moto E to older Snapdragon 400 devices like the One Mini 2 or the Moto G.
As expected, Adreno 306 performs roughly the same as Adreno 305. In the graphics test the Moto E does slightly worse than the Moto G, while it does substantially better in the physics test. Due to the heavier weighting of the graphics test, and the harmonic mean used to calculate the overall score, the Moto E actually performs every so slightly worse than the Moto G overall. I would consider the difference in graphics scores to be within the margin of error, and in general users can expect essentially the same level of performance from Adreno 306 as that of Adreno 305.
While I would normally run BaseMark X after 3DMark, a GPU driver bug prevents the test from finishing properly and no results are reported. Because of this, our last GPU test is GFXBench 3.0. In both T-Rex HD and Manhattan, the offscreen performance of Adreno 306 is roughly comparable to that of Adreno 305 in Snapdragon 400. Onscreen performance pulls ahead of the Moto G due to the Moto E's lower display resolution.
Overall, the GPU performance of the 2015 Moto E is what you'd expect from a budget device. It would be nice if there was a larger performance improvement over Snapdragon 400, but Motorola can't be faulted for that. Buyers shouldn't expect to be able to play any intensive 3D games, but the performance is more than sufficient for simple 2D games and rendering the Android interface.
NAND Performance
NAND performance is another important aspect of mobile devices. While in the PC world vendors will sometimes make note of their HDD/SSD speeds, in the mobile world we haven't reached a point where anything beyond the amount of flash memory is stated by manufacturers. Despite this, poor NAND can be a serious bottleneck of system performance whenever something is being loaded from the internal storage, or when a background app is doing reads and writes or downloading updates.
Random read speeds on the Moto E are fairly slow, and random writes are right in the middle of our comparison devices. While I don't think the random write will cause any issues, the slow random read speed may contribute to some slowness whenever applications are loading files.
For those who are keeping track, the Moto E does not come with Android's full device encryption (FDE) enabled by default. Google appears to have stepped back from requiring FDE, and instead just recommends that it be enabled. Despite it not being enabled on the Moto E, the sequential read performance is not quite as fast as some other budget devices like the One Mini 2, although it is in line with the 2014 Moto G. Sequential write performance is unfortunately one of the lowest results on our list, although with only 5GB of accessible storage I don't imagine users will be writing many large files where it becomes a noticeable issue.
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RealTheXev - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
In my mothers situation.. the fact it can even connect to the wifi is the only thing that matters. lol She will never notice the speed.serendip - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Is this the first Lenovo-fied Moto device since the acquisition? The specs and price are very underwhelming when similar low-end devices from Lenovo and Xiaomi have 720p displays, more RAM and faster SoCs. 1 GB RAM is a nightmare on Android because apps get killed and have to reload often. That's really annoying for web browsers because the content has to be downloaded again instead of being cached.serendip - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Xiaomi have really upped their game recently. Flagships have always had weekly MIUI updates but now the budget line (Redmi 1S/2/Note) are also on a weekly schedule for the developer ROM. Better late than never.As for hardware support, that's a big issue because Xiaomi officially doesn't sell outside of China and some APAC countries. You won't have a physical repair depot to turn to if you buy from an online reseller.
spiked_mistborn - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Great review. You just confirmed what I have been experiencing since I got my Moto E LTE when they first came out. Some of the initial reviews said the screen was dim and poor quality, but I have not found that to be the case, and your test backs that up. Being a recent college grad still looking for work in my field, in addition to a tech enthusiast, this phone was the best option for my budget. It works well enough that I don't mind waiting, for a long time if necessary, for that killer phone that I would actually feel is worth paying several hundred dollars for. Nothing fits that description yet IMO.One thing that I would love to see added to future reviews is network throughput speeds through a VPN. I use OpenVPN all the time for both remote file access/music streaming, and also for security on open WiFi. The OpenVPN connect client recently added support for ARMv8 crypto instructions, so it would be nice to see how everything stacks up when the speed of the internet connection is not a bottleneck. Maybe test over mobile data and WiFi? The WiFi link speed might still be the limiting factor, but if the rest of the soc is working too, such as streaming HD video, the extra efficiency from ARMv8 might be quantifiable. Qualitative differences in the video could show up as well. Maybe a battery rundown test while streaming over the VPN might show some major differences as well?
sonicmerlin - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
Buy a phone used on eBay if you're on a budget. You can get last year's flagships for less than $200sonicmerlin - Wednesday, April 22, 2015 - link
What's the speed difference between Cortex A7 and A53?sasidharkareti - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Moto E 2nd generation has good upgrades DDR3, 8GB internal, 4.5 inch IPS, 2300 mAh, Android 5.0, front camera and 3G/4G are most welcomed.The removable bezel is a bit scary everytime it is plucked out. The battery takes a bit loger time to recharge. Besides these two, I love Moto e's performance.
Harry_Wild - Tuesday, April 28, 2015 - link
"802.11 b/g/n + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC"It has NFC but no "ac" for the Wi-Fi standard!
Maverick215 - Wednesday, April 29, 2015 - link
Out of curiosity, did you test NFC performance? I ask because the arstechnica review indicates that there is no NFC capability present in this device. Likewise the specs listed on motorola.com say "NFC - No"While I'm hopeful you have some information regarding activating this hidden feature, I'm guessing this was just an error.
Jwraith15 - Sunday, September 27, 2015 - link
Bestbuy now has the Sprint Prepaid LTE VERSION for $39