Motorola is introducing its newest range of Moto G and Moto E smartphones today, which will sell in the $100 to $300 range. While these aren’t high-end phones, they’re all important ones for Motorola: the Moto G remains Motorola’s best seller, and the company says it’s the top seller worldwide in its price class; the Moto E, which sells for slightly less, apparently isn’t far behind it. In the Moto G line, Motorola is introducing the Moto G6 and G6 Play. (There will also be a G6 Plus, but it isn’t launching in the US, so we didn’t get a chance to see it.) The G6 and the G6 Play are similar looking phones, with curved edges on the back and 18:9 displays with thin bezels on the front. They feel nice, though the standard G6 gets closest to a flagship-level build, with a really nice Gorilla Glass back (at least until it picks up your fingerprints), instead of the polymer glass on the Play. The standard G6 comes with somewhat better specs: it has a 5.7-inch display that’s somewhere over 1080p, a Snapdragon 450 processor, and options for 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage or 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. Plus, it’s the only Motorola phone announced today to include USB-C. Like last year, it includes a fingerprint sensor on the front that can detect gestures and completely replace the Android control keys, freeing up even more screen space. It has a really pronounced effect on the 18:9 screen and looks great. The G6 also includes dual rear cameras, which allow it to offer a portrait mode. I tried it out briefly, and while I wouldn’t say the results looked amazing (they have the same obviously fake blur and missed edges as other portrait mode photos), the pictures came out better than I expected for something far from a flagship phone. Motorola’s also including a bunch of other new camera features here, including an “active photo” mode that takes videos with each picture and built-in face filters. Grid View Moto G6 Play (left) and G6 (right) Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Moto G6 Play (left) and G6 (right) Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Moto G6 (left) and G6 Play (right) Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Moto G6 Play (top) and G6 (bottom) Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Moto G6 Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The G6 Play has a 5.7-inch display as well, but it has a noticeable drop in resolution to somewhere just over 720p. It doesn’t look bad, but in comparison, you can tell it isn’t quite as sharp as on the standard G6. The Play only has a single 12-megapixel rear camera and a max configuration of 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage; its default model comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Its one major highlight, like most of Motorola’s Play series phones, is that it has a really large battery: 4,000mAh, in this case, which should last well over a day. The Galaxy S9 has a 3,000mAh battery, for comparison. Then there are the new Moto E models, the E5 Play and E5 Plus. (There’s also a regular E5 model that won’t launch in the US.) Normally, the E line isn’t as nice as the G line, but that’s not entirely the case when it comes to the E5 Plus. The E5 Plus has a 6-inch screen with a resolution somewhere over 720p, a Snapdragon 435 processor, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. It only has a single 12-megapixel rear camera, and it has polymer glass on the back. Overall, it feels a bit rounder and bit less sturdy than the G6, but you still might want it for one big reason: it has a 5,000mAh battery, which is just huge. The Moto E Play, on the other hand, isn’t much to marvel at. It looks a lot like older Moto E and G phones, with a plastic body and a 16:9 display. It actually feels really nice — Motorola’s made a lot of phones in this shape, and it’s really good at making them — but it’s clearly not meant to wow anyone. The real weak point is the 5.2-inch display, which is listed as “HD” but looks pixelated and washed out compared to any of the other phones Motorola announced today. It also has a surprisingly small battery for a Play phone: only 2,800mAh, though it is removable. Grid View Moto E5 Play (left) and Moto E5 Plus (right) Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Moto E5 Play (top) and Moto E5 Plus (bottom) Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Moto E5 Play (top) and Moto E5 Plus (bottom) Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Moto E5 Play (top) and Moto E5 Plus (bottom) Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Moto E5 Play (top) and Moto E5 Plus (bottom) Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Moto E5 Play (top) and Moto E5 Plus (bottom) Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Motorola plans to launch all of these phones sometime this spring, likely in May or June. The G6 will sell for $249 and the G6 Play will sell for $199 in their base configurations. We don’t have pricing yet for the E5 Play and Plus because that’ll be up to phone carriers. They’ll likely start in the $100 range, but it’s possible that the E5 Plus will get into Moto G territory. Even if that’s the case, Motorola is hoping that carrier subsidies will make these phones even cheaper. By the way, if you’re super confused by the very slight distinctions between all of these phones: you’re not alone. Here’s a graphic we made breaking down some of their top-level specs to clear things up. You’ll note they sort of start to blur between the E5 Plus and G6. The Moto G phones are launching globally, except for the G6 Plus. The G6 Plus actually comes out sooner than everything else, launching in Brazil today and Mexico next week. It’s supposed to come to parts of Asia Pacific, Europe, and Latin America in the future, selling for around €299 (about $370 USD). The Plus model will be somewhat larger and higher-end, with a 5.9-inch display and a Snapdragon 630 processor. The Moto E5 Play will launch globally, but the E5 Plus is only going to be available in the US. There’s also a standard E5 with a 5.7-inch screen and an 18:9 aspect ratio that’ll sell for €149 (about $185 USD) launching in the regions listed above.<doc-sep>The Motorola Moto G6 has been officially launched in India. The device carries a price tag of INR 13,999, which currently translates into around $210. It will be exclusively available through Amazon. The Moto G6 Play, on the other hand, will set you back INR 11,999, which is around $180. It will be a Flipkart exclusive in the Asian country. Sales for both handsets begin tonight. The devices were first made official back in April this year, with Brazil becoming the first country to get them. Recently, they were released in the US as well.<doc-sep>
Motorola unveiled the Moto G6 series back in April, and the Moto G6 and the G6 Play have made their debut in India. There's no mention of whether the Moto G6 Plus will make its way to the country, but it's unlikely as the Moto X4 offers similar specs. For now, it looks like the standard Moto G6 and the G6 Play will carry the Moto G brand this year. That's a huge ask considering just how competitive the budget segment has become in recent months, thanks to devices like the Redmi Note 5 Pro and more recently the ZenFone Max Pro M1, both of which feature the Snapdragon 636 chipset. By contrast, the Moto G6 is powered by a Snapdragon 450, so it doesn't look like the device will be able to compete when it comes to sheer numbers. So let's see what else is on offer with the latest iteration of the Moto G series. VPN Deals: Lifetime license for $16, monthly plans at $1 & more Moto G6 and G6 Play: Specs Category Moto G6 Play Moto G6 Operating System Android 8.0 Oreo Android 8.0 Oreo Display 5.7-inch IPS LCD 1440x720 5.7-inch IPS LCD 2160x1080 Processor Snapdragon 427 1.4GHz octa-core Adreno 308 GPU Snapdragon 450 1.8GHz octa-core Adreno 506 GPU RAM 3GB 3GB/4GB Storage 32GB 32GB/64GB Expandable microSD card up to 128GB microSD card up to 128GB Rear Camera - Main 13MP, ƒ/2.0 12MP, ƒ/1.8 Rear Camera - Secondary N/A 5MP RGB (for depth) Video 1080p @ 30 fps 1080p @ 60fps Front Camera 8MP front-facing flash 8MP front-facing flash Connectivity 802.11 a/b/g/n 2.4 GHz + 5 GHz Bluetooth 4.2 802.11 a/b/g/n 2.4 GHz + 5 GHz Bluetooth 4.2 Battery 4000mAh Non-removable 3000mAh Non-removable Charging Micro-USB 10W rapid charger USB-C 15W TurboPower charger Water resistance Water-repellant nano-coating Water-repellant nano-coating Security Fingerprint sensor (rear) Fingerprint sensor (front) Face unlock Dimensions 154.4 x 72.2 x 9 mm 153.8 x 72.3 x 8.3 mm Weight 175g 167 g Both phones have 18:9 displays and glass backs With the Moto G6 series, Motorola lavished the same amount of attention it reserves to its mid-range phones. The Moto G6 and G6 Play feature glass-backed designs that look nearly identical to what we've seen last year on the Moto X4. The glass design certainly makes both devices feel upmarket. Another change for 2018 is the switch to the 18:9 form factor. The Moto G6 Play has a 5.7-inch HD+ (1440x720) display whereas the Moto G6 has a 5.7-inch Full HD+ (2160x1080) panel. The Moto G6 comes with dual rear cameras The main differentiator with the Moto G6 is the dual rear cameras at the back, with the secondary sensor enabling portrait mode. The primary camera doesn't have the Dual Pixels feature from last year, and overall image quality is about the same as that of the Moto G5 Plus. Moto G6 review: Finding success in compromise There's a huge 4000mAh battery on the Moto G6 Play