Motorola launched the latest Moto G4 and G4 Plus in India this week, joining the league of affordable premium smartphones in the country. The Moto G4 is an entry-level device and the successor to the popular third generation Moto G 2015 smartphone. The handset's price in India hasn't been announced, but it is expected to cost lower than the G4 Plus, which starts at Rs. 13,499 for 2GB+16GB model and Rs. 14,999 for 3GB+32GB variant.
Motorola's launch of the two new phones might land some existing Moto G3 users into confusion if at all they plan to upgrade to the new model. We are going to compare the specifications of all three phones to show if it is worth upgrading to any of the new Moto G models and find out which successor is worthy of an upgrade.
Display
Motorola G4 and G4 Plus are mostly alike. Both the handsets feature 5.5-inch Full HD displays with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection and 401ppi. Moto G 2015 smartphone users will find it a significant upgrade as the third-gen Moto G featured a 5-inch display with only HD 720p resolution.
If you choose to upgrade, users will see a massive difference in the quality of the display with brighter colours and contrast images.
Camera
Motorola packs different camera configurations on both of its new models. The Moto G4 features a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with dual LED flash, f/2.2 aperture, PDAF and auto HDR, which is not a massive departure from the 13MP primary snapper with multilayer IR filter and f/2.0 aperture found in its predecessor Moto G (3rd gen).
Moto G4 Plus, however, makes for a good upgrade with its 16-megapixel primary shooter with OmniVision Pure Cell Plus sensor, f/2.0 aperture, PDAF and dual-LED colour-balance flash. Expect better quality images and videos on the G4 Plus than on G4 and G3 smartphones.
All the three smartphones share the same resolution camera for selfies. A 5MP front-facing snapper is common for Moto G3, G4 and G4 Plus, except the new series have a wide-angle lens.
Processor, RAM and storage
There is definitely a sensible upgrade in the new Moto G smartphones in this department. While the Moto G 2015 edition had a 1.4GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 CPU with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage, the all-new Moto G4 series are powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 octa-core SoC clocked at 1.5GHz. The RAM and storage is doubled in the new models to 2GB and 16GB, respectively.
The Moto G4 Plus comes in a higher storage model with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage for a difference of Rs. 1,500. All three smartphones have microSD card support, but the newer models can go up to 128GB.
It clearly makes sense for buyers to upgrade from the outdated Moto G3 to the new series. The Moto G4 Plus comes with higher storage and RAM, which is reasonable for a little extra cash.
Battery
Moto G4 and G4 Plus pack a 3,000mAh battery with TurboCharging support, which gives the devices six hours of runtime with just 15 minutes of charge. The Moto G 2015 smartphone not only lacked the fast charging feature, it also had a smaller 2,470mAh battery.
Software and add-ons
All the three phones are powered by Google's Android OS. The Moto G4 and G4 Plus run Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, but the older smartphone has Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. The Moto G4 Plus offers fingerprint scanner integrated within the home button, which is missing from both the Moto G4 and G3 smartphones. Dual SIM and 4G LTE support is common in all the three phones.
