The Moto G series may steal all the credit when it comes to Motorola’s budget lineup, but there’s a handset that arguably offers even better value for the money than the new Moto G6 — the also-new Moto E5. Motorola has finally take the wraps off of the new E-series, including both the Moto E5 Plus and Moto E5 Play.
The new phones should offer decent specs and performance at an exceptionally low price. Here’s everything you need to know about the new Moto E5 Plus and Moto E5 Play.
Design
The Moto E5 Plus and Moto E5 Play feature slightly different designs. While the E5 Plus looks similar to the new Moto G6, with its 18:9 aspect ratio, the E5 Play features a slightly older-looking design — which one might expect from such an inexpensive phone.
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Moto E5 Play -
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Moto E5 Plus
Both phones feature the recently adopted and now standard Motorola camera bump on the back, and they both also offer a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor embedded in the Motorola logo. The display on the Moto E5 Plus comes in at 6 inches with a resolution of 1,440 x 720, while the E5 Play’s display comes in at 5.2 inches with a 720p resolution.
Another thing that users of the Moto E5 Play might like is the fact that it has a removable back and battery. It’s the only new Moto phone that can do that, which means you can carry extra batteries to use if you need them.
While different, they’re definitely not bad-looking phones. They both come in a range of different colors, too, which is a nice touch.
Specs
Under the hood, the phones are decidedly budget-focused — but that doesn’t mean that they’re no good. The Moto E5 Plus features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor, coupled with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage — though if you want to expand upon that storage, you can do so via the MicroSD card slot. It also has an absolutely massive 5,000mAh battery, which is pretty huge. The device also offers a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera with an aperture of f/2.0, along with an 8-megapixel front-facing camera.
The Moto E5 Play features either a Snapdragon 425 or 427 processor, coupled with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Like the E5 Plus, the E5 Play features a MicroSD card slot, so you can expand on that storage by up to 128GB if you choose. Unlike the E5 Plus, the E5 Play’s battery isn’t huge — but it’s not tiny either. The 2,800mAh battery should get you through a day of use pretty easily. The E5 Play also offers a slightly lower-resolution camera. The rear-facing camera comes in at 8 megapixels, while the front-facing camera is 5 megapixels.
Software
The software is set to be one of the major frustration points for this phone. Why? It won’t be updated. While the device does ship with Android 8.0 Oreo, Motorola says that it will not be updating the E5 Plus or Play with any new versions of Android, so if you’re looking forward to Android P, then this may not be the phone for you.
Price and availability
Unfortunately, we don’t yet know exactly how much the Moto E5 will cost in the U.S. — Motorola says that it will “vary depending on carrier.” We also don’t know exactly when they’ll be available, though Motorola says they’ll be available in sometime before spring ends. We’ll update this article when we hear more.
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