Moto G evolution: excellent averageness through the years

We spend a lot of time covering the flagship lines of the top smartphone brands: Samsung’s Galaxy S, Google’s Pixels, LG’s G and V series and, of course, Apple’s iPhones. And that’s all well and good, but there are many other phones that have left their mark in the industry – and they're not necessarily high-end models.

Today, we’ll take a look at the evolution of the Moto G line: from its humble beginnings in 2013 all the way to 2019, when the series spans across more screen sizes and price points than ever, but remains true to its original philosophy. So, without further ado, let’s begin with…

The original Moto G

As we already mentioned, the first Moto G came out in 2013, and while it wasn’t anything exciting specs-wise, it was groundbreaking in its own way. Motorola made it for the so-called emerging markets, e.g. India and South America, which usually means low specs, low price. But Motorola managed to hit the sweet spot between the two and created one of the best budget phones at the time. The Moto G’s popularity was beyond the company’s expectations, and not long after the initial release, it was brought to multiple other markets, including Europe and the US.

With its no-nonsense design, decent specs, and low price, the first Moto G was an instant hit. It sold so well, it topped Motorola’s best-sellers chart, beating many other popular phones, including the famous Razr. The Moto G had a 4.5-inch display, a single GB of RAM, and up to 16GB of storage, but for a budget phone in 2013, those were respectable hardware specs.

The original Moto G became the first smartphone for millions of people, and it wasn’t only because of the great price-to-specs ratio. The compact phone had a very welcoming and even cute vibe to it. It was comfortable to hold, durable, and felt like a trusty companion, a digital friend almost. That can be said about few phones today, with their posh designs and glass panels.

At the time, Motorola Mobility was the company responsible for Motorola phones, and it was owned by Google. This meant the phone’s software wasn’t encumbered by needless apps. Android KitKat on the Moto G ran relatively smoothly, which wasn’t the case for most phones in its price segment back in 2013.

And that’s how one of the most successful Motorola smartphone lines began. No wonder then that after the impact the first Moto G made on the market, newer models were fast in the works.

Early successors

The first successor came out in September 2014 and was followed rather quickly by the third iteration in July 2015. Both phones were simply called Moto G, usually followed by the clarification of the model’s year or generation (second or third). Both devices followed closely the winning recipe of the original with barely any specs changes, for better or worse. The most notable upgrade was a 0.5-inch gain in display size and the third generation Moto G’s IP rating for water resistance. The latter was quite a rare feature for a budget phone in 2015, but sadly, it wasn’t one to stick with future models.