Motorola’s break-neck pace has yet to slow during the pandemic. This morning, it announced the Moto G Pure, its latest offering for the US budget market.
Motorola’s fifth G-series phone announced this year, the $159 Moto G Pure is its least expensive to date. And while Motorola hasn’t officially discontinued its E-series lineup just yet, the G Pure has a lot in common with last year’s Moto E.
The Moto G Pure has a plastic backplate and frame and is available in blue. On the back of the phone there’s Motorola’s iconic batwing fingerprint sensor and a small camera module with a 13MP primary lens and a 2MP depth sensor.
A 6.5-inch, 1,600-by-720-pixel LCD dominates the front of the phone. There’s a teardrop notch on the top edge for the 5MP selfie camera, and a chunky bottom bezel. Inside is a MediaTek Helio G25 along with 3GB of RAM. Storage comes in at just 32GB, but you can add external storage with a microSD card.
The G Pure’s hardware configuration is pretty standard for a phone at this price, but there are definite limitations to consider. With a storage capacity of about 19-20GB once the OS is installed, and just 3GB of RAM, the phone is intended for light users.
Motorola claims the G Pure’s 4,000mAh battery has enough power to last two days between charges. That’s a bold claim, but its track record is solid if you’re a conservative user. People who use their phones constantly will probably get about a day and a half between charges.
There’s broad LTE band support for AT&T and T-Mobile on the unlocked version of the G Pure. Verizon will also sell a version of the phone that’s optimized for its network. NFC is noticeably absent. And while a single, bottom-firing speaker is the only source of audio on the G Pure, Motorola included Bluetooth 5.0 for wireless audio, and a 3.5mm headphone jack to boot.
The G Pure ships with Android 11. The My UX skin is also on board, but Motorola is very light-handed. With the exception of Moto Actions and a few other customization options, it’s a stock version of Android. The company also pushes most of its app updates out over the Play Store, so any quirks are fixed quickly.
Motorola provides two years of security updates for its G-series lineup. It typically provides one major OS upgrade as well, but we’ve yet to confirm the G Pure will get the Android 12 treatment.
The unlocked Moto G Pure will sell for $159.99 It will be available for pre-order through Amazon, Motorola, and several other websites on Oct. 14, and should begin shipping soon. Verizon customers can also buy the phone beginning Oct. 14.
