Moto G Refresh

Today Lenovo made the rumors official: the company’s mid-range Moto G lineup has been refreshed with not one but three different phones. The Moto G (hereafter the Moto G4) and the Moto G Plus bring spec bumps inside and out, while the lower-end Moto G Play is more like a redesign of last year’s Moto G. The phones will be available in Brazil and India to start, but all three should come to the US, Europe, and elsewhere later this summer.

The Moto G4 is the mainstream option, and for £169 (about $244, though US pricing hasn’t been announced) you get a decent amount for your money. Its larger 5.5-inch display jumps from 720p to 1080p, and it picks up an octa-core Snapdragon 617 SoC. The phone has dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, a nice upgrade over the 2.4GHz-only wireless in previous models, Bluetooth 4.1, 2GB of RAM, and 16 or 32GB of storage that can be expanded by up to 128GB with a microSD card. All three of the Motos G continue to use micro-USB rather than USB Type-C.

The phone also includes a 3,000mAh battery, a “water repellent nano-coating,” LTE that should work “on all major carriers,” a 13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera, and a skin-free build of Android 6.0.1. Visually, Lenovo has tweaked the Moto G design to look a bit flatter, and the camera now bulges out slightly from the back. Given the amount of time it takes to develop a smartphone, this is probably the first Moto G designed mostly by Lenovo rather than being a leftover from the Google days, but it doesn’t drastically shake up the formula.