My Mom wants a new phone to replace her antique iPhone. I want her to get an iPhone SE but she’s being stubborn about it. She wants a budget smartphone and after checking Verizon, it seems like her options are either the Moto G Play or the Samsung Galaxy J3.
Personally, I think they’re both a waste of time and she’ll break and buy the SE when the holiday sales roll through. But, whatever. It’s her phone.
So here's their specs:
**Samsung**
Specifications
XLTE Ready Doubling our 4G LTE bandwidth in cities coast to coast.
World Device Works in over 200 countries
Standby Time - Up to: 14 days
Usage Time - Up to: 28 hrs
Camera 5 MP
Front Camera 2 MP
Width 2.75 in
Weight 5.19 oz
Height 5.54 in
Screen 5.0' HD TFT Display
Battery 2,600mAH, Li-Ion, removable
Operating System Android Nougat 7.0
Storage 16GBROM+1.5GBRAM
Expandable Memory Removable microSD up to 256GB (sold separately)
Color Silver
SAR Head SAR: 0.71 W/Kg Body SAR: 0.82 W/Kg
Hearing Aid Compatibility M3/T3
Network CDM A 1X/EvDO RevA LTE Cat.4 : B13/B4/B2/B5, B3/B7 UMTS/GSM Quad
Processor MSM8917,QuadCore, 1.4GHz
HD Voice Experience HD Voice, Video Calling and Simultaneous Voice & Data. Enable Wi-Fi Calling and make calls anywhere you have a Wi-Fi connection.
**Moto**
Specifications
Standby Time - Up to: 33 days
Usage Time - Up to: 26 hrs
Camera 8 MP
Front Camera 5 MP
Width 2.8 in
Weight 4.8 oz
Height 5.7 in
Size 5.7"H x 2.8"W x .3"D
Screen 5.0”, HD 720 (720x1280)
Battery 2800 mAh (non-removable)
Operating System Android™ 6.0.1, Marshmallow
Storage 16 GB
Expandible Memory Supports microSD card up to 128 GB (sold separately)
SAR Head SAR Value: 0.79 W/kgBody-worn SAR Value: 1.44 W/kg
Hearing Aid Compatibility M3/T4
Network CDMA 850, 1900 MHz; LTE B2, 4, 5, 13
Processor Motorola Mobile Computing System, including an up to 1.2 GHz Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 410 quad-core processor with 450 MHz Adreno 306 GPU
I’ve heard decent things about the Moto G line. Is she not able to buy a phone independently and just have Verizon activate it? I’m with T-Mobile but haven’t purchased a phone through T-Mobile in generations (of phones, not people).
I’m perfectly happy with the Moto G Play (I bought the Amazon version last year). Ads aren’t obtrusive, and it does everything I want. My only complain is that the GPS can be a little flakey, so it’s a bad choice if you rely on your smartphone to navigate.
I’m not in the Apple ecosystem, so I wouldn’t ever buy an iPhone. I like the expandable memory, as I load lots of music on my phone.
She’s with Verizon pre-paid. Unlocked phones are more expensive than she wants to pay. $100 is her limit. So I’m trying to get the best phone I can get for that price. So getting them from Verizon seems like the best plan.
But I’m open to suggestions.
Wait wait wait - there are ads on the Moto? Is that just an Amazaon thing? We could probably swing that, we both have Kindles and ignore the ads, but it doesn’t seem to be any cheaper …
Of course that’s the E not the G. I have no idea what that means.
If the OP’s mother is already using an iPhone, I think she would be more comfortable with a new iPhone, just because the interface is the same. If she’s technically savvy, she may be able to easily made the transition but if she is not comfortable with technology, the newer version of the same phone is a better choice.
I don’t have a Moto, but I have Amazon’s BLU R1 HD, and the ads are very unobtrusive. Almost unnoticeable. There is one full page ad when you turn on the phone, but you can swipe that away. You don’t see any ads when you’re using the phone, and when you wake it from standby, the ad is reduced to a small notification card on the lockscreen. There is pre-installed software from Amazon, but you can deactivate it and hide the icons.
I have a Samsung now, works good for me. I am not really tech-savvy. In fact I am allergic to electronic devices. I have an IPad which I hate. My kids are always giving me tutorials on it, and telling me how " it is just so much easier, if you just do it such and such way" It never works for me, though! I have frozen that thing so many times it’s laughable! Get her a Samsung, they are easy to handle.
I owned a Moto G for a couple of years, until I lost it last April.
The only beef I had with it was that it had no camera flash. Apart from that it was a perfectly fine phone for my purposes. I upgraded to a Moto Z phone when I figured I’d never find my old one. Again, perfectly fine for my needs.
the only experience I have with budget Samsungs is from several years ago when an acquaintance had a cheap one on Straight Talk. I wasn’t real impressed; short battery life and a plain (non-Gorilla) glass screen. a plain glass screen which was scratched into unusability within a few months.
that would be the biggest thing I would worry about; check reviews to make sure it has a screen made out of some sort of toughened glass.
If the OP’s mother doesn’t want to pay for a brand-new Apple iPhone, I suggest looking at refurbished ones. They should be available at a discount, especially now that new iPhone models are available.
I agree with the used route. I would suggest to OP that they search eBay for “[whatever phone] excellent [carrier]” Like when I bought my Galaxy S4 I searched for:
samsung galaxy s4 excellent verizon
Read the fine print and buy from a seller with high feedback. I got my S4 for $125 a couple years ago, it was a flagship phone not many years before that.
All other specifications being roughly equal, I’d buy the Samsung, as it has Android 7.0 Nougat. Version 8 Oreo just rolled out, so Nougat is only one OS iteration behind. In another year, you might regret buying a phone with Marshmallow installed, although most apps in the Play Store still seem to support Android 4.0.
What country are you in? Galaxy J3 turns up a bunch of Indian links. Wikipedia says it’s in Japan. In some other countries (not Japan), the phones are rather stripped down.
I had no idea Samsung had a budget line, most of them I’ve seen (Verizon) are not cheap. The resolution etc. looks kind of crappy, but many “moms” don’t care much about those features.
Why are you pushing her towards iPhone though? The main reason for sticking with Apple or Android is losing app compatibility, but Android as a whole isn’t inferior except in fanboy land.
I’ve owned a Moto G and a Moto Z Play; I like them a lot. The Z Play has an enormous battery life.
The main difference between the two from a non-tech point of view, is that the Samsung comes pre-loaded with a LOT of bloatware, enough that it affects the performance. The Moto doesn’t.
Maybe it wasn’t a J3. I have one and I love it, but I’m a very light user and think of it mainly as just a phone with the other stuff being a bonus. But it does have a nice bright AMOLED screen with beautiful colors, and besides being a decent phone (as in, a device that you make phone calls with!) it works fine for browsing, email, and music.
I disagree with your comments about battery life. My battery tends to last a week or more with light use. As for the glass, I’ve read that the J3 has a top layer of hardened glass though not technically “gorilla glass”. I don’t really see how your acquaintance could have “scratched it into unusability within a few months”. I’ve had mine for nearly a year and I still haven’t removed the protective shipping plastic from the front and back. If that plastic – which is nothing more than the disposable protective film meant only to keep electronic items clean and shiny during shipping – is still in good shape, I have no idea how your friend managed to scratch up a hardened glass screen. Maybe you should tell him not to use his phone screen to manicure his cat’s claws!
What’s the price difference between the G Play and the latest G5 Plus? I’ve got a G5 Plus that I’m generally happy with and paid $300 for the top end storage/RAM combo. It looks like you can get one as a special Amazon version for about $185. I got a SIM from Straight Talk and popped it in.
My Moto (not the Amazon ads version) does everything I want it to do. I’m not a power user; for me, it’s a phone with a GPS (HERE WeGo) … chose Moto because it doesn’t have the bloatware Samsung is famous for.
My last two phones were a Samsung Galaxy Avant (poor man’s S4) and a Moto G4 Plus (4GB RAM version). There are definitely advantages and disadvantages to each. Samsung adds a lot of crap, but some of that crap is actually quite good at making the phone easier to use and configure. The Moto phones (at least 4th generation G) have also a bit of a reputation for overheating, battery drain and other glitchyness, though my experience with these issues has been minimal with my phone.
That said, I still voted Moto in the poll, mainly because I lean toward the more “pure” Android experience over the slick-but-bloated Samsung.
The Amazon ads only show up on the Moto phone if you buy the special version sold by Amazon (which gives you a discount, of course). This version is locked down and cannot be rooted, but there are apparently apps out there that can at least disable the ads. Of course, if you’re getting the phone from Verizon, this is a non-issue.
I too love my Amazon ad-supported Moto. My GPS on it is very reliable, much moreso than my previous LG phone (can’t recall model). I stuck a 20 gig mini SD card into it, and have way more storage than I could ever need. The battery life seems to be gradually reducing, I have an Anker power pack that lives in my bag, which I plug into if I’m going to be out all day.
I won’t go back to a current model phone again. I love the idea that if I lose it or catastrophically drop it, it’s reasonable to just pay to replace it, without faffing about with insurance.