00:00We've durability tested some of the most expensive phones in the world,
00:04and now I think it's time to test one of the least expensive smartphones of the year,
00:08this $149 Moto G. It's one of the best selling smartphones that Motorola makes
00:14with hundreds of millions of sales over the years.
00:19But how is it so cheap? iPhone 17's are out here selling the back glass alone for $160.
00:25How does Motorola make a whole phone for less than the cost of one slab of iPhone glass?
00:31Today we're going to find out. The cameras on the back already look a little suspicious,
00:36but let's start with the front like we always do. If this $150 smartphone has a plastic screen,
00:42it'll start scratching at a level 2 or 3. It is super nice that the camera hump on the back is
00:47pretty minimal though. There isn't much rocking going on. Tempered glass, like what we are seeing,
00:52starts scratching at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7. The Moto G is using Gorilla Glass 3.
00:58So far so good. Name brand glass on a super budget phone is an impressive start.
01:04The front facing 16 megapixel selfie camera is protected with the same slab of glass,
01:09and the earpiece slit resides between the glass and the edge of the plastic frame.
01:14And this is where we see our first cost savings from Motorola.
01:17Plastic. Plastic is everywhere. For reference, to injection mold a phone frame out of plastic,
01:25it probably costs less than 5 bucks. To CNC mill a phone frame from aluminum,
01:31like we see on more premium phones, you're looking at about $25 to $100 per frame,
01:37depending on complexity. All that manufacturing of course is outside the USA obviously,
01:42because making a phone inside the USA is impossible, and proven by the fact that nobody is doing it.
01:49Amazingly though, this $150 phone does have an expandable SD card slot. Apple charges an extra $500
01:56to upgrade to 1 terabytes worth of memory, and you can do it here with the Moto G and your own SD card
02:02for about $70. Sometimes the cheapest phones get the best features. Speaking of which, there's also a
02:07headphone jack down at the bottom near the USB-C 2.0 port. These days, headphone jacks are normally
02:14reserved for $1,000 gaming phones, but we have one here right now on a phone that's only $150 bucks.
02:20I feel like we're missing something. The back of the Moto G is a soft eco-leather material. Eco-leather
02:26is just another way to say silicon polymer, which means it will get scratches and get marked up if it
02:32ever comes in contact with an abrasive object. However, I personally totally prefer these soft
02:38plastic panels over solid glass, since these will never shatter. Not cracking gets a thumbs up from
02:43me. You might have noticed as well that there are no antenna lines. Having no metal might be bad news
02:49for our incoming bin test, but it is great news for the cell signal and Wi-Fi since signals can now
02:55penetrate the device from all sides instead of only through tiny slits in a metal frame. However, none of
03:01those Wi-Fi or cell signals leaving or coming to the phone are natively encrypted by default,
03:06meaning that third parties can see some of the information being transmitted. So if you want to
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04:13thing. Making our way around to the top of the back black panel, it's time to investigate the
04:18suspicious camera lenses. The top lens is an overly confident 50 megapixel unit, and below that we have a
04:24much more realistic 2 megapixel macro camera. Off to the right we have an ambient light sensor,
04:30which isn't even a camera at all. Then back at the top again is a single color LED flash. All four
04:35circles are protected with glass. Finally, flipping back around to the screen, we see another way the
04:41Moto G is saving on cost. It's a 720p 120Hz LCD screen instead of an AMOLED display. The LCD goes
04:49instantly black under the heat from my flame, but does recover. For reference, iFixit sells
04:54replacement Moto G screens for an impressively inexpensive $38, where the OLED iPhone 17 screen
05:02costs a whopping $329. You know, more than twice the cost of this entire Moto G. Budget phones are
05:08kind of nice. I didn't realize that it even has a fingerprint scanning power button, but since someone
05:14has already scratched it up, it only works about half the time. And when someone scratches it up even
05:19more, it just stops working altogether. Just something to keep in mind and definitely a
05:23minor detail to be sure. I'm mostly surprised that a $150 smartphone has a fingerprint scanner at all.
05:30Finally, the bend test. Will a thin slab of plastic survive being sat on?
05:36The Moto G has a substantial amount of flex. Like we have the back fake leather panel literally rippling
05:43up in my hands. The phone is kinked, but still alive. Bending from the front kind of straightens
05:49him back out. But wow, he is barely hanging in there, aren't we all? I don't think we've ever
05:54seen a phone flex and fold this far without snapping in all the history of performing these durability
05:59tests. The $150 Moto G survived better than the $1500 pixel fold. May it rest in peace. My desk is
06:08still burned from that one. Anyway, the nice thing about plastic backs is that they come off in one piece,
06:14and we can see that the bend in the phone happened right between the battery and the motherboard.
06:19I'll grab my Phillips head screwdriver and remove nine screws from the top plastics and another nine
06:24screws from the lower plastics. And then of course we can put the little G to sleep since he's not going
06:29to want to be awake for what happens next. With the SIM and expandable memory card tray removed,
06:34instead of just the plastic lid coming off the motherboard like they usually do, this time
06:39around the Moto G's entire frame lifts off and away from the screen, leaving the motherboard and screen
06:44behind. A little weird, but if it helps the phone cost hundreds of dollars less than everything else
06:49out there, I'll allow it. I'll unplug the battery just like a little Lego, along with the fingerprint
06:54scanning power button, and two more long extension ribbons that snake under the battery. The lower
07:00loudspeaker comes out next. It's pretty easy to see that this one doesn't have any balls inside,
07:04since the whole cavity is missing its back wall. The speaker is using a rubber gasket and the back
07:10side of the screen as its fourth wall, which is definitely a cheaper way to build. Turns out there
07:15are a lot of creative ways to use that fourth wall, if you know what I mean. But surprisingly,
07:20even at this price, Motorola doesn't skimp out on waterproofing. There's not an official IP rating
07:26on the Moto G, but it still has the same watertight mesh screen over the loudspeaker opening and lower
07:32microphone mesh that we see in a more premium IP68 watertight flagship. I wouldn't trust it to be
07:38submersible or anything, but it's still pretty cool that Motorola had enough budget left over to at
07:43least protect some of the larger openings. And what is this? As an expert in vibrators, this is an
07:49oscillator we haven't seen since the early iPhone days. An eccentric rotating mass vibrator. A blast from
07:55the past right out of the early 2000 flip phones. This chunker sits right above the headphone jack from the
08:01same era. It's kind of like a museum in here. The 30 watt USB-C 2.0 port and headphone jack both have
08:08rubber gaskets that surround the ports. I assume these also aid in the water resistance. I'll move
08:13back up to the top end of the phone. The small 2 megapixel macro camera unclips just like a little
08:19Lego. This guy does not have any optical image stabilization. I'll unclip two signal wires and lift
08:24up the motherboard. We see plenty of blue thermal paste on the back side. The motherboard is using the
08:29metal midframe of the screen as a heatsink. Then we have the main 50 megapixel camera, which is probably
08:35embellishing his resume a bit with those numbers. He comes with no optical image stabilization either,
08:41which is a bummer. Another bummer is that Motorola has glued in their battery. I'm definitely not a fan of
08:46this move. I'll add some isopropyl alcohol to dissolve the adhesive and help myself not explode. The only
08:52reason I'm going to give Motorola a pass on this one is because they actually sell replacement batteries
08:58through iFixit for $18.99. This is wild. I have never seen a smartphone battery cost less than this
09:06one. You can get all 5000 mAh for less than $20 in this economy. No wonder the Moto G is Motorola's
09:13best selling smartphone. Wallets everywhere are basically begging for it. And let's be honest,
09:18if all you use a phone for is phone calls, texting, and doom scrolling social media, a $150
09:24smartphone just makes a lot of sense, especially one as resilient as the Moto G. The G now officially
09:30stands for Gangsta. And look at that. Our Moto Gangsta is alive and well. Very impressive. I think
09:36we've been sleeping on Motorola. Let me know what more phones you want to see tested down in the comments,
09:41and remember to keep yourself protected with Surfshark. Link is down in the description.
09:45Thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.
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