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A comment on Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phone to shame. Parent comment

Re:Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phon... by katemcintyre on Saturday December 07, 2013 @10:34PM (#6868853)
> And yeah, Google isn't in the position of competing with companies that it needs.

Why not? Motorola's Moto X is pretty high end and Google is spending $500M on just advertising it this year[1], beating Samsung's and Apple's ad spending. In watching a couple of hours of primetime TV in the US, I usually see 3 to 4 Moto X ads, and almost the same number of Windows 8/Surface ads. However, sales seem to be quite sluggish[2].

Motorola can't be making all that much money on Moto G and it seems to be Google's loss leader just like Microsoft's Lumia 520/521 at $69 to $99 unlocked(Surprised the article didn't mention it at all or compare it against the Moto G, it's a surprisingly fast phone for that price). Meanwhile Motorola's losses continue to grow every quarter and continue to be a drag on Google's earnings [3] . I guess the pressure is on Motorola to deliver, but even if this phone sells well, I doubt it's going to help them unless they're going to make money from ads and/or Google Play sales on those phones.

[1] http://9to5google.com/2013/07/11/moto-x-would-be-most-heavil...

[2] http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-motorola...

[3] http://mobilenewsblog.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Sc...

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Re:Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phon... by Touche on Saturday December 07, 2013 @11:04PM (#6868910)
The Lumia phones are not fast. Fast scrolling, sure, but apps take 3-4 seconds to open and don't stay in memory very long.
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Re:Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phon... by girvo on Sunday December 08, 2013 @01:31AM (#6869153)
It's user interface is responsive, but it's not a powerful handset. That's the best way of describing them, and to be honest for a lot of first-smartphone buyers, that's more than good enough in my experience.
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Re:Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phon... by amaks on Sunday December 08, 2013 @05:01PM (#6871630)
And the reason is that UI is written in native code (read C++) using internal native APIs while 3rd party apps written in managed code (using different APIs. Of course it takes more time to launch managed apps. This is clearly a disparity between 1st party and 3rd party apps.
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Re:Google’s $179 Moto G puts every single cheap Android phon... by kayoone on Monday December 09, 2013 @03:03AM (#6873301)
still better than android where everything is just slow and laggish on low-end phones.
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