Motorola Moto E4 Plus Smartphone Review
For the original German version, click here.
The Lenovo Moto E3 was a very affordable smartphone with rather long battery runtime, but comparatively low performance. The next generation has two models: There is the Moto E4, a 5-inch device that is only a little more expensive than its predecessor but offers more storage, and the Moto E4 Plus - our test unit for this review, which costs another $60 more, but offers a long-running battery, a 5.5-inch display, more RAM and even a better main camera. Its performance remains unchanged compared to the Moto E4. Is that still appropriate considering the higher price?
This is what we would like to find out and we have chosen several comparison devices, for instance, the Sony Xperia L1, which also has a recommended retail price of $200. The LG X power2 has also arrived in this price range and wants to score points with its long battery runtime. The Acer Liquid Z6 Plus and Honor 6X complete our choice of comparison devices.
Case
The Motorola Moto E4 has an exchangeable battery, and we immediately tried taking off the back cover of the Plus version in great anticipation. The back can be taken off, although it requires a lot of strength as the cover sits very tightly, but this only led to disappointment: The battery of the Moto E4 Plus is positioned beneath a cover held in place by screws. It can be removed with a little technical know-how, but that is not what the manufacturer intends and if you do not have the right knowledge, it is probably best left alone.
The Moro E4 Plus has the typical round Motorola design and is available in Gray and Gold. It is nice to hold, but rather heavy at 198 grams (~7 oz). The case is nice and stable and pressure from the front is only minimally visible on the screen while the case would not warp at all. The frame and back cover are made of metal.
Connectivity
The device has a classic Micro-USB port, so no modern Type-C port. However, it does support USB OTG and has a 3.5mm audio jack. The 3 GB of RAM are suitable for a modern smartphone, but the 16 GB of storage could have been a bit more. It is possible to expand storage via the microSD card, which even has its own slot, so that you do not have to sacrifice one of the two SIM slots. The microSD card can be formatted as internal or external storage. Apps can only be saved to it if it is configured as internal storage.
Software
Motorola uses the Android 7.1.1 operating system and at the time of testing, the security patches were from April 5th 2017, so the version is rather old and not secure. There was no update available and, based on our experience with such cheap devices, it will take a while for one to become available.
It is a good old Moto tradition to offer Stock Android without any great changes. Only Moto Infos, the possibility to automatically show reduced information on the display when it registers movement, is available and quite useful. The whole thing can be configured from the Moto App. Apart from that there also is a Help app and that is it.
Communication & GPS
The Moto E4 Plus supports the same wireless networks as its smaller brother, the Moto E4: LTE with Cat.4 speeds, so downloads of up to 150 MBit/s and uploads of up to 50 MBit/s. These can be used via eight different LTE bands, which is a good value and, at least in Europe, you should never be without reception. In the German D2 network, reception was usually over half indoors and worked well.
Concerning Wi-Fi, our device only has 802.11 b/g/n, which is normal in this price range. However, the Sony Xperia L1 offers the possibility to use the less populated 5 GHz band. The Moto E4 Plus does not have particularly great transfer rates. Both sending and receiving are lowest of all comparison devices. It does have full reception close to the router, but pages load quite slowly. At a distance of ten meters (~33 ft) and through three walls, signal is still at half and pages load at more or less the same speed.
| Networking | |
| iperf3 transmit AX12 | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| Honor 6X | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| iperf3 receive AX12 | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| Honor 6X | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
The GPS module could not locate us indoors, but outdoors it positioned us quickly within eight meters (~26), which is still not very exact.
In order to give a more detailed account of the Moto E4 Plus's GPS, we took it on a bicycle ride together with the professional navigation system Garmin Edge 500. The Moto E4 Plus measured 230 meters (~251.5 yards) less than the professional Navi. This is quite a high deviation considering the total route was only 6.5 km (~4 miles) long. If you look at the various route sections, you can notice that the Moto E4 Plus tends to tighten the curves and appears to fly over the roofs of houses. The Garmin navigation system recorded our route with a lot more detail, but if you only want to use your smartphone's navigation system occasionally, you should be happy with the Moto E4 Plus.
Telephone & Voice Quality
Motorola has made no changes to the standard Android app, which is very intuitive and easy to use.
The voice quality appears good at first: our caller sounds quite clear via the earpiece, but only up to about 70% volume level. Above that, you can hear a lot of noise and distortion. The microphone also transmits our voice clearly, but with interfering noise. The quality is similar on speakerphone, but distortions of the microphone are even more audible.
Cameras
13 MP at the back and 5 MP at the front - these are normal resolutions for smartphone cameras, even of higher price ranges. After all, it is not just the amount of megapixels that counts, but also the quality of the modules and their additional functions. Here you get a two-color flash on the back and even a flash for the front camera. At first, the pictures of the front camera appear good with nice colors, but if you take a closer look, you do notice significant blurriness with details appearing washed-out while dark areas lack dynamics. The camera is good enough for the occasional selfie, especially because of the good colors.
The main camera also has decent colors, although they could be a little more radiant. Details are not as good as those of comparison devices, but we like the sharpness that goes all the way to the edges. But here, too, dynamics are too low in dark areas. Videos can only be recorded in 720p and 30fps, lighting quickly adapts to changed ambient light, but details appear mushy.
In the laboratory with fixed lighting conditions, the main camera still has good sharpness and decent color display, although colors are a little too washed-out and sometimes patchy.
Accessories & Warranty
The box contains a quick-charge power supply as well as a USB cable. You can order an additional quick-charge charger on the Motorola Online shop for about $35.
Motorola is finally offering 24 months of warranty for Moto smartphones. Please see our Guarantees, Return policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.
Input Devices & Handling
The keyboard app is Google's GBoard, which is very simple, but offers a lot of functions. Handling is good and easy, typing reliable.
Unfortunately, there are occasional lags when giving inputs via the touchscreen, which might be connected to the low system performance. Apart from that, the surface is good and the touchscreen responds well even in the corners. The navigation buttons are on the screen, but you can also use the finger print sensor for navigation, which is introduced by a short tutorial. After a little practice, this way of navigating works very well in everyday use.
Talking of finger print sensors: You can unlock the device from standby with it, which also works very well.
Display
The display of the Moto E4 Plus has a normal resolution for this price range: 1280x720 pixels. Only devices that used to be more expensive but have slid down into this range, such as the Honor 6X or the Acer Liquid Z6 Plus, can offer a Full HD screen. Brightness distribution is very uniform at 93% in the Moto E4 Plus and we noticed no difference in brightness even on larger areas of color. The average brightness of 425 cd/m² is normal too, but at least the smartphone can be a lot brighter than the LG X power2 if you need it to be.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brightness Distribution: 93 %
Center on Battery: 425 cd/m²
Contrast: 1149:1 (Black: 0.37 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 4.7 | 0.5-29.43 Ø4.91
ΔE Greyscale 4.6 | 0.5-98 Ø5.2
92.7% sRGB (Calman 2D)
Gamma: 2.17
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus IPS, 1280x720, 5.5" | LG X power2 IPS, 1280x720, 5.5" | Honor 6X IPS, 1920x1080, 5.5" | Acer Liquid Z6 Plus IPS, 1920x1080, 5.5" | Sony Xperia L1 IPS, 1280x720, 5.5" | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screen | -9% | -8% | -21% | -4% | |
| Brightness middle | 425 | 237 -44% | 547 29% | 419 -1% | 479 13% |
| Brightness | 425 | 237 -44% | 540 27% | 408 -4% | 478 12% |
| Brightness Distribution | 93 | 92 -1% | 94 1% | 83 -11% | 94 1% |
| Black Level * | 0.37 | 0.13 65% | 0.57 -54% | 0.35 5% | 0.58 -57% |
| Contrast | 1149 | 1823 59% | 960 -16% | 1197 4% | 826 -28% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 * | 4.7 | 5.5 -17% | 5.1 -9% | 6.6 -40% | 4.5 4% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 max. * | 8.3 | 12.7 -53% | 9.1 -10% | 12.6 -52% | 7.5 10% |
| Greyscale dE 2000 * | 4.6 | 6.1 -33% | 6.2 -35% | 7.9 -72% | 4.1 11% |
| Gamma | 2.17 101% | 2.07 106% | 2.09 105% | 2.08 106% | 2.03 108% |
| CCT | 7445 87% | 7943 82% | 6546 99% | 8576 76% | 7139 91% |
* ... smaller is better
Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)
| Screen flickering / PWM not detected |  | ||
In comparison: 53 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 8705 (minimum: 5 - maximum: 343500) Hz was measured. | |||
The black value of 0.37 cd/m² is also an average result and offers a good contrast of 1149:1. Colors do not really appear vibrant on the display, but rather a little pale. You can influence this a little by choosing between normal and intensive color display in the settings. The Google Play store also offers some apps that can change colors.
We used the CalMAN software and a spectrophotometer to analyze the color display in our laboratory. We did notice a light blue cast here, but apart from that, the colors have average deviation from the reference color space. The sRGB color space is covered by 93% according to CalMAN, although the results of this software should be considered more like an indication.
Display Response Times
| ↔ Response Time Black to White | ||
|---|---|---|
| 34 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 19 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 15 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.1 (minimum) to 240 (maximum) ms. » 90 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (20.9 ms). | ||
| ↔ Response Time 50% Grey to 80% Grey | ||
| 50 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 27 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 23 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.165 (minimum) to 636 (maximum) ms. » 84 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (32.8 ms). | ||
The Moto E4 Plus can be used quite well outdoors despite mediocre brightness levels and the brightness sensor quickly adapts to very bright surroundings.
The viewing angles are quite good from the side thanks to the IPS display and you can hardly notice any change in colors.
Performance
Lenovo has equipped our test unit with the same SoC as the Motorola Moto E4: A Mediatek MT6737 with four cores and a clock rate of 1.25 GHz. They could have given our Plus version a little upgrade however: smartphones of this price range usually offer noticeably higher performance. The occasional judders that we noticed in everyday use do not fit to an almost $200 phone. The Moto E4 Plus is about 20% behind its comparison devices, the Honor 6X is even another level above it.
The graphics are taken care of by an ARM Mali-T720 MP2 with two cores and a 650-MHz clock rate, which is also used in all comparison devices. But due to the low processor performance, graphics benchmarks have suffered as well and our test device fell behind compared to other smartphones of this price range.
| AnTuTu v6 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Honor 6X | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| PCMark for Android | |
| Work performance score (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Honor 6X | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| Work 2.0 performance score (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| Geekbench 4.4 | |
| 64 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| 64 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| Compute RenderScript Score (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| GFXBench (DX / GLBenchmark) 2.7 | |
| T-Rex Onscreen (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Honor 6X | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| 1920x1080 T-Rex Offscreen (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Honor 6X | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| GFXBench 3.0 | |
| on screen Manhattan Onscreen OGL (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Honor 6X | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| 1920x1080 1080p Manhattan Offscreen (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Honor 6X | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| GFXBench 3.1 | |
| on screen Manhattan ES 3.1 Onscreen (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Honor 6X | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
| 1920x1080 Manhattan ES 3.1 Offscreen (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | |
| LG X power2 | |
| Honor 6X | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | |
| Sony Xperia L1 | |
The Moto E4 Plus had to accept last place in the browser benchmarks as well. For everyday use this means slow loading times and juddering HTML5 animations.
| JetStream 1.1 - Total Score | |
| Honor 6X (Chrome 56.0.2924.87) | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus (Chrome 55) | |
| Sony Xperia L1 (Chrome 59) | |
| LG X power2 (Chrome 59) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus (Chrome 60) | |
| Octane V2 - Total Score | |
| Honor 6X (Chrome 56.0.2924.87) | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus (Chrome 55) | |
| LG X power2 (Chrome 59) | |
| Sony Xperia L1 (Chrome 59) | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus (Chrome 60) | |
| Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Total | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus (Chrome 60) | |
| Acer Liquid Z6 Plus (Chrome 55) | |
| LG X power2 (Chrome 59) | |
| Sony Xperia L1 (Chrome 59) | |
| Honor 6X (Chrome 56.0.2924.87) | |
* ... smaller is better
Our test unit accessed our reference microSD card from Toshiba - an Exceria Pro M501 - fast enough, but still not nearly as fast as the card itself would be capable of performing. The Moto E4 Plus is rather slow at accessing internal storage.
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus | LG X power2 | Honor 6X | Acer Liquid Z6 Plus | Sony Xperia L1 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AndroBench 3-5 | 6% | 39% | -8% | -34% | |
| Sequential Read 256KB | 194.4 | 243.8 25% | 283.4 46% | 209.4 8% | 181.9 -6% |
| Sequential Write 256KB | 42 | 41.7 -1% | 73.8 76% | 70.1 67% | 40.2 -4% |
| Random Read 4KB | 19.15 | 25.3 32% | 39.55 107% | 22.2 16% | 13.6 -29% |
| Random Write 4KB | 29.4 | 10.7 -64% | 45.05 53% | 10.4 -65% | 5.9 -80% |
| Sequential Read 256KB SDCard | 66.3 | 76.6 ? 16% | 52 ? -22% | 42.76 ? -36% | 37.81 ? -43% |
| Sequential Write 256KB SDCard | 46.6 | 58.1 ? 25% | 34.53 ? -26% | 27.97 ? -40% | 26.25 ? -44% |
Games
It became clear quite quickly that the Moto E4 Plus is not suitable for graphically demanding games such as "Asphalt 8" in full details: Lags and juddering are very noticeable. Things improve when you lower the details. Simple games such as "Angry Birds" can be played and navigation with accelerometer and touchscreen works well, although there are occasional lags even when playing "Angry Birds", which can be annoying.
Emissions
Temperature
The case temperature does not exceed 34.8 °C (~94.6 °F) even under full load and you can (at the most) only minimally feel the device heat up.
(+) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 34.8 °C / 95 F, compared to the average of 35.1 °C / 95 F, ranging from 21.9 to 63.7 °C for the class Smartphone.
(+) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 33.3 °C / 92 F, compared to the average of 33.9 °C / 93 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 29.2 °C / 85 F, compared to the device average of 32.8 °C / 91 F.
Speakers
The speakers of the Moto E4 Plus can be very loud, but highs are too strong and echo in your ear for an uncomfortably long time. Apart from that, sound quality is good and even has more low mids than many other smartphones of this price range.
Audio enthusiasts and movie lovers will still want to go for headphones or external speakers. These can be connected via the 3.5 mm jack or Bluetooth, both of which transmit sound nicely.
Lenovo Moto E4 Plus audio analysis
(+) | speakers can play relatively loud (85.8 dB)
Bass 100 - 315 Hz
(-) | nearly no bass - on average 27.4% lower than median
(±) | linearity of bass is average (8.3% delta to prev. frequency)
Mids 400 - 2000 Hz
(±) | higher mids - on average 5.6% higher than median
(±) | linearity of mids is average (7.1% delta to prev. frequency)
Highs 2 - 16 kHz
(±) | higher highs - on average 7.7% higher than median
(±) | linearity of highs is average (7.6% delta to prev. frequency)
Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz
(±) | linearity of overall sound is average (25.6% difference to median)
Compared to same class
» 60% of all tested devices in this class were better, 7% similar, 33% worse
» The best had a delta of 12%, average was 37%, worst was 134%
Compared to all devices tested
» 76% of all tested devices were better, 5% similar, 19% worse
» The best had a delta of 4%, average was 25%, worst was 134%
LG X power2 audio analysis
(+) | speakers can play relatively loud (89.4 dB)
Bass 100 - 315 Hz
(-) | nearly no bass - on average 42.2% lower than median
(+) | bass is linear (1.7% delta to prev. frequency)
Mids 400 - 2000 Hz
(±) | reduced mids - on average 13.1% lower than median
(±) | linearity of mids is average (11% delta to prev. frequency)
Highs 2 - 16 kHz
(±) | higher highs - on average 6.2% higher than median
(+) | highs are linear (5.2% delta to prev. frequency)
Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz
(-) | overall sound is not linear (31.5% difference to median)
Compared to same class
» 79% of all tested devices in this class were better, 3% similar, 18% worse
» The best had a delta of 12%, average was 37%, worst was 134%
Compared to all devices tested
» 89% of all tested devices were better, 2% similar, 9% worse
» The best had a delta of 4%, average was 25%, worst was 134%
Frequency diagram in comparison (check boxes can be turned on/off!)
Battery Runtime
Power Consumption
Power Consumption while idling is rather mediocre, but instead, the Motorola Moto E4 Plus shines when under load: it consumes a lot less power than all comparison devices, which, on the other hand, is paid for by lower performance. Consumption when the phone is turned off is relatively high, which means that the battery could go flat while the phone is turned off and stored in a cupboard for a few weeks.
| Off / Standby |   0.11 / 0.23 Watt |
| Idle |  0.89 / 1.87 / 1.98 Watt |
| Load |
3.04 / 4.01 Watt |
    
| |
Key:
min: ,
med: ,
max: Metrahit Energy | |
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus 5000 mAh | LG X power2 4500 mAh | Honor 6X 3340 mAh | Acer Liquid Z6 Plus 4080 mAh | Sony Xperia L1 2620 mAh | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power Consumption | -22% | -7% | -6% | -38% | |
| Idle Minimum * | 0.89 | 0.63 29% | 0.82 8% | 0.48 46% | 0.89 -0% |
| Idle Average * | 1.87 | 1.42 24% | 2 -7% | 1.55 17% | 2.05 -10% |
| Idle Maximum * | 1.98 | 1.47 26% | 2.03 -3% | 1.61 19% | 2.18 -10% |
| Load Average * | 3.04 | 5.89 -94% | 3.34 -10% | 5.2 -71% | 6.02 -98% |
| Load Maximum * | 4.01 | 7.85 -96% | 4.92 -23% | 5.68 -42% | 6.94 -73% |
* ... smaller is better
Battery Runtime
The large 5000-mAh battery makes the Motorola Moto E4 Plus quite heavy, but has already proven that it can be worth the additional weight for very long battery runtimes with the Lenovo P2. The Moto E4, however, is a great disappointment: 13:08 hours in the Wi-Fi test are a great result, but one that can easily be topped by many comparison devices with significantly smaller batteries. In everyday use, the battery should last up to several days, depending on how much the phone is used. When the Moto E4 Plus does need to be recharged, it does so quickly in just 1:30 hours thanks to its quick-charge function.
| Lenovo Moto E4 Plus 5000 mAh | LG X power2 4500 mAh | Honor 6X 3340 mAh | Acer Liquid Z6 Plus 4080 mAh | Sony Xperia L1 2620 mAh | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battery Runtime | 25% | 21% | 38% | -28% | |
| WiFi v1.3 | 788 | 982 25% | 957 21% | 1087 38% | 567 -28% |
| Reader / Idle | 2720 | 2250 | 1398 | ||
| H.264 | 1226 | 885 | 656 | ||
| Load | 384 | 375 | 351 | 223 |
Pros
Cons
Verdict
If you are thinking about whether you should buy a Moto E4 or a Moto E4 Plus, there is a clear answer. The Moto E4 Plus offers a lot of improvements for only about $60 more, offering a camera with higher resolution, longer battery runtimes, a quick-charge function and a larger display. However, you should also be aware that it is noticeably heavier and the battery cannot be exchanged.
The Moto E4 Plus offers solid performance, but as it so often happens, better is the enemy of good. Lenovo should have definitely given the Moto E4 Plus a performance upgrade compared to its smaller brother, because there are many smartphones with higher performance around in this price range. The smartphone has also only partly kept its promise of extremely long battery runtimes and falls behind other comparison devices with smaller batteries.
Good camera photos and a quick-charge function are two things that make the Motorola Moto E4 Plus stand out from among its competition. The low performance, however, is a bit of a let down.
The Motorola Moto E4 is a good smartphone in the $200 price range. It appeals with its quick-charge function and good camera, but we recommend taking a close look at the alternatives before purchase.
Lenovo Moto E4 Plus
- 09/04/2017 v6 (old)
Florian Wimmer
Price comparison
