New Moto G4 Play and Moto E3 coming this summer

Long live the Moto E! Just when we thought Motorola’s cut-price smartphone might have kicked the bucket, Lenovo goes and announces that the Moto E3 will be hitting shop shelves this September. It’s also being joined by yet another Moto G, this time in the form of the Moto G4 Play – an even cheaper version of its incredible Moto G4.

Starting with the Moto E3, this £99 handset will have a 5in, 1,280×720 resolution display (the same as the old 2nd and 3rd Gen Moto Gs), and a quad-core processor. Lenovo hasn’t said exactly which model of processor it will be using, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410, or even one of the newer 400 series models. It will also run Android 6.0 Marshmallow and come with an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front facing camera – the same combo we saw on the 2nd Gen Moto G.

^ The new Moto E3 now shares a very similar design to the Moto G4 family

Thanks to its nano-coating technology, it’s splashproof, too, so you don’t need to worry about getting caught in a summer rain shower or an accidentally spilling a glass of water on it. It won’t survive a dunk down the loo, sadly, but it’s still a welcome bit of extra protection nonetheless. It also has a 2,800mAh battery, which Motorola’s hoping will provide a full day’s battery life, and a microSD card slot for expanding its storage. It even comes with a textured power button, adding a touch of class to its already impressive set of specifications. 

Then there’s the new Moto G4 Play, the budget version of Motorola and Lenovo’s already excellent budget smartphone. Available from mid-August for just £129, the Moto G4 Play has a slightly slower quad-core Snapdragon 450 processor inside it as well as a smaller 2,800mAh battery (down from 3,000mAh), but Motorola’s still promising at least a day’s battery life, so hopefully we won’t see too much of a discrepancy between our battery life scores once we get one in for review. Otherwise, you should expect the same 5.5in 1,920×1,080 resolution display and 13-megapixel camera – which is still pretty great value for a £129 smartphone.

^ The new Moto G4 Play, meanwhile, looks exactly the same as the regular Moto G4 and G4 Plus

Of course, with the Moto E3 so close in price to the Moto G4 Play, it will be interesting to see just how it holds up compared to its big brother. However, now that the Moto E3 has essentially risen up to 2nd Gen Moto G territory, it will definitely give a lot of sub-£100 smartphones a run for their money. We’ll bring you our full and final verdict on each phone as soon as we can.