Nokia Lumia 730 vs Motorola Moto G (2014) : Battle of the mid-range smartphones

Microsoft revealed its ‘selfie-phone’, the Nokia Lumia 730 at IFA 2014 in Berlin. The smartphone costs only £158 but packs a pretty decent hardware. On the other hand, Motorola also introduced its next-gen Moto G, the Moto G 2014 at its own event in Chicago. The next-gen Moto G is also an affordable smartphone and comes with decent hardware. So which one is the best? Let’s find out.

 

Design

The Nokia Lumia 730 is well built and it feels nice on hands. The device weighs at 134g, it isn’t very light but it is lighter than the next-gen Moto G — which weighs at 149g. The device itself is smooth, thanks to the matte plastic back panel.  It’s simple and it certainly looks better than the next-gen Moto G. 

The Moto G is nicely built as well. But as we noted, it isn’t light and weighs at 149g. The plastic back panel feels very nice on hands but it is a bit wider than the Lumia 730. It’s worth noting that Motorola has also included two front facing speakers in the next-gen Moto G.

WINNER: Nokia Lumia 730

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 Display

The Nokia Lumia 730 comes with a 4.7-inch display with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. The pixel density on the 4.7-inch display is 312ppi. which is much better than the next-gen Moto G’s display. The Lumia 730’s display also comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Overall, the Lumia 730’s display is pretty decent but reading under sunlight is a bit tough.

Motorola has upgraded the old Moto G’s display to a 5-inch display. The new Moto G’s display includes 720 x 1280 pixels resolution and 294ppi — which is lower than the Lumia 730 and the old Moto G. The next-gen Moto G’s display isn’t very good and it is very hard to read text under sunlight on the smartphone.

WINNER:  Nokia Lumia 730

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Camera

Let’s be honest: Nokia’s cameras are beast. The Lumia 730 is a ‘selfie-phone’ and it does come with a brilliant front shooter. The Lumia 730 sports a 5 MP front camera and a 6.7 MP rear camera. Image quality on the Lumia 730 is pretty good and videos are decent. The Lumia 730 is the best camera smartphone that you can buy under £200.

The next-gen Moto G’s camera is good as well. Motorola has upgraded the camera of the old Moto G to a 8 MP sensor on the new Moto G. The smartphone also comes with a 2 MP front camera. Video recording on the Moto G is good but not great, however.

Once again, the WINNER: Nokia Lumia 730

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Hardware

Microsoft has done a brilliant job with the hardware of the Lumia 730. It sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC running at 1.2GHz with 1GB RAM and Adreno 305 GPU. The Lumia 730 also includes Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC. It also includes 8 GB of internal storage, and 2200 mAh battery. The Lumia 730 doesn’t support 4G, however. The Lumia 730 is pretty good and it is one of the best hardware you can get under £170.

Motorola hasn’t upgraded the processor of the next-gen Moto G. It is still running on the Snapdragon 400 as the Moto G. It oncludes 1GB of RAM and Adreno 305 GPU. As the Lumia 730, the Moto G comes with Bluetooth 4.0 but it doesn’t come with NFC. The Moto G’s hardware is good but it isn’t better than the Lumia 730’s hardware.

WINNER: Nokia Lumia 730

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Software

The next-gen Moto G comes with Android 4.4.4 KitKat and Motorola has guaranteed that the smartphone will receive Android L update. As the other Motorola smartphones, the Moto G comes with Motorola apps, including Assist and Alert. Of course, the operating system of the handset is brilliant but most of the users won’t like to have a smartphone with older version of an operating system.

Microsoft introduced the Lumia 730 with the latest version of Windows Phone and Lumia Denim — Nokia’s latest firmware update. Windows Phone runs very sleekly on the Lumia 730 as well. Lumia Denim highly focuses on camera features and it does bring a lot of improvements to Nokia’s Camera software.

WINNER: Nokia Lumia 730

Note: Moto G and Lumia 730 comes with a brilliant software but as the Nokia Lumia 730 comes with Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1, we had to chose it as the winner.

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Price

Both of the smartphones are affordable and comes with pretty decent specs. The Moto G costs £145 in the UK, whereas the Lumia 730 costs £158. Nonetheless, as the Moto G comes with decent hardware and it costs less than the Lumia 730, the winner should be the Moto G.

WINNER: Motorola Moto G

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Wrap-up

The Nokia Lumia 730 and the Motorola Moto G are great smartphones. Both of the handsets comes with good hardware, they include all the basic features and all the other things a consumer will need. Of course, they might not be the phone that you’re looking for but it is worth a try.

Overall, the winner of Moto G vs Lumia 730 is of course, the Lumia 730.