Verdict
The Moto E20 is extremely cheap and solidly built , and Motorola ’s software is as blissfully sporting as ever . However , the pathetic quality of the phone ’s presentation and the generally soggy level of performance are hard to ignore , regardless of monetary value . As always , the veridical value in the smartphone market can be see somewhere north of the £ 100 soft touch .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
When it initially establish back in September 2021 , the Moto E20 was already the most affordable phone in Motorola ’s line - up . Now , more than a year on , this French telephone is still its punk option .
Given that the saving has only produce more perilous in the months since its launching – with less gratis cash sloshing around than ever – it ’s deserving checking out just how viable the Moto E20 is . At an RRP of just £ 89.99 , and with frequent offer take down that price even further , it deserves a closer look .
Design and Screen
Nobody expects a sub-£100 smartphone to look or feel particularly great , but Motorola knows how to operate on a strict budget . There ’s a cause that the slightly more expensive Moto G line has become the go - to trade name for affordable earpiece over the age .
While the Moto E20 wo n’t win any beauty competitions for its shaping unibody designing , Motorola has worked hard to optimise its limited resources . At 164.8 x 75.5 x 8.5 mm and 184 gm , it ’s firmly in the smartphone sweet fleck of not being too thick or too expectant .
Motorola has control the prowess of minimising creaking and flex from apparently cheap stuff , and that holds true even here at the very bottom of the range . for sure , you’re able to make the whole thing chatter a little if you apply some pressure , but the overwhelming feeling is of reassure solidity .
The company has even found a way to inject a lilliputian flair into its design in the form of a subtle hexagon pattern etch into the credit card . As well as looking a little different , it also impart a slight undulating smell to the phone , which may also make it a bit grippier .
Another detail of the phone ’s fundament is its quondam - school fingerprint sensor . I ’m used to phone switching this around to underneath the presentation at the front , or at least stash it behind the exponent button on the edge . But give that the price is so humble here , it ’s not such a bad provision . My main issue with the sensing element is that it ’s so obtuse to unlock , and this has nothing to do with its placement .
While Motorola has exercise its intent magic to make this cheap charge card telephone feel not terrible , there ’s nothing it could have done about the display . It ’s perfectly serviceable for day - to - day labor , but you would n’t require to pamper in any long - form media content or extensive vane - browsing seance on it .
At 6.5 column inch , it ’s plenty bombastic , and it gets bright enough for indoor usage , although you ’ll be looking for wraith when you ’re alfresco on brighter days . Even the colour are reasonably vibrant , consider it ’s such a low - grade LCD .
But with a solution of 720 x 1600 , or 720p , the Moto E20 ’s display simply is n’t precipitous enough to show spiritualist and WWW depicted object at anything close-fitting to its best . Needless to say , the refresh charge per unit wo n’t go past 60Hz either . However , given this phone ’s humble performance , that ’s believably a good affair .
This is obviously a via media Motorola had to make because of that super - low price tag . All I ’d say is that spending more than £ 100 to control an FHD+ show would be worth every penny if you could possibly extend to it , regardless of what you do with your sound .
Camera
The Moto E20 come with a lowly camera setup that involves a 13 - megapixel wide sensor and a 2 - megapixel macro sensor , with a 5 - megapixel selfie camera at the front .
It ’s a small setup , but you ’d expect nothing else from a £ 90 phone . After all , television camera tech is one of the braggy investment for any maker .
I ’m proud of to annunciate that the Moto E20 does a good job for the money . None of the picture I took had me imprecate off thebest camera phone – you ’ll still need to spend more for genuinely good results – but the results I got were far from horrific .
That ’s true of the shots I took in good natural lighting , at least . They look reasonably tart and had colours that broadly resembled the conniption as I saw it . Skin tones were in spades non - ghoulish , and close - ups even pay some convincing bokeh .
HDR is n’t turned on by default , which is a little pestiferous , but that ’s clearly a nod to the phone ’s limited execution . When spark off , it does reasonably well to brighten up and even out shady jibe .
thing swiftly fell apart as soon as the light drop , however . Indoor eating place shots were n’t quite as disastrous as they could have been , but night shots were a entire write - off . There ’s no consecrate Night mode , and the machinelike shots I took in low light conditions came out all unusable – a noisy , poorly focused mess .
Selfie shot are n’t a disaster , but you ’ll need to ascertain out for those HDR situations with extremes of light and shade , as the 5 - megapixel front television camera wo n’t be able to cope .
Performance
The Moto E20 run on a Unisoc T606 central processing unit , which is – you infer it – an extremely humble objet d’art of atomic number 14 .
Sure , it ’s been used in far new and more expensive machine , such as the £ 150Nokia G21 . But what was profoundly underwhelming in that phone is only slenderly less underwhelming here – especially with a bare 2 GB rather than 4 GB of Aries backing it up .
That last part illustrates how hamstrung the Moto E20 is from a performance head of opinion . Android is a comparatively thirsty mobile OS , and typically hunt best on 4 GB of RAM and above . The result here is a mostly sluggish , jerky operation , with apps taking ages to boot up and not sticking around long in storage when flip-flop between them .
The resultingbenchmark testsconfirm what a low - end performing artist this is . Geekbench 5 multi - core scores of around 704 are just about as low as it acquire , with even the deeply unremarkable £ 140TCL 30 SEscoring 877 by comparability .
In GPU term , the Moto E20 scored good than both its big brother theMoto G22and the TCL in the 3DMark Sling Shot tests . Like those other phones , the Moto E20 would n’t even execute the more require Wild Life tests due to its modified hardware frame-up .
Motorola is well known for using a clean rendering of Android , and in the Moto E20 , it ’s sportsmanlike than ever . That ’s because the brand has used the Android Go variant , which is a to a great extent scaled - back take on Google ’s OS that ’s been optimise for cheaper ironware .
One telltale resolution of this is that you get the Google Gallery app pre - install , alternatively of the full - fat Google Photos that comes with most other Android telephone set . The onus is clearly on take the strain off that creaky old processor and modified RAM .
It ’s found on Android 11 , so it ’s quite superannuated by this point in time . There ’s no denying it ’s still a pleasant enough OS to use , though , with a blissful deficiency of bloatware or ugly usance UI chemical element . Those performance issues and that special video display take the effulgence off somewhat , but I can think of a twain of £ 1,000 flagship sound that would do good from a switch to this old , lightweight OS .
On the storage front , you ’ll have to make do with 32 GB , which is nothing . Even sub-£200 phones are including 128 GB these days . You do get a microSDXC one-armed bandit , though , so there ’s expansion electric potential , at least .
Battery Life
The Moto E20 uses a 4,000mAh barrage , which is pretty modest by modern Android criterion . Still , with that 720p display , the lower - grade central processing unit and lightweight Android Go OS , you ’re scarcely going to be drawing a lot of powerfulness .
Sure enough , in my tests , an time of day of Netflix rain buckets with the blind brightness arrange to 50 % sapped just 2 % off a full tutelage . An hour of YouTube Music streaming , meanwhile , did n’t even make the electric battery drop-off below 100 % . That ’s actually fractionally better than the Moto G22 with its 5,000mAh assault and battery .
It ’ll comfortably last you a full day and more on a single thrill . Add in the fact that no possessor of the Moto E20 is likely to be what you ’d term a “ power drug user ” , and it ’s safe to say that stamp battery life is of no business concern here .
You only get a 10W wired charger in the box seat , however , which is n’t fast at all . You ’re looking at a zero to 100 % charge metre of about 2hrs .
Latest Deals
Should you buy it?
Android Go is as no - trumpery an OS as you may hope for , with no bloatware or UI adornment whatsoever .
The Moto E20 ’s camera is n’t a write - off by any means , but it ’s entirely incompetent of taking Nox shots .
Final Thoughts
Motorola has done a typically exemplary job of turning out a firm , competentcheap telephone . The Moto E20 is well built , while its Google One software is blissfully unclouded and free of bloatware .
Inevitably , however , there ’s only so much fat you could trim away before you commence cutting into the of import poppycock . In the eccentric of the Moto E20 , that means a poor 720p LCD presentation and ruinously sluggish performance .
This phone ’s television camera is astonishingly competent in good firing – for the money , at least . But even here , the view of taking any sort of shot in low lighting is pretty much off the table .
If your smartphone budget does n’t dilute to anywhere near the three - material body mark , then the Moto E20 is as good an entry point as any . Just know that saving up for about double the asking price ( which is still cheap ) will exponentially improve your experience .
Trusted Score
How we test
We test every mobile telephone set we brush up thoroughly . We use industriousness standard tests to compare feature of speech by rights and we use the sound as our main machine over the review menstruation . We ’ll always tell you what we regain and we never , ever , take over money to retrospect a product .
Find out more about how we test in ourethics policy .
FAQs
Yes , you get a charger include with this phone .
