Motorola is a brand which holds a special place in my heart. I have fond memories of a Moto RAZR flip phone back in the day, and enjoyed the brief period when Motorola was part of the Google family with the Android powered RAZRs a few years ago.
When Motorola announced a suite of new devices in the market, we thought it might be worth checking out a couple of the new phones. The first is a budget device, the Motorola E32, which aims to bring both high end and mid range features to the more budget conscious consumer.
So, can the Motorola E32 take a punishment in daily usage and gruelling use I tend to put my devices through? Let’s see.
What’s in the box
In the box you get the device, the Motorola E32, plastic cover, 1 metre USB-C charger, a 3.5mm audio earbuds with Microphone, 10W base charger and the usual paperwork and instruction booklets.
The design
The first thing that grabs you with the Motorola E32 is the display which is a 6.5-inch HD+ ultra-wide display (1600 x 720 @ 268ppi.)
Located in the front display through a hole punch in the middle top of the display is the front facing 8MP camera.
The side and rear of the Motorola E32 is made of a composite polymer plastic design, with the top right hand side of the device housing the 3.5mm audio jack.
The left hand side houses the dual SIM/MicroSD card slot with the right hand side housing the volume rocks and directly underneath is the combined power/standby button and fingerprint reader/sensor which can be a little finicky to use at times, with the sensor not able to pick up my fingerprint all the time.
The bottom of the device houses the USB-C port with the external speakers located to the just of the charger port with the left hand side of the charger port being the bottom microphone.
Flipping the Motorola E32 to the rear, houses the triple rear camera set up made up of 16MP main camera lens, 2MP depth sensor and 2MP macro lens alongside a single LED flashlight, in a oblong shaped housing that rises out from the rear of the device by .5mm. I will go into the camera specs further down in the device.
In terms measurements and dimensions, the Moto E32 comes in at 163.95 (length) x 74.94 (width) x 8.49mm (height) @ 184 grams weight wise so its not too badly or heavy to hold one handed.
Performance, Software and Battery Life
The Motorola E32 is powered by an octa-core UNISOC T606 with a 2xA75 + 6xA55 1.6GHz processor alongside a Mali G57 GPU, 4G RAM and 64GB built-in storage which can be expanded up to 1TB via microSD card.
Performance wise, whilst I am no longer using benchmark testing and scores given that it has been well documented the issues surrounding benchmark testing.
The Moto E32 performance is ok when it comes to a budget end device such as this, however if you’re wanting something that can handle high end gaming experiences like PUGB then you’re sorely in for disappointment as there was times such games took a little while to load, up to a minute or so and even then there was some delay and jittering around when trying to play these games live.
Furthermore toggling between various apps I did notice the device did struggle occasdsionally where it took time to refresh or open an app.
Also interestingly one thing I did notice more than anything is that the device would struggle to reconnect to my home Wi-Fi when I was away from home or if I hadn’t used the device in a couple of hours whilst working. Granted I could just manually reconnect the Wi-Fi but it did seem weird to me and I am unsure of the reason the device did this but I was a little frustrated at times.
Software wise, the Moto E32 comes with Android 11, with a few security updates rolled out during the review period. It is unsure if and when the Moto E32 will receive a firmware update to Android 12.
Battery wise, the Moto E32 comes with a non-removable 5,000mAh battery which does offer some decent battery life, with the Moto E32 able to last a full day to medium usage, however with any high usage battery power can drain quickly to about 30% to 40% at the end of the day.
However given the Moto E32 does come with a 90Hz refresh rate display this can eat into your battery power so it’s worth keeping this in mind.
Lights, Camera, Action
The Motorola E32 comes with a triple rear camera set up made up of 16MP main camera lens, 2MP depth sensor and 2MP macro lens alongside a single LED flashlight.
In terms of setting features, the camera software includes night vision, portrait, photo, video, pro, panorama, with additional features for video being Timelapse and dual capture.
Pictures taken with the triple rear set up, whilst for everyday social media post or picture messages are probably going to be ok, but if you want to ensure detail, depth, clarity – basically almost DLSR quality you might want to carry such a camera around with you.
Taking just normal snaps around I found the picture quality to be great – in the right lighting of course. However, it’s when you look further you find the colour can either be on par to real life or a little dull. Even zooming in to take pictures I found that you start to lose the clarity and detail. Items become atitle jarring and pixelated around the edges when trying to zoom in.
Furthermore, the depth sensor and macro lens made it difficult to try and take a good picture and for the life of me I get why these type of lens but macro lens are only useful if you’re wanting to take pics of your flowers and flowers or plants only.
However in low light conditions, picture do struggle a bit with noise and grain becoming an issue and this is the same with the front facing camera as well, as in low light and in too bright of a situation the quality of the lens definitely begins to show.
The front-facing 8MP camera again can take some ok selfies in the right lightening, however in the winter sun I did struggle to take a good enough selfie without the camera trying to compensate with over exposure or under exposure in the winter sun or shade.
Furthermore the background blur can be a bit finicky sometimes making your head slightly blur around the edges more than usual.
Should you consider buying one?
Given that not everyone can afford nor want a high end or even a mid range device, especially with the cost of living and price increases around the board, the Moto E32 does offers some basic but good specs at the end of the day.
Whilst it might not tick all boxes it does the fundamental boxes such as good battery life, cameras which are ok albeit a little basic, a bright, fantastic display, along with an included phone cover and 10W charger and USB-C cord, the Moto E32 does offer some good features and specs for the price for those that don’t need all the bells and whistles of a mid range or high end phone.
The Moto e32 can be purchased in either Misty Silver and Slate Grey at JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Officeworks, Big W, Mobileciti and the Lenovo online store, with additional availability through Optus and Optus prepaid partners for $229.
