Motorola's new Moto E has LTE and a bigger screen for just $149
Motorola teased an announcement in the form a hand-delivered package last week, and sure enough, today the company delivered a box with a new Moto E. The second-generation Moto E is still Motorola's most affordable smartphone in its lineup …
Context & Ripple Effects
The second-generation Moto E extends Motorola's ladder of near-stock Android phones downmarket, arriving just before reviewers crowned it the best phone you could get for $150. It slots beneath the Moto G, whose own 2015 refresh was dinged in reviews for a sluggish processor despite 4G LTE speeds and a low price — so LTE at $149 puts Motorola's cheapest handset on par, connectivity-wise, with its midtier one.
The move matters because it shows the budget E line absorbing flagship-era features within a year of launch rather than waiting generations, setting up the pattern Motorola later repeated when it refreshed the whole range with the G6 and E5 families three years on.
First-order effects
- Buyers shopping under $150 get LTE and a larger screen in the Moto E for the first time, removing the main spec reasons to stretch to the pricier Moto G.
Second-order effects
- Motorola's midtier lineup faces internal pressure: the Moto G must justify its premium over an E that now matches its LTE connectivity, pushing each successive G refresh toward bigger batteries, cameras, and customization — the direction the Moto X Style and Moto G updates took that summer.
Third-order effects
- If feature trickle-down keeps compressing the gap between tiers, budget lines like the Moto E become volume anchors that force every price band above them to differentiate on camera, build, or software rather than basics — the structure behind Motorola's sprawling 2018 G6/E5 lineup spanning roughly €150 to €300.
The trend: Budget smartphone tiers are absorbing last cycle's flagship connectivity features within months, forcing manufacturers to stratify their lineups by camera and design instead of network speed.