Motorola’s Moto E6 is a whole lot of phone for only $150

A thousand bucks gets you a premium smartphone with a long list of high-end features, but how much smartphone can you get for only $150? More than you might think.

Motorola’s new Moto E6 costs $150, one tenth of Apple’s top-of-the-line iPhone XS Max, and yet it’s still a fairly good smartphone. Sure, you don’t get the bells and whistles of more expensive phones, but maybe you don’t need them.

The Moto E6 is the sixth-generation of the company’s budget-friendly E-series Android phones. Since the first Moto E, Motorola’s strived to pack in as much smartphone for under $200.

This time around, Motorola’s simplified the series back down to a single model (no more confusing “Plus” and “Play” versions), and it’s not that bad, to be honest.

The phone’s made of plastic, and I’m OK with that, because come on, it’s just $150. Cut it some slack. It comes in two colors: “starry black” and “navy blue.” The “starry black” model has specks of, um, “stars” and gives the ordinarily boring black plastic a subtle hint of excitement. The Moto E6 isn’t water-resistant, but is water repellent, which means it won’t survive a drop in a toilet or pool, but light rain should be fine.

On the front, there’s a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with 18:9 aspect ratio and HD+ resolution (1,440 x 720). Usually, budget phones come with budget displays, but the Moto E6’s screen is better than I expected. It’s a good size, has good colors, gets bright enough, and has decent viewing angles when viewed from the sides.

Underneath the hood are acceptable specs for a $150 phone: Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 octa-core chip, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage (expandable up to 256GB via microSD card), and a 3,000 mAh removable battery. There’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack! Unfortunately, it’s stuck with with a Micro USB port instead of USB-C.

I griped about new gadgets still shipping with Micro USB and not USB-C, and a lot of people seem to agree:

Micro USB in 2019 is inexcusable. It’s been like five years since USB-C first arrived. If companies don’t switch to USB-C now, then when?

The cameras are also decent (on paper, at least). Around back, there’s a 13-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture for improved low-light performance. Motorola’s also added a few camera modes — “Portrait mode” and “Spot Color” — it previously reserved exclusively for its pricier Moto G7 and Moto Z phones.

For selfies, the Moto E6 has a 5-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture. The front camera also has a number of handy shooting modes, including “Portrait mode,” “Face beauty,” and “Best shot” many budget phones don’t.

Furthermore, the Moto E6 runs Android 9 Pie with no bloatware apps. Motorola’s added a few of its own features, but it’s nothing that gets in the way of stock Android like on other phones. Plus, this one will get Android Q when that’s available.

The Moto E6 sounds decent enough, right? So what are you giving up? For one thing, NFC. That means this phone doesn’t support contact-less payments like Google Pay. The rear camera maxes out at 1080p resolution for video recording (no 4K). The phone also doesn’t have stereo speakers — just a single speaker through the earpiece on the front. And there’s no fingerprint sensor so you’ll have to use a password or Android’s Face Unlock feature.

That said, I think Motorola cut the right corners for the Moto E6. You don’t need me to remind you that this is a $150 phone, do you? Consider it the perfect spare phone (use it as a burner!) or for kids or seniors who don’t need the latest and priciest.

The Moto E6 is launching first on Verizon. For other carriers, Motorola says “T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, Boost Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Consumer Cellular and Xfinity Mobile” and an unlocked version at Amazon, Best Buy, B&H Photo and Walmart will be available throughout the summer. Canadians will get the phone this summer