Motorola Moto E review: Have a break!

Synthetic benchmarks

Motorola Moto E is running on the Snapdragon 200 budget chipset. It offers two Cortex-A7 CPU cores, Adreno 302 graphics and 1GB of RAM. This should provide about half the raw power the quad-core Moto G has under the hood, but hopefully the lower resolution will make up for the loss.

Starting off with the CPU benchmarks, the Moto E posted an OK result on the multi-core GeekBench 3 cross-platform benchmark. While the score pales in comparison to the latest Krait processors, the Moto E matched the performance of the similarly powered Galaxy Core LTE and Ace 3.

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S5
  3011
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  2968
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2937
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2670
• LG Nexus 5
  2453
• HTC One (M8)
  2367
• LG G2
  2243
• Huawei Ascend P7
  1895
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1869
• HTC One mini 2
  1526
• LG Optimus G
  1465
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  1359
• Alcatel One Touch Hero
  1321
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1315
• LG Nexus 4
  1288
• LG G2 mini
  1123
• Motorola Moto G
  1120
• Sony Xperia C
  1079
• Sony Xperia M2
  1074
• Oppo R819
  1047
• HTC One mini
  887
• Samsung Galaxy Core LTE
  647
• Motorola Moto E
  611
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
  564
• Nokia X
  421

AnTuTu is a compound benchmark, which also takes into account RAM and GPU performance. The Moto E numbers are quite good, a whisker below than the quad-core Cortex-A7-powered Xperia C.

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• HTC One (M8)
  37009
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  36018
• LG G2
  35444
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 S800
  31109
• HTC Desire 816
  21580
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  19896
• HTC One mini 2
  17883
• Sony Xperia M2
  17808
• LG G2 mini
  17362
• Motorola Moto G
  17214
• LG Optimus G
  16943
• Oppo Find 5
  15167
• Sony Xperia C
  13948
• Motorola Moto E
  12880
• HTC One mini
  11434
• Sony Xperia M
  9902
• Nokia X
  7514

Basemark OS II is another all-round benchmark. It gives an overall score along with single, multi-core performance, math performance and more. We focus on the overall score and the dedicated CPU scores. The Moto E overall rating is quite poor, the singe-core performance is on par with other Cortex-A7-based chipsets, while the multi-core performance is, quite expectedly, twice as low as that by the quad-core Cortex-A7 phones.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• LG G Pro 2
  1140
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  1082
• Oppo Find 7a
  1057
• HTC Desire 816
  520
• HTC One mini 2
  517
• HTC Desire 816 (anti-cheat)
  468
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  434
• Sony Xperia M2
  298
• Motorola Moto E
  116

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better

• Oppo Find 7a
  2580
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  2415
• LG G Pro 2
  2401
• HTC Desire 816
  1739
• HTC One mini 2
  1357
• Sony Xperia M2
  1164
• Motorola Moto E
  1110

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Oppo Find 7a
  10256
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  10063
• LG G Pro 2
  9802
• HTC Desire 816
  7071
• Sony Xperia M2
  4927
• HTC One mini 2
  4889
• Motorola Moto E
  2637

The graphics benchmark results turned out better than we expected. The GFXBench tests - both off-screen and on-screen variants - reflected a performance level, which is very close to the Moto G and HTC One mini 2 scores. The lower qHD screen resolution surely helped here as the Moto E has some 40% less pixels to draw than the Moto G.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One (M8)
  28.4
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  27.8
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 S800
  26.3
• LG G2
  22
• Sony Xperia M2
  5.9
• HTC Desire 816
  5.9
• LG G2 mini
  5.8
• HTC One mini 2
  5.8
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  5.8
• HTC One mini
  5.6
• Motorola Moto G
  5.6
• Motorola Moto E
  4.5
• Sony Xperia C
  2.8

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One (M8)
  30.1
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  28.1
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 S800
  26.7
• LG G2
  23.1
• Sony Xperia M2
  15.4
• LG G2 mini
  14.9
• Motorola Moto E
  11.2
• HTC One mini 2
  11
• HTC Desire 816
  11
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  10.9
• Alcatel Idol X+
  10.6
• Sony Xperia C
  7.3

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  11.8
• HTC One (M8)
  11.1
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 S800
  9.9
• Sony Xperia M2
  1.9
• HTC One mini 2
  1.7
• HTC Desire 816
  1.7
• Motorola Moto E
  1.4

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• HTC One (M8)
  11.9
• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  11.7
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 S800
  10
• Sony Xperia M2
  6.9
• Motorola Moto E
  4.9
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo
  4.7
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  4.1
• Samsung Galaxy Grand 2
  4.0
• HTC Desire 816
  3.9
• HTC One mini 2
  3.8

The BrowserMark 2.1 tests HTML 5 performance, while Mozilla's Kraken 1.1 is JavaScript-centric. The Motorola Moto E managed a good score in BrowserMark but rather poor in Kraken, though botch scores are close to the Snapdragon 400-powered Sony Xperia M2 and HTC One mini 2.

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  1398
• LG G Pro 2
  1346
• Oppo Find 7a
  1327
• LG Nexus 5
  1286
• Sony Xperia Z2
  1224
• HTC One mini 2
  945
• Sony Xperia M2
  903
• Motorola Moto E
  784
• HTC Desire 816
  774

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Galaxy S5 (Snapdragon 801)
  6043
• LG G Pro 2
  6578
• Oppo Find 7a
  6660
• Sony Xperia Z2
  7041
• LG Nexus 5
  7148
• HTC Desire 816
  13564
• HTC One mini 2
  15684
• Motorola Moto E
  17213
• Sony Xperia M2
  18047

Motorola Moto E and its Snapdragon 200 chipset offer good overall performance for its price and specs, even though its scores are quite uninspiring as numbers. What really matters is real-life usage - we certainly had a few cases where the Moto E froze or experienced some hiccups (the Camera app being the main culprit), we still feel the smartphone delivers a snappy performance for its price range. The Android KitKat OS is responsive, web browsing as quick as you would expect, popular games run fine and you can't ask for much more at this price point .