Moto E4 Plus Review: High Battery Life, Subpar Display

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Moto E4 Plus: At First Glance

In 2017, Motorola hit the smartphone market with four flagship products. There’s the Moto C, Moto C Plus, Moto E4, and of course Moto E4 Plus.

According to Motorola, this range of smartphones is low-budget devices that still offer the best in terms of specifications. 

The smartphone market is a very competitive one that places customers in an indecisive position on which one exactly to buy. With that in mind, you’ll probably be wondering if the Moto E4 plus really meets up with what you’re looking for.

Well, you’ll find your answers when you read on.

Moto E4 Plus: Design, Dimension & Weight

The design of Moto E4 Plus is satisfactory with a mix of two components. Specifically, this smartphone has a plastic body and only the back casing is made with metal.

Even with its plastic body, the Moto E4 Plus has a very metallic look-alike design. Moreover, even though the Moto E4 Plus is not exactly a stunner, it still has a premium feel than what its price tag says.

To add to its aesthetics and convenient hold, it has curved edges. This makes it appealing to the eyes and somewhat comfortable in your hands.

The gold color variant however has a more exquisite look than the iron-gray color variant. Both color variants by the way are the only options Motorola offers for this smartphone. 

Speaking of comfortability, the not-so-great part about this phone is its weight. The Moto E4 Plus weighs 198g and this can weigh a chunk if you’re switching from a lightweight smartphone. 

You’ll most likely feel the weight of Motto E4 Plus in your pocket compared to the Moto G5, which weighs 144.5g.

On a more positive note, the Moto E4 Plus will sit comfortably in your hand with its dimension of 155 x 77.5 x 9.55 mm.

Come to think of it, the 5000mAH battery of the Moto E4 Plus (which will be discussed further in the battery section) is most likely the reason for its weightiness.

The edges of the Moto E4 Plus are surrounded by thick bezels at the top and bottom. However, you won’t find such thickness for the side bezels because there are narrow bezels on the side. 

Furthermore, since the bottom bezels are thick, you would expect the navigation keys to be at the bottom. Sorry to disappoint you; instead of placing the navigation buttons at the bottom of the phone, Moto made these navigation keys on-screen. 

This navigation bar includes the Back, Home, and Recent icons that help you move around apps. Having the navigation bar on the phone’s screen is most preferred when the smartphone has slim bezels.

That way, you will have to share the phone screen with the navigation keys. Meanwhile, since the Moto E4 already has thick bezels, Motorola could have simply added it on there than having to share the 5.5″ screen with these keys.

Nonetheless, that shouldn’t be a feature you can’t live with. Still on the lower thick bezels, there’s also a front-mounted fingerprint sensor.

This sensor is somewhat similar to what we see on Samsung’s front-mounted fingerprint sensors. You may however find this sensor a little small compared to that of Samsung’s.  

As for the thick top bezels, there’s the front-facing camera. Along with that is a LED flash for enhancing pictures and a notification LED which lets you know when the Moto E4 plus is charging or low in battery.

If you’re familiar with the Motorola brand, you’ll notice the stylish ‘M’ logo highlighted in silver at the back of the smartphone, just below the camera. Additionally, there’s the ‘moto’ text logo at the top area of the phone beside the front-facing camera.

The back camera by the way has a LED flash beside it. To add to its good looks, both components are enfolded with a circular design. 

Just in case you’re thinking of where the sim tray is, you won’t find it on the side. Instead, it’s located at the back when you take off the phone’s back cover. 

On taking off the back cover, you’ll see the SIM 1 slot on the left and the SIM 2 slot on the right. The SIM 2 slot is a hybrid slot which means it can also be used as a microSD card slot.

Do note that it doesn’t mean that you can include both the SD and SIM cards in one slot. It actually means you’ll have to sacrifice the SIM 2 slot for a microSD card in there.

Even though there’s no SIM tray on the side of this phone, it’s not bare either. To be precise, the volume rocker and power button are on the right side of the Moto E4 Plus. 

Below the phone’s casing is a micro USB 2.0 port alongside a speaker reel. The headphone jack is located at the top area of the casing which is different from the bottom setting we often see on recent smartphones.

Overall, the Moto E4 Plus has a good design and build quality for its price tag even though it’s a bit heavy. Considering those points, I will be rating the Moto E4 Plus a nine out of ten in this design review section.

Moto E4 Plus: Display Features

The Moto E4 Plus has a 5.5 IPS LCD display with HD (1280 x 720) resolution. To make sense of these specs, I will be breaking them down comprehensively. 

To start with, the IPS LCD display technology of the Moto E4 Plus is common in most smartphones. One major reason why it’s common is because of the rich colors IPS LCD provides. 

Having said that, you can expect that the Moto E4 Plus promises rich display output. On the downside of things though, IPS LCD displays tend to drain battery power.

Furthermore, this display type provides decent viewing angles. Having good viewing angles means a display still maintains its clarity even when you tilt the screen to any angle.

As for the HD (1280 x 720) resolution, this is an aspect where Motorola makes it obvious that it’s a low-budget smartphone. More precisely, the Moto E4 Plus HD resolution is a rather low display feature than the FHD (1920 x 1080) resolution which is more ideal for a smartphone.

In plain terms, you won’t be getting a crispy display on the 720p HD resolution of this phone. Despite the low resolution, you can still watch videos and play games. 

With that said, it’s realistic to say that the Moto E4 Plus has a decent display that will not blow you away though. If you’re not particular about display quality, you’ll be fine with what the Moto E4 plus has to offer.

However, other Motorola smartphones like the Moto G5 or the Moto G5 Plus feature better display resolution than the Moto E4 plus. Although they cost more, both the Moto G5 and the G5 Plus feature an FHD display.

Still on the display features, the brightness on this device is 395 nits which is below the average of 430 nits. Furthermore, such a level of brightness does not make it so friendly for outdoor use.  

Annoyingly, the screen brightness gets more unfriendly when you activate the eye care feature. This eye care feature functions to protect the eyes from the blue light emitting from the screen. 

To protect the display of the Moto E4 Plus, Motorola added a 2.5D glass. Asides from protecting the display, this 2.5D glass adds to display quality and also provides a smooth surface to navigate through.

Additionally, the 5.5″ screen size on here is just the right size for your viewing pleasure. Be it reading an eBook, gaming, or watching videos, you’ll be fine with this screen size.

After properly scrutinizing the display features of the Moto E4 Plus, it deserves a seven in this section of the review. This is because of the low brightness and poor resolution except for the IPS LCD display type which is impressive.

Moto E4 Plus: Camera Features

For many smartphone users, the camera feature will remain a major factor in their purchase decision. In that regard, the Moto E4 plus pretty much offers average on its camera.

To start with, the rear-facing camera is 13MP with an aperture of ƒ/2.0. Along with this camera is an LED flash which is meant to enhance lighting. 

For further enlightenment, the ‘ƒ’ symbol stands for Aperture (ƒ.stop), and the figures beside the symbol simply mean the rate of aperture the camera has.

Furthermore, aperture refers to how wide the camera lens goes which in turn determines how light passes through the camera. Aperture is very important in understanding just how much picture quality to expect from a camera.

Here’s the tricky part, the lower the figure, the better the aperture – which in turn means better quality pictures. In that case, a 13MP camera with ƒ/2.2 wouldn’t be as good as a 13MP camera with ƒ/1.7.

For Moto E4 Plus, when in good lighting positions, the back camera is decent by producing the right image quality. Even with its low aperture, this 13MP camera doesn’t do so poorly as it captures bright images.

However, you won’t be impressed because the camera lacks color vibrance when taking images without the flash. Pictures tend to look dull and the autofocus is equally slow in terms of response. 

On a positive note, switching on the HDR mode helps the low color vibrance to an extent but it still doesn’t cut it.

As for the front-facing camera, this is a 5MP camera with an aperture of ƒ/2.2. Like the main camera, this front-facing camera also has an LED flash to enhance lighting.

The picture quality of the front-facing camera equally offers the basics. It neither makes your face pale nor bright and even the filters don’t do much either.

The video is equally mediocre, there’s nothing over-the-top here but it’s not entirely useless either. Videos are not so bright and neither do they have depth.

As a whole, the Moto E4 Plus deserves an eight in this camera review section. Reason being that the camera offers the basics in terms of picture quality.

Moto E4 Plus: Battery Life and Talk Time

This battery section is the most impressive aspect of the Moto E4 Plus. This smartphone comes with a 5000mAH battery which lasts 13 hours 20 minutes on 3G talk time. 

Notably, this battery is non-removable which means it’s built into the Moto E4 Plus. This also means that it can’t be replaced unless it gets to the manufacturer – which is Motorola in this case.

Having a non-removable battery would normally be a disadvantage because it means you won’t be able to have an additional battery as backup for this. 

It’s however a different case for the Moto E4 plus because this 5000mAH battery won’t need to be replaced. The 5000mAH is also an upgrade from the Moto E4 which has a 2800mAH battery and lasts a day on average use.

While on normal use, you get to use the Moto E4 Plus for two days. Even on heavy use, you’ll get some hours more than a day.

As for its fast charging features, it takes 3 hours for the Moto E4 Plus to get a full charge from 0-100%. On a battery rundown test, the Moto E4 Plus lasted 11 hours 44 minutes.

This is far more impressive than its predecessor – the Moto E4, which lasted 5 hours 30 minutes on the same test. Even the LG X Power with its 4100mAH battery didn’t come close to the E4 Plus.

The LG X Power lasted 8 hours 48 minutes in the same test. Apparently, the Moto E4 Plus is giving its competitors a run for their money.

Remember the IPS LCD display I mentioned in the display section and how it tends to drain battery power? Well, this battery can handle this IPS LCD without putting a strain on the battery.

Undoubtedly, we can agree that the excellent battery life of the Moto E4 Plus is the major highlight of this smartphone. In addition to that, its fast charging feature is not poor and neither is its battery capacity and battery life.

That being said, this battery life review section of this Moto E4 Plus deserves a nine.

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Moto E4 Plus: Storage Options & Performance

The Moto E4 Plus is available with either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage. Having anything lesser than 32GB on a smartphone is somewhat disappointing, especially because of the high use of media and the internet.

On that note, it’s advisable you go for the 32GB version so as to give you more space for your files. If you however don’t tend to load much onto your phone you may be okay with the 16GB version.

Speaking of more space, both the 16GB and 32GB versions of Moto E4 Plus support microSD cards of up to 128GB. Even though this avails you of more storage options, 128GB is small compared to most smartphones with 256GB microSD card expansion.

It is worth noting that before including your own files, 6GB of the 16GB storage has already been occupied by the phone’s software. As for the 32GB storage, the phone already takes 8GB which leaves you with 24GB of storage.

Having all these features before us, the Moto E4 Plus doesn’t quite impress in its storage size. For that reason, seven is a good rating for this section of the Moto E4 Plus review.

Moto E4 Plus: Security Features & Sensors

As a device for your personal use, you want to make sure it’s secure and the Moto E4 Plus has the right feature for that. More specifically, this smartphone comes with a very sensitive front-mounted fingerprint sensor.

Interestingly, this sensor doesn’t just unlock the phone, it’s also capable of locking the device with just a touch. Furthermore, only a registered fingerprint is able to unlock the Moto E4 plus whereas, any fingerprint is able to lock this smartphone.

Asides from the fingerprint sensor, other sensors on this device are the proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and accelerometer sensor. However, the gyro and barometer sensor is nowhere to be found on the Moto E4 plus.

More precisely, the proximity sensor turns off the display when the phone screen comes in contact with your face or ear. We expect this to mostly happen when on a phone call.

As for the ambient light sensor, it determines the degree of light around the phone and automatically dims the phone’s display. Both the proximity and ambient light sensor help reduce the strain which the screen brightness may have on the phone’s battery.

In brief, the sensors on the Moto E4 Plus are typically what we see on smartphones – so, there’s no wow factor here. For that reason, it won’t be far-fetched to rate the Moto E4 Plus an eight in this sensor review section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The Moto E4 Plus should top your list if your main concern is a good battery. However, the low-resolution display and low storage are features that will likely turn you off. 

We could excuse its slight heaviness because the 5000mAH battery is most likely responsible for its weight. If you’re someone on a budget and you need a smartphone with great battery life, the Moto E4 Plus is just right.

Peradventure, you need a smartphone for those pictures for your business and products, do look elsewhere.

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