Motorola Moto E4 Plus - Review 2022

If you hate information technology when your phone runs out of bombardment, we accept an inexpensive option for you. The unlocked Motorola Moto E4 Plus ($179.99 equally tested) has a massive five,000mAh battery that will carry you through two days of moderate use, or upwards to a week of standby. It's also nicely built, runs the latest version of Android, and works on every carrier in the US. It isn't the fastest telephone out at that place, and the Moto E4 remains our Editors' Selection for being a slightly better value, but if you need a phone with the longest bombardment life possible, get for the Plus.

A Moto Eastward past Any Other Name...

The Moto E4 Plus is different enough from the Motorola Moto E4 that information technology'south confusing Motorola isn't using a different name. The base E4 is a 5-inch phone, with an 8-megapixel master camera. The E4 Plus is a 5.five-inch phone with a 13-megapixel principal photographic camera. We tested the $179.99 unlocked model, but information technology's also bachelor straight from Verizon for $129.99, or from Amazon Prime (with Prime number ads) starting at $139.99.

The E4 Plus is a budget phone, to be sure, but a nicely congenital one. It'south big, at 6.i by three.1 by 0.4 inches (HWD), with a shine, warm plastic torso that comes in gilded or grayness. On the front is a 5.5-inch, 720p LCD that's brilliant plenty, only noticeably soft compared with higher-res screens like you find on the Moto G5 Plus. Information technology'll best please older users who desire larger visual elements.

There'south a capacitive habitation push button/fingerprint sensor beneath the screen, only no back or window buttons: those appear on the screen itself. If yous want to reclaim screen real estate, you tin turn the on-screen buttons off and swipe dorsum and along on the fingerprint sensor for the back and window actions.

The phone charges and syncs over micro USB, and there's a standard headphone jack on the superlative. You're here for the battery, though. The 5,000mAh cell isn't technically replaceable, but it'due south probably serviceable: remove the back, and the bombardment's in there with a sticker on it that says, "Alert: DO Non REMOVE." (We didn't.)

The phone lasted eleven hours, 44 minutes on our video rundown exam, which is extraordinary compared with the regular Moto E4 (5 hours, xxx minutes). Information technology even lasted longer than our one-time battery champion, the LG X Power, which showed 8 hours, 48 minutes in the same test. And given that Motorola phones have very little standby battery bleed, you'll easily be able to go for two days without a charge.

Operation

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 427 processor here is i of the latest for low-end phones, and it'due south sluggish, but it's the all-time you can expect at this price point. Motorola has i of the best approaches to Android: The E4 Plus runs Android 7.i.1, the latest version, with a few subtle extensions similar a notification display that wakes up when you pick upwards the phone. Launching, and occasionally quitting, apps definitely takes a noticeable amount of fourth dimension, and game frame rates tend to be quite low. If y'all use a lot of apps, you lot should step up to a Snapdragon 600-series device like the Moto G5 Plus.

The E4 Plus has 16GB of storage, of which 10GB is bachelor, and 2GB of RAM. At that place'due south a microSD card slot for cards upwardly to 256GB, and yous can move some apps onto the SD card, although they slow downward further if you practice. Once more: if you're going to use a lot of apps, go with a faster phone.

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Phone call quality is practiced. The earpiece is plenty loud, although voices audio just a bit muddier than they do on a loftier-cease handset like the Samsung Galaxy S8 or LG G6. The phone supports T-Mobile's and Sprint's HD calling, equally well every bit both VoLTE and Wi-Fi calling. The speakerphone has a bit of a crackle in it at maximum volume, just the phone's mics are excellent, with terrific background dissonance cancellation. Even on a busy street, my vox came through very loud and articulate.

The E4 Plus joins Motorola'south other G and E phones in being some of the rare unlocked phones that work on all four major US carriers. The LTE band layout and modem setup focuses more on coverage than on speed, so you'll get the best possible coverage on all four carriers, merely non their elevation speeds.

The phone'due south Category 6 modem lacks the power to combine spectrum bands for greater speeds, so you'll see slower functioning here than you will on a high-stop phone similar the Galaxy S8. Tested against the Galaxy S8 on T-Mobile's network in the same location, I got consistently higher download speeds on the more expensive phone, and consistently much higher upload speeds (to the tune of 20 to 30Mbps vs 2 to 4Mbps).

The same pattern follows with Wi-Fi—strong coverage, just not meridian speeds. The phone supports dual-band 802.11 a/b/c/n, though not ac, just Wi-Fi remained functional fifty-fifty 100 feet from a router, through a wall. There'south no NFC, though, then tap-to-pay solutions are out.

Multimedia

The E4 Plus sports a 13-megapixel main camera and five-megapixel forepart camera. You don't get the "twist to photographic camera" action that Moto offers on its higher-end phones, so you lot must launch the camera by dragging up from the corner of the lock screen.

Both cameras take flashes, and the main photographic camera has an f/2.0 aperture. In practiced light that makes for fine photos, although in that location's a noticeable delay with the shutter sometimes that reminds you that you lot're using a low-end phone. Low-low-cal images with flash aren't bad, although the wink takes more than than a 2d to phase. Unfortunately in depression-light, flashless pictures are poor, because of a lack of good focus—they're soft at best, and downright blurry at worst. The front camera'south shots aren't equally blurry in low lite, just they take overly dramatic shadows.

The primary video camera takes 1080p videos at 30 frames per 2d outdoors, dropping to 24fps in standard indoor lighting. The front-facing photographic camera was able to residual at 30fps in testing both indoors and out. Neither camera is stabilized, which means they appear a fleck wobbly, but that's par for the course on low-terminate devices.

Conclusions

The Moto E4 Plus is our depression-stop bombardment champ, chirapsia beefy competitors similar the LG X Power on endurance. But the added cost of the big bombardment puts the E4 Plus in a slightly awkward place. At $180 unlocked (or even at $130 on a carrier), it comes very close to the $185 Amazon Prime number subsidized entry-level cost for the Moto G5 Plus, which has a noticeably better screen and faster processor.

Motorola is really on a curlicue with its low-end phones. The East and 1000 series continue to exist slap-up values, with their fresh versions of Android, solid reputation for reliability, and four-carrier compatibility. Your choice between the E4 Plus and the G5 Plus really depends on your charging style. If you lot're the kind of person who takes your phone to piece of work every day and plugs information technology in, the G5'due south faster performance and sharper screen will exist the right choice. If you don't have chargers ofttimes accessible, the E4 Plus will keep you continued longer. The plain-quondam Moto E4, meanwhile, remains our entry-level Editors' Selection considering it'south a great value for the price.