Simple Mobile - Motorola MOTO E5

I purchased this phone using BestBuy mobile app, in the app it says it is unlocked despite being a simple-mobile prepaid phone. I had to return it, seems to be an app error. Price is good, the phone is a bit slow.

I bought 2 phones because in the description and pics says that is a Unlock phone, and the main camera is a 13Mpx. False info. Rear camera 8mpx and front 5mpx. The phone only can be used by T-Mobile.

First one quit after few days, the screen went blank white and once turned off did not want to charge and power on. The replacement been doing well so far so must have just been a fluke. Definitely one of the better budget phones, plastic case but nice large bright screen, fast enough four core processor handles Android and it's apps well, and candy bar shape makes it easy to hold in and use with one hand. The one camera on the back takes good pictures but don't expect it to be like S8/S9 or iPhone 8/X quality. A major plus if you travel, it handles pretty much all world cell phone bands and can be set to many different languages in the settings. Motorola, under the wing of Lenovo, has been now making some great phones for all budget levels.

Simple Mobile has better plans now, be sure to shop them and sign up when a good one is available (my 3gb plan is just $20 plus taxes based on autopay). This particular phone is a back up to my Simple Mobile iPhone SE, which Simple Mobile was closing out a couple of months ago at amazing prices. So this is a review of the Moto E5 5.7" screen version (hence not the cheaper Play or more expensive Plus) based on use on wifi for watching Netflix and reading Kindle, something to keep it busy while it waits in the wings for an admittedly unlikely future iPhone SE issue. I've liked the Moto series since Google, the then-owner, started rolling out the G series. "G" meant pretty clean, stock, Android, and security updates, often one version update too. The Moto E series is the dirt-cheap alternative to the more mid-grade G series. Keep in mind that both the E and G series are divided into lower, mid, and upper tier models. The G is mainly distinguished by 1080p screens and the E series by 720p screens, though on a sub-6" phone it's hard to see the difference. This E5 is the mid-grade E5 model - other prepaid carriers (like Verizon) offer the "lower-grade" Play edition which is only 5.2". We hardly see the "Plus" edition with a 6" screen in this country, never on blow-out prepaid sales. Keep in mind that Motorola has shifted from 16*9 aspect ratio (typical modern wide-screen / Game of Thrones tv shape) to an 18*9 aspect ratio (typical Star Wars wide screen shape) so the 5.7" screen on this Moto E5 doesn't have as many square inches of screen real estate as you may think, vs a 5.2" conventional (outgoing) phone screen. One online reviewer compared the lines of text he could read - at the same text size - on a "smaller" old-skool phone to the new-fangled tall 'n' thin phones like this, and found the new supposedly "larger" screen phone only added one extra line of text. In other words, old-skool phones "letter box" Star Wars(darken the top and bottom of the screen when held sideways) while new-school phones have black bands (book ends?) on each end of the HDTV Game of Thrones episode. All the G's and E's I've had, have had great screens and weak cameras. This is no exception, just read the online reviews for details and sample pictures. Don't worry, your kid will love the high resolution selfies it takes. That part is good. This is carrier locked with the right to unlock after continuous service for one year. But it's really optimized for T-Mobile No Verizon or Sprint and so-so AT&T compatibility. This is good for Netflix, in fact great on a flight due to the long battery life (it has a bigger than average battery, and it's only pushing 720p worth of pixels).The stock Display setting in Settings is for a jazzed up vibrant color, but there is an alternative Natural setting I liked better. Better still, go into Settings, About Phone, tap on Build Number for 7 times to enter Developer Mode, and then go into Developer Options and switch to sRGB for your color palette. Now, I have to wonder how they squeezed this quality screen into a budget phone. It rocks for Netflix - well, rocks for a phone, it's not a tablet and not an iPad either. You should definitely be happy with YouTube full screen, held sideways. And the speaker (mono) directs sound to the front, where it belongs, not to the side or rear. In Developer Settings, you can also choose the optimal codec for Bluetooth stereo such as AptX and AAC. Just be sure your earbuds or headphones support the codec, otherwise you'll have to re-set this setting. SBC works with everything, but sounds terrible. Finally, be patient while the phone updates it's software. It tries to do things in the background so you can start using the phone right away, but that makes the phone feel slower than it actually is after all the updates. Once I had "forced" mine to do all the updates, app loading and switching, animations, etc. were all very "zippy". The easy way to handle updates is to give the phone a day, just turned on, on the charger, and swipe down from the top of the screen and occasionally tell it yes, update my apps, yes, install the Android 8.1 update (and restart the phone). Here's how to force it to go through the background update process more quickly: First, go to Play Store, hit the hamburger menu upper left hand corner and scroll down to Settings then scroll down to Play Store version and tap to force it to check for updates (it will find an important security and features update). Second, go to My Apps (also a drop down item in the hamburger menu) and tap on it and tell the phone to update all apps (it might already be doing so automatically - check, in about an hour, to make sure no apps got forgotten by the updater). You can do this while the phone is working in the background to finish the First step. Third, AFTER all apps are updated, drop down the notifications window shade (swipe down from top of screen) and authorize the phone to install the Android 8.1 update. The phone will restart to install this operating system update. You might find a notice a few hours later (or a few minutes later) that there is another Android 8.1 update. Click to authorize that one too. Needless to say, do this on wifi not your data plan. I think it's probably a good idea to install the SIM only after the initial wave of updates. In the future, updates won't be so overwhelming. They will be automatic and virtually unnoticed. It's just the first wave where there's a lot of catching up to do, since the phone left the factory. If you take these steps, I think you will be very happy with the zippiness of the user interface. This isn't a gamer's phone, but it is a very competent phone. Only FaceBook will make it work hard, in terms of apps. And, oh yeah, "loaded to the gills" pages like USA Today.

Got this phone on Black Friday for half price. Not the latest-and-greatest, but for an entry-level phone it has fairly adequate features. The screen resolution and cameras are not great but satisfactory for the price. The best feature is that it's preloaded with the Oreo Android OS. There are only three noticeable drawbacks compared with my previous phone, (1) no notification LED, (2) notifications for Gmail are erratic and inconsistent no matter what known countermeasures/fixes tried, and (3) the phone is locked to Simple Mobile and unusable with other carriers. Also, dislike the 30-day payment plans with Simple Mobile--so top-up is not fixed on the same day each month like I'd with Virgin Mobile. However, for the $50 paid, I could live with these issues. Satisfied so far, and would recommend the phone if it's on sale.

This phone is worth way more than the asking price! It has a huge screen, top notch camera and 16gb expandable with a micro sd card (sold separately). I have always been a fan of Motorola, and this purchase did not disappoint!

Easy to operate, fits in hand, good looking, enough space for apps

great phone i got mine black Friday online. Exceeded my expectations. Has all the bells and whistles to get ya out of bed and into the store to get one