Moto G (2013)

Overview

Announced in 2013, the first Moto G combines a 4.5-inch 720p IPS display, quad-core Snapdragon 400 and Android 4.3. Its original 3G design has no card slot; a replaceable shell is distinct from the fixed battery.

Period and variants

Motorola announces the first Moto G on 13 November 2013, stating that sales begin that week in Brazil and parts of Europe. This entry covers the original 3G design separately from later LTE and later-generation models. Regional availability does not establish an exact global first sale. Android 4.3 is the initial software; the contemporary promise of 4.4 in early 2014 is distinct from a verified delivery date.

A 4.5-inch 720p IPS display and Gorilla Glass 3 accompany Snapdragon 400, four 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 cores, Adreno 305 and 1 GB RAM. Nominal 8 or 16 GB storage includes system space, with no card slot in the original 3G phone. The curved plastic shell is replaceable, including Flip Shell accessories, while the 2070 mAh battery is not user-removable. The reviewed single-SIM XT1032 and some regional dual-SIM versions are kept separate.

Handset tests confirm 5 MP rear autofocus with LED, 1.3 MP front and 720p/30 fps recording. Notebookcheck’s own paragraph and an independent review agree on 1.3 MP despite its conflicting 2 MP table. Stereo recorded audio is distinct from the mono rear speaker, and photo HDR does not mean HDR video. Top 3.5 mm audio, bottom Micro-USB charging/data and tested OTG, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/GLONASS and FM with a wired headset are recorded individually.

The guide’s extra Google Drive space was a conditional historical cloud offer, not internal flash or a current redemption promise. Both photo sources explicitly identify first-generation XT1032 8 GB handsets, with a red Flip Shell and a black handset respectively. Their original credit names remain separate; images do not establish factory software or radio variants.

Sources

• Motorola — original Moto G announcement, 13 November 2013, publicly reproduced
• Motorola — original Moto G user guide, 68017585006-C
• Notebookcheck — Daniel Schuster’s original Moto G handset review, 30 December 2013
• GSMArena — original Moto G introduction, 11 December 2013
• GSMArena — original Moto G hardware and replaceable shell
• GSMArena — original Moto G controls and display tests
• GSMArena — original Moto G camera and actual video tests
• GSMArena — original Moto G cellular and connectivity tests

Image credits

First-generation Motorola Moto G XT1032 8GB with its red Flip Shell open — Eriqvaldezz, CC BY-SA 3.0; source file unchanged by this archive.

First-generation Motorola Moto G black handset front; source identifies XT1032 8GB — Eriqvaldez, CC BY-SA 3.0; source file unchanged by this archive.

Optimized display images on this page have been proportionally resized (maximum dimension 1600 px) and compressed to WebP, without cropping or retouching. Statements above about unchanged files refer to the preserved collected originals; attribution, sources and original licenses still apply. Originals: 1, 2.

Images collected from the Internet.