Moto G smartphone now available unlocked in the US, starting from $179

By Anupam Saxena | Updated: 27 November 2013 11:57 IST

Motorola has announced the availability of its economy Android smartphone, the Moto G, in the US.

The GSM version of the phone will be available in the US on Motorola.com with no contract, no SIM lock and an unlockable bootloader for $179 for the 8GB storage variant or $199 for the 16GB variant. The phone will start shipping on December 2, in time for the holiday season.

Motorola has said that the CDMA version of the Moto G will be available in the US in January through carriers, as announced previously.

The Motorola Moto G runs Android 4.3 out-of-the-box and the Google-owned handset maker also has confirmed that the smartphone will be getting the Android 4.4 KitKat by January 2014.

The Moto G features a 4.5-inch HD 'edge-to-edge' display with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels (translating to a pixel density of 329ppi) and boasts of a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 screen. Powered by a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 (Cortex-A7) processor coupled with an Adreno 305 GPU, the Moto G features 1GB of RAM. On the optics front, the Moto G sports a 5-megapixel rear camera along with an LED flash and also includes a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. The rear camera supports HD (720p) video recording.

The Motorola Moto G also features water-resistant nano-coating on the inside and outside. The Moto G packs a 2070mAh battery, which Motorola claims can deliver up to 30 percent more talktime than the Apple iPhone 5s.

Moto G was announced last month and is currently on sale in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Peru, UK, Germany, France, and Canada and is coming soon to other countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia, as per the company. Moto G will be available in more than 30 countries including India with 60 partners by early 2014.

Motorola Moto G key specifications