Motorola Moto E (Gen 2) India Launch Set for March 10

Soon after officially announcing the Motorola Moto E (Gen 2) last week, the company also tipped the price of the 3G variant of the handset to be Rs. 6,999 in a video - the same price as the original Moto E price at launch last year. However, we will have to still wait till March 10 to hear the official price from the company.

(Also see: Motorola Moto E vs Motorola Moto E Gen 2)

The Lenovo-owned company has already revealed that the second-generation Moto E will be available in India exclusively via Flipkart, similar to other Moto devices.

Considering that Motorola launched the unlocked 3G model at $119.99 (approximately Rs. 7,400) and the 4G LTE model at $149.99 (approximately Rs. 9,200), we can expect the 4G LTE variant of the new Moto E to be priced at around Rs. 8,999.

The Indian smartphone segment is already lined up with a few 4G-enabled handsets priced below Rs. 10,000, namely - Lenovo A6000 (Rs. 6,999), Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G (Rs. 9,999), and Micromax's Yu Yureka (Rs. 8,999) - the Moto E (Gen 2) 4G looks set to be another entrant in the segment.

(Also see: Motorola Moto E (Gen 2) 4G vs Lenovo A6000 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G vs Yu Yureka)

One of the biggest highlights of the Moto E (Gen 2) will be Android 5.0 Lollipop, which will also make it the first handset from Motorola running the latest Android version out-of-the-box launched under Rs. 10,000.

For specifications, the new Moto E packs a slew of improvements over its predecessor. Both the new Moto E (Gen 2) and Moto E (Gen 2) 4G come with identical specifications except the chipsets.

Under the hood, the Moto E (Gen 2) is backed by a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor coupled with 1GB of RAM and Adreno 302 GPU. The company has finally upgraded the dual-core Snapdragon 200 SoC to quad-core. The Moto E (Gen 2) 4G is powered by a 64-bit quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SoC with Adreno 306. The new Moto E only supports single-SIM, unlike the dual-SIM first-generation Moto E.

The new Moto E features a 4.5-inch qHD (540x960 pixels) offering a pixel density of 256ppi. The first-generation Moto E came with a 4.3-inch qHD display.

The company has gone with a 5-megapixel rear camera again on the handset, while this time there is a 0.3-megapixel front camera also onboard. The new Moto E comes with 8GB of built-in storage, which is double the storage on Moto E, and supports expandable storage via microSD card (up to 32GB).

The Moto E (Gen 2) includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0LE, GPS/ A-GPS, GLONASS, FM radio, and Micro-USB connectivity options. Another major improvement is in battery department, the new Moto E packs a large 2390mAh battery compared to 1980mAh battery on the first-generation. The handset measures 129.9x66.8x12.3mm, and weighs 145 grams.