This is the first year you'll be able to customize the Moto G through Moto Maker to make it more definitively yours. Turns out, my fervent calls were answered, just for a completely different device Motorola's Moto X Play happens to run a Snapdragon 615, but that's little comfort to our American readers since it's not currently slated to ship in the States.

Beyond all that lies the quad-core Snapdragon 410 running at 1.4GHz, and while it's plenty powerful for most day-to-day stuff, I was secretly hoping Motorola would graduate to one of Qualcomm's 600-series chips this time around. That last detail is crucial, since the Moto G is only available with 8GB or 16GB of built-in storage (the 16GB variant also includes 2GB of RAM, as opposed to 1GB in the base model).

Meanwhile, under that backplate lurks a locked-down 2,470mAh battery, joined by a micro-SIM tray and a microSD reader that accepts cards as large as 32GB. And while the 11.6mm waistline makes it heftier than its rivals, it's not what I'd call uncomfortable to use. It's a bit of a clunker too, in that sort of streamlined, Motorola way. The sides are still as sparse as ever - there's a textured power button and a volume rocker on the right edge - so the phone isn't actually much easier to grasp than earlier models. This time, though, Motorola took that textured finish and applied it to the entirety of the G's removable backplate. The design team clearly took some cues from this year's version of the entry-level Moto E, which has optional colored bumpers that gave the phone a nice, grippy feel. Alas, the introduction of Moto Display to the G line this year means that you'll get all your notifications from fancy little onscreen icons, so the notification LED that used to be something of a Moto G hallmark is no more.

So far, it seems to be doing the trick I'm already seeing little pockmarks and dents in the plastic frame, but there's nary a scratch on the panel itself. (In fact, only the bottom one pumps out the jams.) Wedged between those grilles sits a 5-inch, 720p screen (the same size and resolution as last year), with a sheet of Gorilla Glass 3 providing some extra protection. We're still looking at the same curves, and the same chrome accents that actually look like dual front-facing speakers. There wasn't much broken about the Moto G's design, so Motorola didn't bother fixing much.

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