Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Comic Con at home, the growth of Venmo, Rakuten and Ebates, Grubhub and Uber, Spotify’s parental control features, reacting to text messages, and more.

Jake in Colfax, Washington listens on K-MAX 840AM and asked: “Right now I’m calling on my phone that I’m using currently – a Motorola E4, which has a terrible battery. My birthday is coming up. What phone should I get? I prefer to have a phone that has 2GB of RAM but I prefer it to be under $400. I’ve heard good things about the Motorola G Plus. But I don’t know if it would be worth my money to get that.”

Jake, we’ve heard good things about the Motorola G Plus but they have all revolved around the price.

The display is apparently very, very good, the camera is good but not as good as Motorola claims, the rest of the phone seems to largely be what you can expect for the price point of the device: it’s not flawless, but it’s 5 or 6 times cheaper than some of the phones hitting the market these days!

Overall it looks like a good phone and a reasonable choice for the price. There’s very little competition for you to consider at the same price point, but there are some to consider at under $400.

If you don’t mind having a phone that didn’t hit the market this year, a Samsung Galaxy S9 can be had for under $400, an iPhone 8 can still be found for around $350 (and their brand new SE is selling for $400 and is a new phone, even if it reuses an older design), old flagships were built to better standards so they may be worth considering even if they’re not “new” anymore, since they may still be more powerful and better built than newer budget phones.

Another phone you may want to consider is the Google Pixel 3A. It’s an incredible phone costing $400. It has 4GB of ram, 64GB of storage, 5.6-inch screen with 2220 x 1080 pixel resolution, and impressive front and rear cameras at 8 and 12.2 megapixels respectively.

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