Hello Moto! The moto e22i is budget conscious

It has been quite a while since I have heard the Motorola start up theme “Hello Moto!” My daughter actually really likes it when I fired up the moto e22i for the first time.

The new moto e22i comes with pretty lofty claims, considering that it is a sub-$200 phone at RRP. The marketing says it “delivers a whole new level of premium entertainment at an incredibly accessible price point. In a first for the moto e family, the moto e22i provides a full immersion in multidimensional sound thanks to Dolby Atmos–enabled stereo speakers. The beautifully crafted, premium design also delivers a fluid 90Hz display and remarkable 16MP AI camera system.”

Setting the record straight, this is the first Android Go device I have really used beyond just a cursory play just.

First Impressions

My review unit came with a clear cover pre-installed, although that was easy enough to remove to get a SIM card in. I am more impressed at it’s inclusion at this price point.

The phone itself is made from Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) which is a transparent thermoplastic that is often used in place of glass for applications that requires it to be shatterproof. Think illuminated signage, skylights etc. Belying the budget price tag, the phone feels pretty good in the hand: solid, no flex, no gaps in the joints. The kind of build quality you expect from Motorola of yore, even if you never quite escape the plastic feeling.

Android Go

At this price the e22i sits firmly in the low-end camp. With only 2GB of RAM, this is the space Android (Go Edition) plays in.

With this badge, there is no illusion of a power house performance with the CPU, GPU and RAM pared down to keep costs down. The OS itself is designed to be less resource and bandwidth-intensive.

In Use

Let’s not fluff around here, we are not looking for raw performance or benchmarks. In fact it is probably the last thing I would care about in this situation. I did run a PCMark for Android Work 3.0 score and the e22i came in at 5211. In (an unfair comparison), the latest Google flagship easily doubles the score just to give an idea.

The phone is essentially built around a screen, a 6.5″ LCD IPS screen with a 90Hz to be precise with a teardrop display cutout in the center top of the display. At this price point, there are going to be trade off everywhere. The refresh rate of the screen makes everything feel smoother, but the resolution is an unexciting 1600×720 and hardly a surprise.

Overall the image quality is adequate particularly indoors, it does suffer from lack of brightness when outdoors. Colour wise you just don’t get the vibrancy you would from more expensive offerings but it is far from terrible.

Ticking the boxes for the good stuff, Motorola has made the e22i with IP52 rating – protected from limited dust ingress and promised from water spray less than 15 degrees from vertical. I love the side mounted fingerprint sensor on the power button and I wish Google would do that with the Pixel line. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top edge of the device and a USB-C port. The e22i also set a set of Dolby Atmos stereo speakers thrown in.

 

Camera

The e22i comes with a dual-lens rear camera setup. This is where we are at, even at the most budget level we are looking at multi-lens setups.

In the e22i the main sensor is a 16MP at f/2.2 and a 2MP depth sensor. Flipping it around is a 5MP f/2.4 selfie shooter.

Raw numbers are one thing, results are another. Motorola uses AI to push the humble hardware to meet user expectations. It is not an uncommon solution with all the big names doing it one way or the other. However with the e22i we need to really work the lighting to get good results. Admittedly if you can invest the time to get that right, the results are surprisingly good. But you are not likely to get a snapshot off in a hurry. The front camera tends to get a bit grainy and washed out.

There is a distinct latency where the hardware struggles to keep pace with the software. For example it is near impossible to get a photo of my Bengal unless I can catch him sitting still in good light. In lower light levels, it is more akin to a game of chance. Still, I do have a better chance of getting a photo of my cat then winning Tatts.

Looking at the photos on a big screen, you can see just how varied the results can get. Colour accuracy is marginal, it’s close but lacking in vibrancy and pop.

 

Apps

I honestly could not shift over from even an older generation flagship device to use the e22i as a daily driver. Instead I tossed it over to our CUO to play with. As a comparison he uses an Aspera R9 which runs the full Android OS.

Liam doesn’t really play many games, and the ones he does are not graphics intensive. At the moment Bomber Friends is his go to. Unfortunately with the 2GB RAM limit in the e22i, it means a lot of apps struggle to load consistently. He reported back that there are a lot of crashes which frustrated his experience. As a rule of thumb, you run one app at any one time for best results.

 

Sound

The blurb says Dolby Atmos stereo speakers providing a full immersion in multidimensional sound.

For what it is worth, the sound clarity is actually pretty good. For some music it can come through a little thin and sorry Meghan Trainor, there is little bass which again would surprise nobody. It did pleasantly surprise me that the stereo works pretty well. I mean, F-18s taking off in Top Gun Maverick and you very distinctive hear the jets move from the left to the right is a pretty good test right?

Overall the sound a little thin when playing media, and like the rest of the phone, in the realms of adequate but not overly exciting. That said it is a sub-$200 phone so in this league it is not shabby.

 

Battery Life

Perhaps it is the capability of the devices that resulted in a long battery life, after all even Liam was a bit reluctant to rely on it when apps would constantly crash.

PCMark gave it a bit over 11 hours, we were pushing two days between top ups.

 

Conclusions

Let’s call a spade a spade. The Motorola e22i is a budget phone, very budget phone, running Android Go. It’s biggest issue is the 2GB of RAM that limits much of the ability of the software to ride roughshod over the hardware. On top of that you are locked to 32GB of memory to work with.

Would I recommend the phone? Not if you can stretch your budget. Even for a child with little gaming demands it is a bit of a struggle.

On the other hand if you have an elderly parent who only needs the most basic of devices to keep in touch, this is something worthy of consideration. Yes you could give them a hand me down that is a few generations old, but from a security standpoint you are much less likely to get updates to patch vulnerabilities. At least with a e22i you are on Android 12 which is at least only one version behind and is still supported. There is a likelihood of an update.

Personally if I need an emergency phone or a very low cost phone with a pretty decent screen, reasonable audio and very little app demands, it is something I absolutely will consider.

The moto e22i has a RRP of $179, but at time of publishing it is on sale for $143 with the option of graphite grey or winter white.

Motorola E22i 32GB (Graphite Grey)
Motorola E22i 32GB (Winter White)

 

Specifications

Operating System: Android 12 (Go Edition) with easy access to the Google apps you use most
System Architecture / Processor: MediaTek Helio G37 processor with 4xA53 2.3GHz + 4xA53 1.8GHz octa-core CPU, 680MHz IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU
Memory (RAM): 2GB
Storage (ROM): 32GBbuilt-in | Up to 1TB microSD card expandable
Body: PMMA
Dimensions: 163.56 x 74.65 x 7.99mm
Weight: 169g
Water Protection: IP52 Water-repellent design
Display: 6.5” display
Display Technology: LCD | 90Hz refresh rate6
Display Resolution: HD+ (1600 x 720) | 269ppi
Display Aspect Ratio: 20:9
Display Screen-to-body Ratio: Active Area-Touch Panel (AA-TP): 88%
Battery: 4020mAh
Charging: 10W | 5V2A
Bands: 4G: LTE 1/3/5/7/8/18/19/20/26/28/38/40/41; 3G: 1/5/8/19; 2G: 3/5/8
Main Rear Camera: 16MP (f/2.2, 1.0μm) | PDAF
Rear Camera 2: 2MP (f/2.4, 1.75μm) | depth
Front Camera: 5MP (f/2.4, 1.12μm)
Flash: Single LED flash
Rear Camera Software: Shooting modes: Portrait, Photo, Panorama, Pro Mode; Artificial intelligence: Auto Smile Capture, Google Lens; Other features: HDR, Leveler, Timer, Assistive Grid, Watermark
Rear Camera Video Capture: FHD (30fps) | HD (30fps)
Rear Camera Video Software: Shooting modes: Video, Timelapse; Other features: Snap in Video Recording
Front Camera Software: Shooting modes: Portrait, Photo; Artificial intelligence: Face Beauty, Auto Smile Capture; Other features: HDR, Leveler, Mirror, Timer, Assistive Grid, Watermark
Front Camera Video Capture: FHD (30fps) | HD (30fps)
Front Camera Video Software: Shooting modes: Video, Timelapse; Other features: Snap in Video Recording
SIM Card1: Retail – Dedicated Dual SIM (2 Nano SIMs + 1 microSD); Carrier – Single SIM (1 Nano SIM + 1 microSD)
Connectivity: Type-C port (USB 2.0), 3.5mm headset jack
Bluetooth Technology: Bluetooth 5.0
Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac | 2.4GHz & 5GHz | Wi-Fi hotspot
FM Radio: Yes
Speakers: Stereo speakers and Dolby Atmos support
Microphones: 1 microphone
NFC: No
Location Service: GPS, A-GPS, LTEPP, SUPL, GLONASS, Galileo
Sensors: Fingerprint reader, Proximity sensor, Ambient light, Accelerometer, SAR
Security: Side-mounted fingerprint reader with PowerTouch