Motorola Moto E15: A Budget-Friendly Gem Worth Considering

Price When Reviewed

$90

Best Prices Today: Moto E15

Motorola has long held a degree of dominance over the budget smartphone market. Not only because it releases new models so regularly that there’s always something new hitting the shelves, but because the phones it releases are actually pretty great.

Its new Moto E15 continues that trend and, while it won’t be of any interest to flagship buyers thanks to its relatively modest performance, we’d say this model strikes the perfect balance between price and functionality. It feels as though it’s more than the sum of its parts.

For under £70/$90, you get a great-looking phone with a big screen, stereo speakers, and a decent 32Mp snapper. Naturally, it could do with more power, but it does pack a couple of days of battery life.

Here’s what it was like to use.

Design & Build

• Fingerprint reader
• SD card slot
• Soft case included

Considering the price, we’re particularly impressed by the overall construction of the Moto E15. It doesn’t look markedly different to the E14, which was already a pretty good-looking budget phone.

A big part of that comes down to texture. Rather than the matt surface you might expect, Motorola has opted for a vegan leather finish that adds plenty of grip, while also looking great up close. There are Denim Blue, Misty Blue, and Fresh Lavender options available. Will it patina over time? That remains to be seen.

There’s a USB-C port, mic and speaker on the bottom, and a headphone jack on the top. There’s a volume rocker and fingerprint reader built into the Sleep/Power button, which is an improvement on last year’s model.

On the left, the SIM tray also includes space for an SD card, meaning you can add to the 64GB of onboard storage.

Lloyd Coombes

We’ll come to the 6.6-inch LCD display next, but the first thing to say is that it’s so nice to see cheaper phones packing large displays which used to cost significantly more. Sure, it’s LCD and it’s not the sharpest or brightest, but that makes the Moto E15 a great choice for anyone with poor eyesight who may otherwise struggle to read a phone.

The bezel is uniformly thin, and there’s a hole-punch style 8Mp front-facing camera that’s centrally positioned. Rather than a more defined camera cutout on the back, it almost looks as though the 32Mp rear camera is trying to burst through, but it’s only got as far as the lenses.

Screen & Speakers

• 6.5.inch panel
• 90Hz refresh rate
• 720p resolution

If you were expecting significant upgrades from the E14 while its price point is maintained, we’re sorry to say that although this panel is marginally (0.1 inches) larger, it’s still only just about HD, since the resolution is 720p.

Still, it retains a 90Hz refresh rate and is nice and bright. Phones in this price range tend to have pretty dim screens, so its brightness is a big point in the E15’s favour.

Lloyd Coombes

Another thing phones in this price bracket don’t always tend to offer is stereo sound. There’s a speaker here in the earpiece and one on the bottom next to the charging port. Not only does that mean much more well-rounded audio for just about any purpose, but it also allows for Dolby Atmos support.

Dolby Atmos allows a more diverse array of equaliser options, and the speakers get surprisingly loud, which is nice.

Specs & Performance

• MediaTek Helio G81 Extreme
• 2GB of RAM
• 64GB internal storage

Naturally, we’re looking at a pretty cheap processor here, and it makes sense at this price. Still, we’d have liked a little more RAM.

2GB just isn’t enough, and sadly we can’t recommend the Moto E15 as a power user device. However, the option to add Virtual RAM from the storage space is welcome if you do anything particularly demanding.

Switching between apps, particularly Google’s stock ones, is fine, but as soon as you throw more demanding apps or games into the mix, things take a turn.

Opening Chrome can take a little longer than we’d like, and games like PUBG Mobile and Wild Rift will need to run essentially solo if you want any kind of respectable performance.

Popular titles like Genshin Impact simply won’t work on the phone, either, and neither does our Geekbench 6 benchmark.

Lloyd Coombes

Storage-wise, the phone comes with just 64GB, which might be enough for some users, but at least you can add a microSD card to increase it.

Moto E15 benchmarks

Cameras

• 8Mp front camera
• 32Mp rear camera

The 32Mp rear camera on the E15 combines four pixels into one, essentially coming up with an 8Mp image but one with more detail as a result. There are only two zoom modes (1x and 2x), and there’s plenty of noise when capturing video, with the lack of stabilisation making any movie feel a little Blair Witch.

It takes decent enough photos, though, and while the details can get a tad fuzzy at the edges of a picture and foliage can sort of blur into one mass, it’s not the worst camera we’ve seen.

Images taken at night aren’t ideal, though. There’s a jaggedness to edges and an inability to split greys from darker blacks in pictures. It’s not terrible, but it’s far from good.

Battery Life & Charging

• 5,200 mAh battery
• No charger in box
• 18W max charging

Sadly, there’s no charger in the box for the Moto E15, so you’re only getting a USB-A to USB-C cable and will need to use an existing plug or other device to charge.

The Moto E15 ran for 15 hours and 15 minutes with PCMark’s battery test, which is impressive for a phone that costs this little.

It takes around 90 minutes to charge fully with an 18W charger and, even without engaging the battery-saving features, it can easily last the two days Motorola promises.