Of all the phones Motorola released in 2017, one that stood out the most was the Moto E4. The E4 might have been the least powerful of the bunch, but for its retail price of $129, it performed way above what we usually expect to see from something so cheap.
The very first render of its successor – the Moto E5 – just surfaced, and while it looks like more of the same, there are a couple tweaks to the design worth taking note of. For starters, the fingerprint sensor has been moved from the front to the back below the camera sensor. This means that Motorola is finally using its Moto dimple for something useful, and while that's something I've been wishing Motorola would do since the Moto X (2014), it is slightly disappointing to see that nothing new was done with the front of the phone.
We're finally getting a Moto dimple that doubles as a fingerprint sensor.
Where the fingerprint sensor used to be has been replaced by large Motorola branding, and the bottom bezel doesn't appear to be any smaller as a result of the change. I get this isn't a flagship phone, but I can't help but feel it's a poor use of space.
The other design tweak I'm seeing are slightly rounded corners on the display. This is something that was popularized by devices like the LG G6 and Galaxy S8 last year, but unlike those phones, the Moto E5 will probably retain the more traditional 16:9 aspect ratio.
The date of April 3 on the clock widget in the render suggests that this is when Motorola could announce the Moto E5, so we'll be keeping an eye on this to see if that comes to fruition.
Moto E4 review: Keeping it simple
