Moto E4 release date, news and rumors

Update: A new leak has revealed that the Moto E4 might launch on July 17 with a high price. It's also echoed all the previous spec rumors.

We’ve already had the affordable Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus this year, but an even cheaper pair of handsets look to be on the way, dubbed the Moto E4 and Moto E4 Plus.

And while a low price might be the main selling point of these successors to the Moto E3, it’s not the only thing they’re likely to have going for them, with rumors also pointing to a monster battery and respectable specs for the money.

Here’s a constantly updated rundown of all the news and rumors we’ve heard about the Moto E4 and Moto E4 Plus so far.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Motorola's ultra affordable new handset
• When is it out? Possibly July 17
• What will it cost? Maybe around $165/£125/AU$220

Moto E4 release date

The Moto E4 might launch on July 17 according to leaker Roland Quandt, and presumably the Moto E4 Plus would land alongside it. That date would make sense, as the Moto E3 was announced in July 2016.

That's the only launch rumor we've heard, but the larger handset has seemingly been certified by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission – a US regulatory body), so there’s a good chance they’re coming soon.

Moto E4 design and screen

Hottest leaks:

• A metal back
• 5.0-inch and 5.5-inch 720p screens

An exhaustive specs leak from WinFuture suggests that both the Moto E4 and Moto E4 Plus will have a metal back like the Moto G5, in place of the plastic on the Moto E3.

It adds that they will have a fingerprint scanner on the front, likely built into a home button below the screen, and that the Moto E4 will come in at 144.7 x 72.3 x 8.99mm and 151g, while the Moto E4 Plus is 155 x 72.3 x 9.55mm and 198g.

That would make the standard Moto E4 ever so slightly larger in all dimensions than the Moto E3, as well as being slightly heavier.

Apparently the standard Moto E4 will come in grey, gold and blue, with the Moto E4 Plus launching in just grey and gold colors.

According to the same source, the Moto E4 will have a 5.0-inch 720 x 1280 IPS LCD screen (a claim which has since been echoed), just like the Moto E3, while the Moto E4 Plus will up the size to 5.5 inches but won’t have a higher resolution.

TechRadar’s take: So far, all the design rumors come from one source, so we’d take them with a pinch of salt, but they sound believable.

Moto E4 camera and battery

Hottest leaks:

• A 13MP camera and a huge 5,000mAh battery for the E4 Plus
• An 8MP camera and a 2,800mAh battery for the E4

The same massive specs leak tells us that both phones will have 5MP front-facing cameras, but that the Moto E4 will have an 8MP rear one, while the Moto E4 Plus apparently has a 13MP snapper on the back.

The difference in battery is seemingly even bigger, and could make the Moto E4 Plus a far more exciting handset, as both this source and information from the FCC suggests that the Moto E4 Plus has a huge 5,000mAh battery, while the standard Moto E4 will apparently have just a 2,800mAh one, and in both cases the batteries are said to be removable.

We've since heard the same specs again leaked for the standard Moto E4.

TechRadar’s take: The only thing that sounds at all unlikely here is the 5,000mAh battery, but with two sources pointing to it even that might be true.

Moto E4 OS and power

Hottest leaks:

• A quad-core chipset
• 2 or 3GB of RAM

According to the FCC, a phone believed to be the Moto E4 Plus will have a MediaTek chipset, and that claim is echoed by WinFuture’s info dump, which says that both models will have a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6737M chipset.

Don’t expect a huge amount of power from them if that’s accurate, but then these are budget phones, and they look more promising on the RAM front, with the standard Moto E4 rumored to have 2GB (up from just 1GB on the Moto E3) and the Moto E4 Plus said to have either 2GB or 3GB, with the actual amount varying by region.

The same source says that both handsets will have 16GB of built in storage, along with a microSD card slot, and that in some regions they will have NFC.

Both phones are expected to run Android Nougat, specifically apparently Android 7.1.1, and in typical Motorola fashion this is likely to be more or less stock Android.

TechRadar’s take: The rumors suggest a slight spec boost over the Moto E3 and the latest version of Android on board, which is exactly what we’d expect.

Moto E4 price

The earliest price rumor puts the Moto E4 at around 150 euros (roughly $165/£125/AU$220) and the Moto E4 Plus at around 190 euros (approximately $205/£160/AU$275).

However, since then we've heard that the Canadian price of the standard E4 would be $249.99, which translates to roughly $185/£145/AU$250 - far higher than the approximately $130/£100/AU$170 launch price of the Moto E3.

TechRadar’s take: Those prices are only approximate, but either option would make the Moto E4 more expensive than the Moto E3, which makes sense, given the move to metal and the improved specs.

However, of the two leaks we'd guess the earlier, cheaper one is more likely to be accurate, as the latest leak points to a big price jump.

• A Moto X (2017) might be on the way too

from TechRadar: Phone and communications news http://www.techradar.com/news/moto-e4-release-date-news-and-rumors