MotoG (8GB) vs Octopus S520: Which is a smart buy in Kenya?

Remember the times Motorola was a global Mobile maker and that too a leader at it? Well, the times have changed. The smartphone market is now flooded with newbies that are giving competition to the veterans. Bought by Google, Motorola has been trying hard to stay in the competition with mid-level and high-end smartphones, and has done well in the mid range category. One of the newbie in the market, Obi Mobiles, co-founded by Ex-Apple and PepsiCo CEO, John Sculley, ventured into Africa in March this year where as Motorola has a presence since 2013. Therefore, we decided to compare two of the best models from each of the companies, i.e. Octopus S520 of Obi Mobiles and Moto G (8GB variant) of Motorola.

DESIGN AND BUILD: Motorola Moto G comes in the dimensions of 141.5X70.7X6.0mm and weighs 149g where as Obi Octopus comes in the dimensions of 145X75X8.4mm (Obi’s official site doesn’t offer the weight of Octopus). MotoG is round edged and fits easy in hand and comes in multiple colours. You also get customised back shells that are interchangeable if you are looking for more colours. Obi Octopus S520, on the other hand, is a bar shaped, curved at all ends device that comes in a beautiful silver metallic cover.

DISPLAY: Motorola MotoG has a LCD capacitive screen with a 4.5’’ HD display that gives you a screen resolution of 720X1280 pixels. On the other hand, Obi Octopus S520 comes with 5” TFT IPS screen that feels more fluidic, thus gives Octopus an added advantage of better viewing angles over MotoG.

OS & PROCESSOR: Motorola MotoG runs on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean that is upgradable to Kitkat, where as Obi Octopus S520 runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat, which gives Octopus a leg up. On the processor front, MotoG is packed with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 400 that clocks speed at 1.2 GHz supported by a quad-core CPU. Obi Octopus S520 is build with a MTk, MT6592 Octa-Core processor clocking speeds at 1.7 GHz. Moto G gets an edge over Octopus in terms of chipset.

RAM & STORAGE: Both, Motorola MotoG and Obi S520 have 1GB of RAM support and 8GB of internal storage that is expandable in Octopus upto 32GB via microSD card slot. MotoG misses on this feature that is important for people who like to store lots of music and pictures on their smartphones. However, the option of expandable memory is available for MotoG (16GB) variant.

CAMERA & BATTERY: It is the cameras where the Motorola MotoG takes the beating from Obi Octopus S520. MotoG sports a 8MP primary camera and a 2MP secondary to cater to your selfie needs where as Octopus S520 sports a 13MP primary camera built by Sony and a 5MP secondary camera for high quality selfies. On the battery front, while Motorola MotoG has battery capacity of 2070mAh that is embedded, Octopus S520 has a touch higher battery capacity of 2100mAh and is also removable.

CONNECTIVITY: On the Connectivity front, both Motorola MotoG and Obi Octopus S520 are 3G-enable devices with a WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and USB support.

  Comparison Chart 

Key Indicators	MotoG (8GB)	Octopus S520	Comparative Advantage
Battery Capacity	2070 mAh Embedded	2100 mAh Removable	Advantage Octopus
Display Screen Size	4.5’’	5’’	Advantage Octopus
OS	Android4.3Jelly Bean	KitKat 4.4.2	Advantage Octopus
Processor	Qualcomm  Snapdragon 400	MediaTek MT6592	Advantage MotoG
Expandable Memory	Not Available	32GB	Advantage Octopus
Camera	8MP- Primary 2MP- Secondary	13MP- Primary 5MP- Secondary	Advantage Octopus

PRICE: With decent specifications and nicely poised against one another, Motorola MotoG and Obi Octopus S520 are smartly priced too. Taking an indication from the Kenya market, MotoG is priced at KSh 22,499, where as Octopus S520 is priced at KSh 26,999 . Wondering why pay those extra bucks for Octopus? Because it beats MotoG on the camera, expandable memory, OS fronts and also has a lead over it when it comes to the display.  The choice is still yours.