At a time when brands have been launching phones above Rs 10,000, Moto has come up with its E13 which offers a lot for under Rs 7,000. The Moto E13 is powered by a Unisoc processor under the hood, 5000mAh battery, a 6.5-inch display, Android 13 Go Edition and much more. Till now, Redmi, Tecno and Itel were the only choices for the users as most of the brands now focus on mid-range and 5G. As per a report from Counterpoint Research, Itel has the maximum number of customers in the under Rs 8,000 segment. However, it seems that Moto also has an eye on this segment. It would be interesting to see how well it goes against the Redmi A1 and if it is the best phone to buy for under Rs 7,000. To know more, read our review.
Moto E13
Rs 6,999
What Is Good?
- Stylish design
- Average performance
- Latest Android 13 Go edition
- Long battery life
What Is Bad?
- No fingerprint sensor
- Poor camera
- Slow charging
Moto E13: Price in India and Jio Discount Offer
The Moto E13 is available in two variants in India – 2GB/64GB priced at Rs 6,999 and 4GB/64GB priced at Rs 7,999. Motorola has partnered with Jio to offer additional cashback on using a Jio SIM. If you are an existing Jio customer and insert your SIM within 15 days of purchase, you will get a flat cashback of Rs 700 to your account. Do note that you need to keep your Jio SIM in the phone for a minimum of 30 months. This means you get the phone for an effective price of Rs 6,299.
Moto E13 Review: Design
Despite being priced under Rs 7,000, the Moto E13 has a simple-yet-elegant design. It doesn’t feel like a cheap low budget phone with low quality plastic on the back. It has a matte finish which makes it slippery, so you might want to use a case, and you get one inside the box too. You also get to see a Motorola logo in the centre and a rectangular camera module. There’s also an LED flash at the back that looks like an additional lens.
It is available in three colours – Cosmic Black, Aurora Green and Creamy White. We got the Aurora Green and feel that it is the best colour available for this device. It is green indoors but when you expose it to light, the phone shows a blue ray that makes the phone look stylish.
The E13’s rear panel and railings are made of PMMA plastic which yields a nice in-hand feel. With 8.47mm thickness and 179.5 grams weight, the device feels sleek and well balanced.
In terms of physical features, the bottom of the phone has a Type-C port, a mic and a speaker grille. The top frame carries a 3.5mm headphone jack and Dolby Audio branding while the right side has volume rockers and a power button. Finally, the left part houses a full-size SIM slot that has a dedicated slot for a microSD card.
The Moto E13 has IP52 certification for dust and water resistance, a feature that even some higher-end phones skip.
Moto E13 Review: Display
The Moto E13 has a 6.5-inch IPS LCD display with an HD+ resolution of 1600 x 720 pixels. It is a standard 60Hz refresh rate screen with 20:9 aspect ratio. That’s the most common panel that you get in this price segment, which is fine. The display is bordered with thick bezels that eat up a lot of space. Its chin is also very prominent. The top has a water drop notch which, again, is pretty common in this segment.
As is the case with most HD+ displays, app icons and text do not appear that sharp. The default colour tone of the screen was not appealing to us as it was too warm so we turned it cool by going into settings. Doing so made the colours look more realistic but the vibrancy was still missing.
Watching videos on YouTube was fine but not too enjoyable due to the low resolution screen. It has support for Widevine L3, so you can watch movies and web shows on OTT platforms in standard resolution.
Motorola has not specified the peak amount of brightness of the E13 display but we struggled to view content outdoors. Even indoors, we had to set the brightness to at least 80% to get a reasonable viewing experience.
Under Rs 10k, the Moto E13 has one of the best quality speakers that we have used. The bottom speaker is Dolby Atmos certified so you get a loud and clear sound. We listened to various songs using the phone’s speaker and liked it quite a lot. You would enjoy your playback session without using any earphones.
Moto E13 Review: Performance and Software
The Moto E13 is powered by the entry-level Unisoc T606 SoC paired with 4GB of LPDDR4x RAM and 64GB of storage. It’s an octa-core processor built on 12nm fabrication. Graphics duties are handled by a Mali G57 GPU. If you think the bundled 64GB storage is insufficient for you, you can insert a microSD with a capacity of up to 1TB.
For reference, the Redmi A1 is powered by a Mediatek Helio A22 chip. Motorola claims this to be less powerful than the Unisoc T606 SoC, but we will take a look at that later.
The Moto E13 has been optimised to perform the best it possibly can. During our review period, we didn’t face any jitters between our day to day activities such as scrolling browser, watching videos, using camera, etc. However, the moment you start multitasking on it or keep multiple apps open in the background, the phone gasps for breath.
While a few smartphone brands are still launching their mid-range devices with Android 12, Moto has launched the E13 with the latest Android 13 Go Edition out of the box. Motorola as such has been a frontrunner in terms of software updates, so this doesn’t come off as a surprise.
For those who don’t know, the Go Edition is a lighter, watered version of Android. It provides a near-stock Android experience. However, there’s still some bloatware including apps like Adidas, eBay, Solitaire and Uber. These can be uninstalled easily. Apart from this, everything’s pretty basic except for a few add-on features from Motorola.
Coming to the benchmarks, the E13 recorded a score of 1,80,372 on AnTuTU v9.4 which is almost double of the Redmi A1. Similarly, the phone achieved a decent score of 314 and 1247 in single-core and multi-core tests on Geekbench respectively. To put things in perspective, the Infinix Hot 12 Play (Review), powered by a Mediatek Helio G37 chipset, scored just 117752 on AnTuTu and 161 and 874 in single-core and multi-core tests respectively on Geekbench. So, yes, the E15 should theoretically perform better than its two prime rivals.
Because it’s an entry level phone, we don’t recommend playing heavy games on it. Still, to get a better grasp of its abilities, we ran a few simulation and casual games such as Indian Train Simulator, Candy Crush, Temple Run and Dr. Driving. They ran just fine, without any hassle.
Switching to Call of Duty: Mobile was not a good idea as we faced constant stuttering in the middle of a game and the rear of the phone turned pretty toasty after half an hour of playing. By default, the game runs at Medium graphics at High frame rates.
Due to cost cutting, the company has ditched a physical fingerprint sensor on the Moto E13 which could have done a quick job here. As a result, the only ways to unlock the phone include the good-old PIN or pattern and face unlock. Funnily enough, the latter takes far longer than entering a PIN.
Moto E13 Review: Camera
The Moto E13 sports a 13-megapixel camera sensor on the rear along with a LED flash. Selfies and video call duties are handled by a 5-megapixel sensor. The camera UI is basic and straightforward. The camera comes along with several modes such as portrait, HDR, Night vision, timelapse, Pro, Panorama and QR code. Keeping in mind it’s a budget smartphone and the bar for photography at this point is pretty low, let’s take a look at the camera samples to know more.
- The 13-megapixel sensor takes decent daylight shots with faded colours and low details. It struggles to control the dynamic range in normal sunlight. During our testing, we had to keep the HDR on all the time, and still the blue sky seemed blown out.
- The phone has a portrait feature but that doesn’t make any difference because of the absence of a depth sensor. It lets you control the amount of blur but to be honest, it was hard to notice anything.
Portrait OFF 
Portrait ON - In low-lighting conditions, the drop in quality becomes even more noticeable, The camera struggles to focus and the pictures have a lot of noise. The Night Vision mode helps a lot in making objects appear clearer.
- The 5-megapixel front sensor is a hit or a miss. We captured a few good selfies with balanced skin tones but otherwise, it either made our face appear softer than usual or blew out the background entirely.
- The video capabilities max out at 1080p 30fps for both front and back cameras. The videos that it shot were decent but, again, they too were overexposed. The audio quality was decent, however.
Moto E13 Review: Battery and Charging
The Moto E13 comes with a 5,000mAh battery pack, which has become the norm these days. Moto’s claim of two-day battery life is pretty much spot on. Our usage was moderate, consisting of casual gaming, social media scrolling, a bit of camera work, browsing and watching videos on YouTube. We got a screen time of over eight hours, so that’s excellent battery life.
The charging is a big letdown as it only supports 10W charging. You can’t really complain much, because that’s what you usually get in this particular price segment. It takes over three hours to completely charge the phone. But hey, at least you look cool while doing it, thanks to the presence of USB Type-C here.
Moto E13 Review: Verdict
The Moto E13 is a balanced phone in its price segment. It has a good design, decent performance, long battery life, speakers that can get really loud and the latest version of Android. On the downside, its cameras and display are nothing to write home about and charging it takes an eternity.
If you are someone who is in the market for a budget smartphone with reliable battery life and decent day-to-day performance, the Moto E13 could be a good option for you. We strongly recommend buying the 4GB variant to at least give you the hope of multitasking.
There are very few rivals that come close to the Moto E13 for the price it sells, but if you have an extra grand lying around in your wallet, you can try out the Realme C33.
Also Read: Realme C33 Review: A Decent Budget Smartphone?
