The Moto G (2015) is
possibly going to be the hottest smartphone in the budget smartphone segment in
developing countries like India and Brazil for at least the next few months.
Considering the performance that the handset is able to deliver at a price
point of only $200, this should not really come as a surprise.
However, if you are
looking to further improve the experience of using your third generation Moto G,
check out our list of the top tips and tricks for the handset below.
Turn off the quick camera gesture
Just like the Moto X and
other high-end devices from Motorola, the third generation Moto G comes with
the company’s now famed twist for quick capture camera gesture.
However,
unlike other Moto devices, this gesture on the Moto G is a bit too sensitive
and sometimes automatically triggers itself. Thankfully, Motorola offers an
option to disable this gesture, though it is buried deep inside the Camera app
of the handset.
Simply
open the camera app, swipe to the left to bring up the semi-circular settings
menu, scroll down to the very bottom of the menu and tap on the gesture icon
and then select the ‘Turn off’ option.
Move apps to SD Card
The
Moto G (2015) comes with 16GB of internal storage, out of which only around
12GB is available to the end user. This is more than enough storage space for
casual consumers, but heavy gamers will run out of space on the device in no
time. Since the handset comes with a microSD card slot though, you can install
a memory card and move apps to it to free up internal storage.
While
Motorola says that the Moto G supports cards of up to 32GB, I have personally
tested and found that 64GB cards work just fine on the device as well.
Use Moto Assist
Motorola has updated
the Moto Assist app on its 2015 lineup of devices, including the Moto G,
to make it smarter.
The app can now automatically trigger certain actions depending on your
location. For example, you can set your Moto G to automatically silence all
notifications or vibrate to notify once when you are at home or office or in a
meeting.
To use
Moto Assist, open the Moto app on your Moto G, tap on Assist and then tap the
‘+’ sign located at the bottom right corner of the screen to specify a location
where an activity needs to be trigged followed by the activity itself.
Enable ‘OK Google’
Unlike
other OEMs, Motorola ships its devices with a near stock build of Android and
the third generation Moto G is no exception to this rule. This also means that
the handset comes with Google Now Launcher as the default launcher,
which features ‘OK Google’ functionality. This feature will allow you to say
“OK Google” followed by a command to execute tasks or do a quick Google search.
Considering
how good Google’s voice recognition algorithms are and the ever increasing list
of voice commands supported by Google Now, this is one feature that every third
generation Moto G owner should have enabled by default.
To
enable ‘Ok Google’ functionality on your Moto G, open Google Now, swipe from
the left edge of the screen to bring up the navigation drawer and then tap on
Settings. Now, head over to ‘Voice’ followed by ‘Ok Google’ and then
follow the instructions shown on the screen to enable the feature.
Pin Apps
Since the third generation Moto
G runs a near stock build of Android, all the features added by Google to the
OS are still intact. This includes the option to pin a specific app on the
screen. With this option enabled, you can have only one app pinned on the
screen of your Moto G and no amount of pressing the back or home button will
exit the app. It is definitely a handy feature to have when you pass your
phone to someone to show them a document or an image and don’t want them to
press the back button and pry on your data.
To pin an app on the third
generation Moto G, head over to Settings -> Security -> Screen Pinning
and toggle the switch to on. Then proceed to open the app that you want to pin,
hit the ‘Recents App’ button and select the pin icon being displayed on the
app’s card.
Smart Lock
Another feature of Lollipop
that is intact on the third generation Moto G is Smart Lock. The feature
removes the hassle of continuously locking or unlocking your device when you
are in a secured environment. Using Smart Lock, you can set your third
generation Moto G to automatically unlock when it is connected to a trust
Bluetooth device, when you are at home or when it detects your face. Smart Lock is among the best features introduced by Google in Lollipop, but
since the feature is buried so deep within the OS, not many Android users know
about it. You can access Smart Lock from Settings -> Security -> Smart
Lock. Keep in mind that using Smart Lock requires that you have a pattern or a
PIN lock already set on your device first.
Customise Moto
Display
By default, the Moto Display
feature on the third generation Moto G will wake up the display on the device
to notify you of any new notification. If you receive notifications from a lot
of apps though, this can get a bit irritating. Thankfully, Motorola allows
you to tweak the functionality of Moto Display through its Display app.
You can head over to the
Moto app on your third generation Moto G, tap on Display and customise Moto
Display according to your liking. The customisation options offered by the app
include the ability to display notifications only from certain apps, not to
wake up the screen when a new notification comes in, and more.
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