Contract Free: Moto G And Republic Wireless Review

Republic Wireless’ big accomplishment with its service was developing a way to switch users seamlessly from calling, texting, or browsing via WiFi to doing so over a 3G or 4G connection. This requires special software the company developed, and although you don’t see it in action, it’s important to note that it is on board.

That said, there’s plenty of software pre-loaded onto the Moto G that you can see. The phone ships with a stock Android 4.4 (KitKat), and like the Moto X, it comes with Motorola software including Motorola Migrate and Motorola Assist.


Using Motorola Migrate, you can--well, migrate--everything from your old phone to the Moto G, including your photos and video, music, text and call history, and contacts. This works on Android 2.2 devices and above as well as iCloud if you’re coming from the iOS family. The app is free, and using it requires just a few simple steps. You can pick and choose which categories of items you want to bring over by checking boxes. For example, if you don’t care to migrate your music collection, uncheck that box when prompted.


Motorola Assist lets you control when you receive various notifications. For example, if you’re in a meeting, you can silence your phone entirely or set it to send an autoreply text message, but you can allow calls from your “Favorites” or let a call come through if someone calls you twice within five minutes. You can create the same restrictions for when you’re asleep. It will even detect when you’re driving and help you keep your hands on the wheel by announcing who is contacting you instead of forcing you to look down and fiddle the phone.


When you pull down the notifications tab, you can switch with a tap to see a variety of items including brightness controls; a quick link to the Settings area; WiFi, cell, and Bluetooth connectivity status; battery life; location; and more. Swipe up from the home screen and you get access to Google Now.

The home screen has the usual call, Chrome, text, and camera buttons across the bottom, and above those is a link to the Google Play store and a folder containing several Google apps including Gmail, Google+, Maps, and the other usual suspects.

There’s a Republic Wireless app on board that shows you your phone number and connectivity status, but it’s also the place where you can create a help request or connect with the Republic Wireless community. You can also change your phone plan (up to twice per month) from the app.

There’s also an FM Radio app that’s included on the Moto G, just in case that’s something you still do, as well as Quickoffice and a Play Games app that connects you to the Google Play Games community.