A thousand bucks gets you a premium smartphone with a long list of high-end features, but how much smartphone can you get for only $150? More than you might think.

Motorola's new Moto E6 costs $150, one tenth of Apple's top-of-the-line iPhone XS Max, and yet it's still a fairly good smartphone. Sure, you don't get the bells and whistles of more expensive phones, but maybe you don't need them.

The Moto E6 is the sixth-generation of the company's budget-friendly E-series Android phones. Since the first Moto E, Motorola's strived to pack in as much smartphone for under $200.

This time around, Motorola's simplified the series back down to a single model (no more confusing "Plus" and "Play" versions), and it's not that bad, to be honest.

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The phone's made of plastic, and I'm OK with that, because come on, it's just $150. Cut it some slack. It comes in two colors: "starry black" and "navy blue." The "starry black" model has specks of, um, "stars" and gives the ordinarily boring black plastic a subtle hint of excitement. The Moto E6 isn't water-resistant, but is water repellent, which means it won't survive a drop in a toilet or pool, but light rain should be fine.

On the front, there's a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display with 18:9 aspect ratio and HD+ resolution (1,440 x 720). Usually, budget phones come with budget displays, but the Moto E6's screen is better than I expected. It's a good size, has good colors, gets bright enough, and has decent viewing angles when viewed from the sides.

The screen's not bad for $150. Credit: raymond wong / mashable

Underneath the hood are acceptable specs for a $150 phone: Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 octa-core chip, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage (expandable up to 256GB via microSD card), and a 3,000 mAh removable battery. There's also a 3.5mm headphone jack! Unfortunately, it's stuck with with a Micro USB port instead of USB-C.

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I griped about new gadgets still shipping with Micro USB and not USB-C, and a lot of people seem to agree:

Tweet may have been deleted

Micro USB in 2019 is inexcusable. It's been like five years since USB-C first arrived. If companies don't switch to USB-C now, then when?

The cameras are also decent (on paper, at least). Around back, there's a 13-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture for improved low-light performance. Motorola's also added a few camera modes — "Portrait mode" and "Spot Color" — it previously reserved exclusively for its pricier Moto G7 and Moto Z phones.

Can you see the "stars" in the black plastic? Credit: raymond wong / mashable

For selfies, the Moto E6 has a 5-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture. The front camera also has a number of handy shooting modes, including "Portrait mode," "Face beauty," and "Best shot" many budget phones don't.

Furthermore, the Moto E6 runs Android 9 Pie with no bloatware apps. Motorola's added a few of its own features, but it's nothing that gets in the way of stock Android like on other phones. Plus, this one will get Android Q when that's available.

The Moto E6 sounds decent enough, right? So what are you giving up? For one thing, NFC. That means this phone doesn't support contact-less payments like Google Pay. The rear camera maxes out at 1080p resolution for video recording (no 4K). The phone also doesn't have stereo speakers — just a single speaker through the earpiece on the front. And there's no fingerprint sensor so you'll have to use a password or Android's Face Unlock feature.

That said, I think Motorola cut the right corners for the Moto E6. You don't need me to remind you that this is a $150 phone, do you? Consider it the perfect spare phone (use it as a burner!) or for kids or seniors who don't need the latest and priciest.

The Moto E6 is launching first on Verizon. For other carriers, Motorola says "T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, Boost Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Consumer Cellular and Xfinity Mobile" and an unlocked version at Amazon, Best Buy, B&H Photo and Walmart will be available throughout the summer. Canadians will get the phone sometime this summer as well.

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