Moto G4 - a terrible Mobile device goal for 2021?

WebPageTest General Discussion
1

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that optimizing for the Moto G4 is no longer a good idea.

…and optimizing for it will drive us a little nuts because the lab tests are pretty erratic. :s (more about that below)

Here’s why I think the Moto G4 is a bad target device…

  1. Passing the Core Web Vitals (CWV) test is the new ultimate goal.

  2. Google uses your collected actual speed results (separated into Desktop and Mobile) to determine you CWV compliance. Actual results, not lab tests.

  3. Although Lighthouse and PageSpeedInsights tools still use the Moto G4 emulator + 3G Fast combo for mobile lab testing, the Moto G4 rarely appears in actual results anymore.
    (from GA, one of my sites had 27636 pageviews for a short period and only 2 of them were from a Moto G4 while 12498 or 45% were from iPhones)

Does anybody else see really erratic time results when doing “Moto G4” tests??? (Moto G4 with emulator and 3G Fast)

Out of a 3-test series, I see results with first view times like these:
2,10, 3 seconds
6, 2, 8 seconds
3, 5, 2 seconds
all from tests on same page, same settings, but 15 minutes apart.

I would really like to hear if others see erratic results for mobile tests like this. So I can stop pulling out my hair…

Thanks!

Greg

2

Related to the Moto G4 issue, I just saw an article from back in 2018 that had this graph:

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It shows how long it takes different 2017 era phones to process 1 MB of JS. Way back then, the Moto G4 was in the middle of the pack.

The phones at the top of the graph are mostly iPhone 6, 7, and 8’s. My guess if you re-calculated this graph today that the old iPhones would be close to the new average time, the Moto G4 would be down near the bottom, and that the really slow phones at the bottom of the old graph are now all dead and gone.

2 Likes
3

Low to mid-range Android phones haven’t progressed much over the years

Alex Russell put together a chart that does a good job of illustrating this https://twitter.com/slightlylate/status/1233275220275818498

Data comes from GeekBench so it’s possible to plot where more recent Android phones are

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4

Thanks Andy. That Twitter thread you linked had some good insights.

Their data was from 2018, but not on a speedy upward trajectory. So I guess it will be a few more years before Lighthouse replaces the Moto G4 with something more powerful.