The excellent Moto G returns, along with a few pals

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Motorola's Moto G handsets have a strong heritage of providing good specs at an attractive price point and the now Lenovo-owned firm has launched its fourth generation handsets with even more features during its event in New Delhi, India.

The past three generations of Moto G have comprised of just one device, but for 2016 we've been given three: the Moto G4, the Moto G4 Plus and the Moto G4 Play.

Slightly oddly, both the Moto G (2016) and Moto G Plus pack 5.5-inch full HD displays coated in Gorilla Glass 3, and 3000mAh power packs with a TurboPower charger in the box returning six hours of life in just 15 minutes.

In terms of power you're looking at the mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 octa-core processor on both devices, as well as each sporting a 5MP front facing camera.

You'll also find Google's Android Marshmallow on both the Moto G and G Plus, and in true Motorola fashion it's the stock version of the software with just a couple of small Moto tweaks to add some extra functionality.

Subtle differences

So with the same screen size, battery, operating system, processor and front facing camera, what are the differences between the two?

Well first up the Moto G4 Plus comes with an 16MP rear snapper, while the Moto G4 has to make do with a 13MP offering.

The G4 Plus also boasts a front-mounted fingerprint sensor, while the G4 doesn't get any biometric smarts.

The handsets revealed in New Delhi both sport dual-SIM setups, but the hope is the handsets will make their way to other regions, most likely in single-SIM variants.

In the UK the new Moto G (2016) will be available from early June 2016 for the SIM-free price of £169, while the new Moto G Plus arrives later that month for £199 - both highly reasonable prices. We're still waiting to hear availability and pricing for the rest of the world.

It's time to Play

Sliding into Moto's low-end spot is the Moto G4 Play. Taking a step down from its G4 brethren in terms of specs, it still looks to offer an experience that's plenty powerful for casual users.

It comes stocked with Android Marshmallow and a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM. The G4 Play has a 2,800mAh battery and 16GB of internal memory. Thankfully, there's a microSD slot here for boosted support up to 128GB.

While the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus each rock a 1080p FHD screen, the G4 Play comes in with 720p resolution. Another spec that has been bumped down slightly are the cameras. The color balancing flash and professional mode from the higher-end models won't arrive on the Play.

We've reached out to Motorola for pricing and availability information for the G4 Play.