Motorola Moto X review: A comfy Android with mass appeal
The good: The Motorola Moto X
squeezes a speedy camera and futuristic voice command capabilities into
a well-crafted design that hits the sweet spot between screen size and
comfort. The phone has great battery life and is available in an endless
variety of customized designs.
The bad: With
no expandable storage, space could get tight, especially on the 16GB
base model. The screen isn't as big and sharp as those on some competing
handsets.
The bottom line: While
in screen quality and storage capacity it lags behind rival
superphones, the Moto X's superbly compact and comfortable design,
whiz-bang voice controls, and long battery life make it a worthy Android
contender.
To put it bluntly, Motorola has never created a true flagship ubersmartphone on the level of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One.
But the company aims to change that with the Moto X. The $199
smartphone is Motorola's first handset fully developed under the
auspices of its corporate parent (and Android godfather), Google. And
it'll be available on most major U.S. carriers when it hits stores later
in August.
Make no mistake; the Moto X isn't a fire-breathing
mobile monster that will blow away the competitors in a spec sheet
battle -- the screen isn't cutting-edge, and there's no expandable
storage. Storage is the phone's biggest weakness: with just 16GB in the
$199 model (the 32GB Moto costs $50 more) and no SD card slot for adding
more, it's got an uphill battle on the value scale versus the HTC One
(32GB by default) and Galaxy S4 (expansion slot onboard).
Storage
qualms notwithstanding, though, the X is a nimble, compact handset with
advanced capabilities that targets ordinary phone users. The Moto X
boasts many of the same features that Motorola's new trio of Verizon
Droids flaunt -- especially always-on Google Now voice control -- plus a
few slick extras. Better yet, they're all crammed into a highly
customizable design built for maximum comfort. This is a scrappy
smartphone with enough going for it to bring the fight to the big boys.
Under the thumb of Verizon's macho Droid brand for years, Motorola's
smartphone industrial design has been well, industrial. Ever since the
original Droid device hit the scene, Motorola has cranked out flagship
machines sporting sharp angles, Kevlar coatings, and hard metallic
trims.
To be fair, that's not a bad thing; those devices have
been very popular. Plus the company's upcoming Droid mobile machines are
less stark than their predecessors, featuring smoother curves and no
metallic highlights. All three devices, though, the Droid Mini, the
Droid Ultra, and the Droid Maxx, keep the traditionally aggressive red
or sober black color scheme that's in keeping with Verizon's
intimidating robotic franchise.
The Moto X's compact, contoured shape makes it easy to hold.
The Moto X, however, pushes this history aside and attempts to
turn an all-new page and gain broader appeal. Instead of harshly
chiseled lines, the Moto X is sculpted with softly rounded curves. The
phone's back is gently rounded for a more comfortable grip. It's an
approach many hardware makers are taking these days, including HTC with
its One and One Mini.
The Galaxy S4 handset is also similarly contoured, but unlike Samsung's
slippery, smudge-prone runaway hit, the Moto X has a textured
soft-touch finish.
Motorola
takes this contoured design a step further, shaping the back of the Moto
X with left and right edges that slope at a sharper angle than the
middle of the device. Motorola claims that this careful molding fits
your hand better than a simpler uniform arc. The handset even uses a
specially formed battery (2,200mAh, embedded) to match the Moto X's
unique curvature.
The bottom is sloped more steeply at the edges.
I have to admit that when I picked up Motorola's latest
creation, it felt pretty damn good, its rounded frame fitting my fingers
and palm like a glove. While I experience a similar reaction when I
grip the HTC One, the Moto X's contours and solid chassis exude just as
much quality and luxury to me. I also like how the phone's soft-touch
backing wicks away moisture and fingerprints and has an almost metallic
rigidity.
Choose from multiple colors and patterns for your Moto X.
A huge part of the Moto X's design story is its made-in-America (or at
least designed-and-assembled-in) moniker. As Motorola has explained
earlier, it will design, engineer, and construct all Moto X units in the
United States; Fort Worth, Texas, to be precise.
Consumers will have a choice of two basic colors to choose from
when purchasing a new Moto X handset, white and black. Motorola,
however, will offer buyers the option to personalize their phones with
custom hues, patterns, and engravings crafted to order at Motorola's new
Texas factory.
The back of the Moto X uses a premium soft-touch finish.
These tweaking options, done through the Moto Maker online
studio, include two front colors, 18 on the back, and seven accents.
Motorola claims that this variety allows for thousands of permutations.
There will even be custom wallpaper designs and cases to gussy up your
device with. And thanks to the plant's Fort Worth location, shoppers who
order the gadget can expect it to hit their doorstep within four days.
Be advised that Moto Maker will be available for AT&T versions of
the Moto X exclusively, at least at first.
Screen
In many respects the Moto X's display is a step down compared with what
you get from the latest crop of premium smartphones. Competing devices
such as the Sony Xperia Z,
HTC One, and Samsung Galaxy S4 all have screens of 4.7 inches or
larger. These gadgets also flaunt displays with full-HD resolutions
(1,920x1,080 pixels), translating into massive views that still manage
to offer high pixel densities.
By contrast the Moto X's 4.7-inch
720p (1,280 by 720 pixels) OLED screen, while no doubt large, doesn't
serve up quite the same level of sharpness as HTC's and Samsung's mobile
hot rods. I must stress, though, that unless you've had bionic eye implants
or carry a jeweler's loupe, you probably won't pick up on any lack of
detail. Additionally, the Moto X's OLED screen technology produces vivid
colors, deep blacks, and wide viewing angles.
Of course a
display's impact isn't based on just resolution, brightness, and color
quality. Case in point: the Moto X's screen has an extremely thin bezel
that lovingly hugs the front edges of the handset. Similar to those
found on last year's Droid Razr M and the company's newly announced Droids, this helps the Moto X's display appear larger than life and command your attention.
It's not superthin but it sure is compact.
Motorola calls the engine that propels the new Moto X its X8 Mobile
Computing System, the same electronics under the hood of its new Droids.
Claimed to include eight distinct processing cores, the system sure
sounds impressive. When you break it all down, though, the X8
essentially is really just a souped-up 1.7GHz dual-core Qualcomm S4 Pro
processor paired with quad-core Adreno 320 graphics.
To bring the
core count up to eight, Motorola also throws in two additional
low-power processing centers, one for contextual computing and another
for analyzing spoken language. OK, so this may help the Moto X's total
"core" tally reach the magic number, but I'm sure I'm not alone in
crying foul.
When I think of numerous CPU cores, I envision
multiple electronic brains of equal power and speed working in unison to
tackle every smartphone task. Since not all of the X8's cores are
created equal and they are relegated to specific tasks (all but two
outside of general number-crunching), the Moto X is no true octa-core
phone in my book.
That said, its power is nothing to sneeze at,
either. The question remains how it'll compare with handsets with faster
quad-core Snapdragon 600 chips. Hopefully the Moto X's 2GB allotment of
RAM will keep the performance gap from being too great.
The Moto X runs Android 4.2.2, not version 4.3.
Given that the Moto X was born of the union between Motorola and Google,
I was surprised to learn that it doesn't come with the freshest flavor
of Android Jelly Bean (version 4.3). Rather, the phone runs Android
4.2.2 Jelly Bean. That said, Motorola has teamed up with Google to add
plenty of neat tricks, the most notable of which is contextual
computing, which the company refers to as "Touchless Control."
That's
really a fancy way of saying that the phone runs a low-power microphone
in the background with an ear continually trained on your voice. Just
as with the new Motorola Droid Mini, Ultra, and Maxx, speaking a magic phrase at your Moto X tells the device to fire up the Google Now information app.
Speak, and the Moto X does your bidding.
In the Moto X's case, to begin you say, "OK, Google
Now." From there you can ask a number of questions to find your current
location, the weather, sports scores, and the answers to other queries.
You can also tell the Moto X to set up reminders in your calendar, and
initiate calls, texts, and e-mails a la Siri -- except you don't have to
press a button.
The Moto X always has an ear out for your commands.
Aside from these slick voice capabilities, the Moto
X's interface essentially remains the same as stock Jelly Bean. The five
home screens, application tray, and widgets are pretty much identical
to what you'd see on Google-approved machines such as the LG Nexus 4 and the Google Play Editions of the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.
There
are some slight yet important differences, though. The Moto X will
softly pulse important notifications and alerts on the screen, even when
asleep, as they occur. Motorola says this will help users conserve
battery life since the phone won't have to power up the display each
time the notification light flashes. Holding your finger on the center
of the screen (and notification) causes the Moto X to display additional
details for the alert. Dragging your finger upward takes you directly
to the corresponding message if you decide more action is required.
In our hands the Moto X proved to be a good listener.
What follows are our first impressions of the camera quality of the Moto X; we'll continue to update as we shoot more photos.
Apparently
Motorola has finally taken camera capabilities seriously. Imaging has
been an ongoing weakness of the company's handsets, but it's clear the
Moto X is intended to address this deficiency. Motorola says its new
device, equipped with a 10-megapixel "Clear Pixel" RGBC sensor and LED
flash, can snap pictures with speed, and can grab 75 percent more light
than competing smartphone cameras. That results in lower shutter times
and clearer images under dark conditions.
I confess I'm pretty impressed with the Moto X's handling despite its
dual-core processor. The phone feels very lively and responsive whether
flipping through Android's menus and home screens or when launching
apps. After subjecting the device to my usual gauntlet of benchmarks,
I've found my results so far back up my impressions.
The Moto X is quick but not crazy-fast.
Call quality
I tested the Moto X on Verizon's CDMA network in New York and enjoyed
good but not outstanding call quality. People I dialed with the handset
described my voice as clear and loud, but flat and lacking warmth. They
also noticed some clipping and dips in volume, especially at the
beginning and ends of sentences.
This could be due to the X's
complex noise suppression and voice recognition system, which leans on
three microphones and its X8 hardware, but that's just speculation on my
part.
Spoken words came through the Moto X's earpiece with
plenty of oomph on my end. In fact, I had to dial the loudness down or
risk eardrum pain. Another bright spot was the speakerphone, which
sounded virtually identical to a regular phone call to my callers and
belted out lots of volume.
Motorola says that five U.S. carriers will sell the Moto X: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and U.S. Cellular. My test unit, however, was a Verizon-branded device, so linked to Big Red's 4G LTE data network. I tested the phone in various locations in New York City, recording performance via Ookla's Speedtest.net app.
Download speeds I observed were satisfyingly quick, clocking in at an average of 10.1Mbps. Upload throughput was also not too shabby, reaching an average speed of 6.8Mbps. In my experience AT&T is still the king of smokin' LTE data numbers, at least in New York. I typically see average downloads breaking the 20Mbps and uploads in the midteens.
Verizon's 4G LTE delivered speedy data.
Run time doesn't seem to be a problem. I was able to get the Moto X to
perform a preliminary run of the CNET Labs video battery drain
benchmark. The handset happily hummed along for quite a while, playing
our sample HD movie for 10 hours and 9 minutes before calling it quits.
This
places the Moto X in good company as far longevity is concerned. The
HTC One managed 9 hours and 37 minutes on the same test while the
Samsung Galaxy S4 persevered for an even longer average of 10 hours and
30 minutes.
Where can you get the Moto X?
Motorola will also push its new device hard, pledging that its enticing
gadget will be sold by five U.S. wireless providers (AT&T, Sprint,
T-Mobile, Verizon, and U.S. Cellular) in addition to an unlocked model.
Expect the device to hit stores in late August or early September for a
suggested price of $199.99.
Motorola's most impressive handset yet certainly packs in plenty of
notable capabilities and functionality. But it's worth noting, also,
that hard-core Android enthusiasts and spec junkies likely won't find
the Moto X awe-inspiring. The 4.7-inch AMOLED screen is "only" 720p, and
the nonexpandable 16GB of storage in the $199 model is a stumbling
block; big-time media hounds and app addicts will burn through that
quickly. In the absence of an expansion slot (like the Galaxy S4 has), I
would've preferred that Motorola delivered 32GB in the baseline model,
just like the HTC One -- or that the company had priced the phone at
closer to $149 instead.
That said, Motorola took an
unconventional tack with this handset. Instead of the traditional tactic
of beating potential customers over the head with powerful components
and every feature under the sun, Motorola decided to cater to shoppers'
softer side -- focusing on how they use their phones every day.
To
that end, the Moto X succeeds. It packs a great camera, has swift
enough performance to satisfy all but the most demanding Android
fanboys, and offers battery life that goes the distance. Throw in its
superb, compact design and the Moto X doesn't even need to woo potential
customers with its fancy Buck Rogers voice-recognition skills. That's
merely the sweet icing on a mighty tasty cake.
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