Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Moto X (2014) Review!”.
Hey, what is up guys, I’m cabby HD here – and this is the 2014 Moto X or the new Moto X. If you remember the last Moto X this guy, it was a pretty popular phone for a lot of people who were into tech because it made us realize that not everything is about specs and you can make a really great phone that doesn’t have the highest end. Specs, so this didn’t have a 1080p display. It didn’t have the most expensive fastest processor in the world, but it delivered a pretty sweet experience that a lot of people liked and that’s what it was famous for this new Moto X is again taking a very similar approach. It’S not the highest end phone in the world: it’s definitely not the most expensive, but it does a lot of things about the experience right at least Motorola’s opinion and they’ve made some subtle changes to the software and hardware experiences with this second revision.
So, let’s take a look at if it’s worth it and if it’s better than the old moto x now aesthetically, just looking at the outside of the hardware, this new phone will seem pretty familiar. It has the same shape, same lines, same curves and same feel on the hand, as last year’s Moto X even has that same dimple. Although this time it’s bigger and it’s made of separate pieces that fit together and for some reason, the pieces in mind didn’t quite fit together perfectly so the dimple moves around a bit. I don’t know if that’s supposed to happen, but anyway it’s clear that we are working with essentially the same design here.
The button placement on the side is also the same as the old phone, with a bit of added texture on the power button, which is neat, and it feels basically like a stretched-out Moto X, and it also looks that way. But then there’s the addition of all the metal, so all the way around the phone. You now have this metal lining and it makes a huge difference for build quality and the way it feels holding it. It’S a bit heavier as well, but that’s a small price to pay for the fact that it feels so much better.
So much more solid in the hand – and I love that the metal frame is now also housing. Some new antenna that were in the inside of the phone before and overall its built just a lot better than its predecessor. Of course, you can also have moto maker and a bunch of different color and material choices and accent colors from regular soft touch plastic to wood to leather.
Now one thing I want to recommend is: I think we would want to stay away from the leather back. One, unless you really have to have it be coming, this is the black plastic back. So it’s not the leather, the leather, it’s a softer material. Basically, all of the leather moto X’s that I saw when I was playing with them in Chicago were very worn, and I don’t know how long they were using them, but none of them looked like they were in any good type of condition. Well, there is a softer material that wears much more easily and plus it’s not exactly friendly when it gets exposed to water.
So if such plastic on the back actually almost feels the same as the leather, until you start to press down on it and it doesn’t have that genuine leather smell and it might not feel quite as premium but I think we’d be pretty satisfied with pretty much Any of the plastic backs now on the front of the phone. The Moto X has some interesting hardware. It’S rocking a 5.2 inch 1080p display it’s an AMOLED display and much larger than the 4.7 inch of the old Moto X, and it’s a tiny bit warm and a whole lot saturated I’ve used. I guess so. Many IPS displays lately that coming back to this AMOLED display just reminds me how well oh le D, stuff pops with massive contrast and awesome saturation. So the colors are really vivid here, pops right off the screen and you can tend to make images look better than they really are on this screen. So I like the display and flanking the panel on the top and the bottom, our front-facing speakers.
Well, speaker, it’s a bit deceiving. You have a grill on the top and a grill on the bottom, but the top is only the earpiece or calls, and the bottom is the only speaker. So it means that you won’t get that stereo.
Effective sounds moving across the screen, like you would on a stereo phone like the HTC One. I mean there’s still better than if it was a downward facing or rear-facing speaker, but it’s not quite as good as I thought it would be, and it’s you know it’s still quite loud: it’s decent better than average. It’S just a little awkward. Only having a sound come from half of the phone, but also looking at the front. You can’t actually see these with your eyes, but the camera picks it up. Anyway, it’s the array of infrared sensors across the front of the phone, and it’s packing a bunch of these. You can see them blinking in each corner and basically these are sensors that are talking with a chip in the phone to be able to tell when you wave your hand over the phone, so it can show you your notification glance. That’S actually it that’s. What they’re, for I mean it’s a seriously dedicated sensor array and you can even see them better in the white version of the phone, because there are little holes behind the plastic at each corner, but yeah. It’S a software feature that Motorola felt was important enough to spend a little extra on, but speaking of the software, the story here is also familiar to the last Moto X in the best possible way.
Last year, Motorola tried really hard to keep Android as close to stock as they could, and they did did you know they didn’t add any unnecessary crap. They avoided the bloatware. They moved to updating as fast as they can a lot of stuff. They move to the Play Store and this phone continues that trend, and I love it so so many companies are trying to add value to their phones via software, which I get, but the adjustments they make are sometimes just change for the sake of change or some Crazy features that people will never use Motorola has done. Basically, none of these few adjustments that they have made have also been really helpful. One of them is now the ability to name your phone anything.
So you had to say: ok, Google, now before that, doesn’t wake up my phone, because I’ve actually told it to respond to ok, Jarvis and I think that’s a neat. Little touch. Another adjustment versus last year is in the peak notifications. So, instead of only being able to see one at a time, you can now scroll sideways and peek between more than one notification.
That by itself is awesome and Motorola has rebranded and simplified a lot of their other commands so that moto assist and moto actions and moto display all kind of work. In the background for you so, for example, little reader text, I live when you’re in a moving car. Instead of you know some of the crazy outlandish features, other guys are doing and another benefit of being so close to stock Android is the performance, is damn impressive. It might not be the highest end processor in the world: it’s a Snapdragon 801. It might not be the most ram in the world, it’s you know two gigs and it might not be the best graphics chip in the world, but the performance of this phone is right up there with the best in the world of all the Android phones.
I’Ve used and I’ve used a lot smoothness and the graphics and fluidity of the Moto X is right up there in, like the top three, with the Google Play edition, One m8 and the oneplus one and even beating out Nexus 5. I mean this thing is really smooth. So if you couldn’t already tell I’m a huge fan of the software experience on the new Moto X and I’m pumped to see how it will do running, Android, L, hopefully really soon, the other only problems you have and they’re not even really problems they’re more. Like trade-offs are the battery life and the camera, and I say these are trade-offs only because, even though this is technically Motorola’s highest end phone and their flagship showcasing the best they have to offer, it’s still only a $ 99 phone on contract and $ 4.99 off Contracts so again, it’s technically speaking, not super high-end and the first place it shows is the battery it’s meh. You know it’s only a slight slight bump from last year.
It’S a 2300 million power battery now but like the screen is so much bigger and higher resolution. Now that you would think they’d bump the battery more and I feel like with a phone this thick they’d have room for it, but nope just 2300. So I’m getting two and a half hours of screen on time with my normal use, where I typically get three to four on other high-end flagships and it’s a sealed in battery, so you can’t replace it so again, it’s it’s not really a problem. It’S not like! It’S dying before the end of the day or anything, but it’s a trade-off to the point where I start to alter my use towards the end of the day.
To make sure I don’t run out, and also I mentioned the camera, so it has that nifty little twist to open gesture that I use all the time. I love that and similar to last time, some very, very simple software, just tap the viewfinder to take a picture. You know the menus are super simple. You can swipe them in and out really easy to get to.
The viewfinder takes up pretty much the whole screen, but the optics are a little bit interesting. So it’s a new 13 megapixel sensor. That seems like a good number and it has this ring flash around the glass now which is supposed to be in theory. I guess a bigger flash spread, but it’s too small to actually matter.
It’S really just two LEDs inside a ring shape reflector, but when it comes to photo quality, the number doesn’t really mean much. This phone is super hit or miss I’ve been taking photos for weeks now, with this guy and a lot of times, the pictures are really not bad. You know, and bright outdoors and even normal indoor light. This camera can handle anything well. It looks a lot of times like a photo that came from an LG g3 or another high-end phone, but most of the misses and it does miss quite a lot are coming from when you try to take a picture with like a foreground subject and you tap The screen to focus, but then it just takes the picture instead of refocusing and another miss is low-light. Basically anytime.
You think you might need a flash forget about it. It’S not good in low wait. It just isn’t taking good images. I found I’ve tried many different ways that won’t do it, but the 4k video, on the other hand, is actually pretty good. I was comparing it side-by-side with another phone that shoots 4k video and they looked about the same so that was encouraging. But one thing about 4k, though, is if I switch to 4k in the camera to shoot and then close the camera app and then open the camera right back up again, it’s back to 1080p.
I actually want to be able to keep 4k on all the time, but I can’t either way the camera is just not a high point on this phone. It’S definitely not going. You know, overall, to take quite as good images in the same range of conditions as other high-end smartphones and, like I said, the battery isn’t quite as good either so they’re trade-offs because, as Motorola’s high-end phone, this moto X is going to be compared to other companies. Highest end phones and those are the areas where it falls short, but really when it comes down to it, I just really like using this phone.
I love that they didn’t try to do too much with the software they’re sticking to their guns of that pure Android experience, and I think that will help them get updates faster, that’ll help. You know not have so much unnecessary, confusing crap and that’s great, and so that plus a similar design to last year and curves that match last year’s phone. This is a very comfortable step forward. Doesn’T really stick out too much, not too flashy it just it gets the job done.
It’S a great phone, solid flagship for Moto. Just don’t forget the price when you go, comparing it to the other guys. So that’s my Moto X, 2014 review. It’S still an awesome phone and I was still recommend it for anyone who likes what they see in review.
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