Sharp screen, powerful processor, sturdy build, good battery life, touchless control, 4G
Over twice the price of the Moto G, no expandable memory
The Moto X was the first phone from Motorola after Google's takeover last year. In the US that is -- here, confusingly, first honours went to the budget-priced, midrange specced Moto G. Now the Moto X is in the UK -- so how does it compare?
Design
On this evidence, Motorola (or is it Google?) knows what's important in a smartphone. So there's a fine screen and plenty of power, plus 4G connectivity and a lot more besides.
First things first. The back has a distinctive curve to it, bulging in the middle and tapering off a little at top and bottom.
While a lot has been made of this feature by Motorola it actually, well, kinda feels like a phone. The gently textured back feels nice to the touch but to be honest, the curve makes very little difference.
The 4.7-inch screen is a little bigger than the Moto G's 4.5-incher but it retains the same resolution of 1,280x720 pixels (312ppi). That's noticeably less than Google's other flagship phone, the Nexus 5, and actually ever so slightly less sharp than the Moto G, since the pixels are spread over a greater area. It still looks beautifully sharp and intense though,
Android, features and processor
It comes with the very latest 4.4 KitKat version of Android (which the Moto G should have caught up with by now as well), which includes a few incremental improvements but not much in the way of "must-haves.
The Moto X has "touchless control", which works by saying the catchphrase "OK Google Now", even when the phone's in sleep mode.
You can then ask it to call numbers, find locations using Google Maps and search the web. It matches the sound of your voice, and won't open for others. That aspect seemed to work pretty well, but it can get confused by background noise, and it didn't always recognise our voice requests, especially when names were involved.
Still, it works well enough to encourage you to get into the habit of using it.
The dual-core processor is clocked at 1.7GHz and backed by 2GB of RAM. Perhaps it would have been nice to see a quad-core version, but it still moves extremely fast, whizzing through apps and menus without a hint of delay. Our AnTuTu benchmark put it clearly ahead of the Moto G too -- with a score of 23,013 to 17,222.
Photography
The 10-megapixel camera has twice the megapixels of the Moto G (and two more than the Nexus 5) and the settings have been kept deliberately simple. There's no option to adjust resolution, white balance etc -- it's pretty much just point and shoot, iPhone-style, though you can bring in HDR or panorama settings as well as the flash. There's also a neat gesture control trick that lets you fire up the camera by shaking the phone. It fires up very quickly and picture quality is pretty good overall, with sharp edges, good colour balance and a decent level of detail. There's also a 2-megapixel camera on the front for video calls.
Memory-wise, there's 16GB available on the standard version but you're stuck with that as there's no option to expand the memory via microSD card.
The battery's slightly smaller than the Moto G's version but it still comfortably delivered a day and more of regular use.
Conclusion
It has a slightly larger screen, faster processor, better camera and more onboard memory than the Moto G as well as 4G connectivity.
Against the Nexus 5 it has a slightly smaller screen and a less powerful processor but a better camera. Plus it has the "touchless control" gubbins, which is nice, but perhaps more a sign of what's to come rather than what's here right now.
Both the Moto G might or Nexus 5 are available for less, and either may still be a better bargain, but with its extra offerings the Moto X is a very good, well-priced, state-of-the-art Android smartphone.
Software: Android 4.4 KitKat
Processor: Dual-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor
Memory slot: No
Display: 4.7in 1280x720 pixels
Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0
Ports: microUSB, 3.5mm headphone jack
Camera: 10 megapixel with autofocus, LED flash; 2 megapixel front-facing camera
Video playback: MPEG4, H.263, H.264, VP8
Audio playback: AMR-NB, AMR-WB, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, MP3, PCM, FLAC, MIDI, QCELP, EVRC, OGG/Vorbis
Radio: Yes
Battery: 2200mAh
Size: 129x65x10mm
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
