Moto X (Is Out) [8.01.2013]

[s44]

It's sad when a company gets crticized for doing the right thing.

"The right thing" = gouging the consumer by charging high-end prices for lower-end hardware

Or, you know, not.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

people who fail to see, probably need glasses because this phone imho is a step in the right direction. It's sad when a company gets crticized for doing the right thing.

It offers things we want: optimization, battery life, top of the line GPU, RGB matrix Amoled, real software that we could use hands free (optimized with dedicated hardware too), and customization.

This phone elimiated things we don't want: bloated software, pentile matrix,

This phone eliminated things we don't need: quadcore and 1080p screen.

The only thing this phone is missing is a decent camera, but who really has a decent camera except Lumia 1020???

First of all the battery life is middle of the pack. Display is middle of the pack. Camera looks terrible compared to GS4/1020/One. They are some interesting things they've done to customize the phone and the at-a-glance features are nice, but hardly earth shattering IMHO.

At the end of the day I see no reason to recommend this phone to anyone when there are better options out there for contract users.

 

[Cobalt]

Received mine today. When I get a few hours or so to play with it I'll post my thoughts

 

[openwheel]

Please show me the history of your posts championing using 2 cores and deriding HTC and Samsung for using 4 cores and 1080p screens.

Were you actually rooting for dual core and 720p phones or are you just now chanting that to excuse whatever Motorola released. If it had been a quad core phone and 1080p, you would've been just as happy.

Yes sir I will get right on that. Give me a few years to research that for you. In the mean time:

I never saw the need for 1080P on a 4.7" screen. Did you? I thought the whole point of "retina" is so that the human eyes can't see the difference without looking at it from 2 inches away. Given the same spec, lower resolution yields better performance as well. So why the hurry to go 1080P on a tiny screen? Also, we've all learned the lesson from 480x800 RBG and 720P Pentile displays. Higher resolution is not always better.

You are a big Apple fan, you should know better.

 

[openwheel]

First of all the battery life is middle of the pack. Display is middle of the pack. Camera looks terrible compared to GS4/1020/One. They are some interesting things they've done to customize the phone and the at-a-glance features are nice, but hardly earth shattering IMHO.

At the end of the day I see no reason to recommend this phone to anyone when there are better options out there for contract users.

LTE web browsing battery is on par with S4 and HTC One.
Wifi web browsing battery is on par with Note 2.
Cellular talk time battery is almost on par with S4 and HTC One.

According to Brian Klug, it's on par with all others (with a relatively smaller battery). I guess you can reword that as "middle of the pack".

I haven't seen any "earth shattering feature" from ANY phone, since the original iPhone and original Droid. I do agree that $199 on contract is off the target, but I'll let the market decide.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

LTE web browsing battery is on par with S4 and HTC One.
Wifi web browsing battery is on par with Note 2.
Cellular talk time battery is almost on par with S4 and HTC One.

According to Brian Klug, it's on par with all others (with a relatively smaller battery). I guess you can reword that as "middle of the pack".

I haven't seen any "earth shattering feature" from ANY phone, since the original iPhone and original Droid. I do agree that $199 on contract is off the target, but I'll let the market decide.

Again why should I buy this phone when I can get SGS4 or iPhone5 on contract for the same price?

There's nothing compelling about it.

 

[openwheel]

The always listening feature is the killer feature for me. It allows true hands free operation which to me makes Google Now truly useful. I would take that over quad core, 1080p and slightly more mediocre camera. Different stroke for different folks I guess.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Yes sir I will get right on that. Give me a few years to research that for you. In the mean time:

I never saw the need for 1080P on a 4.7" screen. Did you? I thought the whole point of "retina" is so that the human eyes can't see the difference without looking at it from 2 inches away. Given the same spec, lower resolution yields better performance as well. So why the hurry to go 1080P on a tiny screen? Also, we've all learned the lesson from 480x800 RBG and 720P Pentile displays. Higher resolution is not always better.

I agree with you. I don't think we *HAVE* to go 1080p now and it's not a dealbreaker feature. I think the issue here is that the competition has reached 1080p, so the question is why not. For all the neffing you and I do on this forum, do you think its wise for us to buy some 2 year old computer? Maybe Sandy Bridge is fast enough, but why buy Sandy Bridge when you can buy Haswell today. I don't necessarily *need* any new features, and SB may be good enough, but for the same price as a much better flagship, I ask what's the point?

Look, I'm not saying the Moto X is good or bad. It's probably not the phone for me, but why are you so viciously fighting against 1080p and quad cores? Do they do you harm? It's one thing if the Moto X actually offered far better battery life, but it doesn't. My point is you can cheer for the Moto X all you want, that's fine. But as others have said its middle of the pack at best and really doesn't prove itself better than other phones. Don't act like the other phones suck or something like that, as if eliminating 1080p and quad cores is some sort of benefit to the consumer.

You are a big Apple fan, you should know better.

Uh I'm not. And even if I was, it has nothing to do with my criticism about dual versus quad cores.

The always listening feature is the killer feature for me. It allows true hands free operation which to me makes Google Now truly useful. I would take that over quad core, 1080p and slightly more mediocre camera. Different stroke for different folks I guess.

That's perfectly fine. It's about different strokes for different people.

 

[lopri]

That the phone is largely bloat-free is a quite valuable "feature" in my book. I am eager to see it in person and to hear first-hand experiences.

What do others think of the tapered front glass? This phone and the N4 both have similar shaped curved glass on the sides. On the other hand, we have phones like the S4 that have metal rims that stand ever so slightly taller than its screen.

The trade-off is obvious in that the latter is better at protecting the glass when the phone is lying upside down, while the former gives you better ergonomic grips and can make the phone feel slimmer than it actually is.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I don't like the tapered front glass in general because it makes screen protectors difficult to apply unless they make a curved version.

I'm also curious how much of an effect it makes so that the device feels thinner. How much thicker would the N4 feel without the tapered edges?

 

[thedosbox]

Again why should I buy this phone when I can get SGS4 or iPhone5 on contract for the same price?

There's nothing compelling about it.

a) not touchwiz
b) not iOS

More seriously, why are you expecting someone to convince you to buy this (or any other phone)? It's your money, spend it how you will.

Don't like the compromises in this device? There are plenty of alternatives.

What do others think of the tapered front glass? This phone and the N4 both have similar shaped curved glass on the sides. On the other hand, we have phones like the S4 that have metal rims that stand ever so slightly taller than its screen.

The Moto X has a slight edge at the top and bottom of the screen, but none at the sides. Helps avoid screen damage, without affecting comfort.

 

[lopri]

The Moto X has a slight edge at the top and bottom of the screen, but none at the sides. Helps avoid screen damage, without affecting comfort.

That appears to be true looking at the close-up photos. And it is a very nice design compromise, I have to say.

Is the phone fatter at the top or is it just the way pictures were taken?

 

[bearxor]

The phone is tapered isn't it? Kind of like the teardrop rumor that was going around for the iPhone 5 a year ago or so. Where it's thicker at the top, where the camera and sensors are, and thinner at the bottom, where there's not as much needed.

 

[Shackanaw]

What do others think of the tapered front glass? This phone and the N4 both have similar shaped curved glass on the sides.

I've yet to hold the X in my hands, but this is easily my favorite design feature on my Nexus 4.

I'm still not 100% clear exactly what is meant by the fused plastic/glass design that I've heard about on the X. Anandtech's review mentions that they can feel a tiny gap between the glass and plastic, but I'm not sure if this is on the edge of the screen, or where the customizable back and the glass of the front meet up.

 

[Shackanaw]

Motorola Reveals More X8 Chip Details:


Sounds like they've done a decent amount of work to ensure that the software runs as efficiently as possible. Or, they could just be vomiting up technobabble. After all, they did try to market this as an 8-core package.

Anandtech's review thankfully sheds some light on these claims: they've indeed changed the filesystem, and they've enabled TRIM on 4.2 and have it running differently than 4.3 handles it.

It seems like the Moto X implements TRIM on delete, at least on the F2FS partition. My guess is that TRIM on delete is fairly easy to implement with F2FS given the file system’s SSD-like garbage collection.

Motorola’s decision to include F2FS on the Moto X appears to be a great one from a performance standpoint. The Moto X is the first Android device I’ve used that should be able to keep its performance relatively high while operating in a (nearly) full partition state.

F2FS seems to mirror a lot of the fundamental architecture decisions of high-end SSDs, but at the file system level in software. As eMMC controllers tend to be fairly limited in performance, and eMMC firmware architectures are equally disappointing, leveraging the host OS to do things a little better makes a lot of sense. For the past couple of years I’ve been wondering what the path will be to improve storage performance in mobile devices. I’d previously assumed that we would simply see steady increases in storage performance/complexity, but perhaps we’ll instead see the burden shared by both mobile hardware and the underlying OS/file system.

 

[you2]

Well the thing is that while the moto x might have less bloat and enable a better FS; it also has no sd slot (which the gs4/note ii have). I think I can live with the bloat and the option to add 64GB anytime I feel the need for extra space....
-
With regards to battery; again no replace able battery; but i can swap batterys on the gs4/note ii when the need arise (this is more important if you plan on keeping the device a year or two).

 

[evident]

With regards to battery; again no replace able battery; but i can swap batterys on the gs4/note ii when the need arise (this is more important if you plan on keeping the device a year or two).

THIS. swapping batteries may not be important to some of you, but for people who keep phones for a while it's what keeps a person having a phone that will last more than a year. My SGS2's battery died after about 12 months. what if that phone was an htc one? i would have had to sell it for parts or figure out how to open it up and replace it. thats why i chose SGS4 over the xperia, one, or other plenty of good but non-replaceable battery android phones.

 

[Ravynmagi]

THIS. swapping batteries may not be important to some of you, but for people who keep phones for a while it's what keeps a person having a phone that will last more than a year. My SGS2's battery died after about 12 months. what if that phone was an htc one? i would have had to sell it for parts or figure out how to open it up and replace it. thats why i chose SGS4 over the xperia, one, or other plenty of good but non-replaceable battery android phones.

A battery dying in 12 months is something that shouldn't happen. I can't avoid buying a phone because some user unreplaceable part might fail. That could happen to a variety of components on any phone.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

A battery dying in 12 months is something that shouldn't happen. I can't avoid buying a phone because some user unreplaceable part might fail. That could happen to a variety of components on any phone.

Definitely shouldnt. I abuse my battery on my GN by tethering all day and keeping it charged and its not dead yet in about 2 years.

Btw, the Moto X is not bloat free. Idk why everyone keeps touting that.

 

[Cobalt]

Really liking the X so far. Gonna swap sims with my S4 and give it daily driver status for a bit. The overall size just makes it an absolute joy to use among other things.

 

[lopri]

A battery dying in 12 months is something that shouldn't happen. I can't avoid buying a phone because some user unreplaceable part might fail. That could happen to a variety of components on any phone.

What evident says is that we know certain parts are more susceptible to untimely death and/or there are ways to mitigate such. Replaceable batteries, screen protectors, casings, and insurances, etc,. One can have different value positions on what matters more, but "anything could die" is not very responsive to the point s/he made.

 

[lopri]

For instance, I decided not to put on screen protectors any more on my devices because I feel like I am missing out the benefits of Gorilla Glass. Others may disagree but it is a matter of opinion, and it would be off-point for me to say "any glass could break" so that it is of no use to apply screen protectors.

 

[evident]

For instance, I decided not to put on screen protectors any more on my devices because I feel like I am missing out the benefits of Gorilla Glass. Others may disagree but it is a matter of opinion, and it would be off-point for me to say "any glass could break" so that it is of no use to apply screen protectors.

gorilla glass to me is no better than any other glass. i've had friends who had their iphone 3gs, 4s, 5, galaxy 2, 3 all with broken screens. what's the benefit of gorilla glass?

and yeah, a battery is the one part that will experience the most wear of a phone imo. to me, it's really luck of the draw on if you get a battery that will last a while, no matter the model. my buddy's iphone 5 has a half day of battery life, and i've heard horror stories of crappy batt life with nexus 4's. why take that risk when you can get a (superior imo) device where you can replace one if it dies for 20 bucks instead of complaining about it?

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Definitely shouldnt. I abuse my battery on my GN by tethering all day and keeping it charged and its not dead yet in about 2 years.

Btw, the Moto X is not bloat free. Idk why everyone keeps touting that.

Same for me.

This battery has taken one hell of a beating.

 

[thedosbox]

Btw, the Moto X is not bloat free. Idk why everyone keeps touting that.

Depends on what bloat you're referring to. Heavy OEM skin (ala touchwiz)? Doesn't have it. Carrier bloat (e.g. AT&T address book)? Varies by carrier - the Rogers version has zero carrier apps preloaded.