Nexus 5X vs. Moto G (2015)

[maniac5999]

So, I've come to conclude that I'm not a power user. I surf the web, read, check facebook and twitter, and have been thinking about listening to some podcasts on my phone. (I listen to Hello Internet on my computer right now)

The GF broke her phone, so now it's time for me to get a new one. I'm on the low-spec Zenfone 2 right now, and hate the skin coming from a Moto G 2014, so stock Android is a must. Right now I'm using 11GB of my 16GB of internal storage, and 2GB of that is music that I never listen to.

Work's made me put a lock on my phone so I can get work email on it, so the fingerprint unlock would be nice, but the 5X is $160 more than the Moto G. I also like the idea of having the latest and greatest, and getting Android updates first, even if I never really do that much with them.

What do you think? Which should I get, I ordered the 5X as soon as pre-orders were possible, but they messed up and cancelled my order, and now I'm starting to reconsider. (Note, I wish I could make a Moto G in crazy colors, but since this will be a work phone it's got to look pretty conservative.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Sounds like you want the Nexus. Just get it if you can afford it. It should get updates for a few years.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Meh, just get the cheap one. They're both good phones.

 

[paperwastage]

keep your preorder and wait for reviews to come out... i dont think the phone will ship before the Oct 19th

the only other option (stock android, or skinned very lightly) would be the xperia z line (z3/z3 compact/z5/z5 compact)

more expensive though

 

[Seven]

The 5X provides a terrible value. It's a $400 phone after taxes.. Unless you need that fingerprint get the Moto G is a superb phone for the money. I would even get the Moto X Pure instead of the 5X.

 

[maniac5999]

keep your preorder and wait for reviews to come out... I dont think the phone will ship before the Oct 19th

Oh, Google somehow managed to lose my pre-order. I still see the pending charge on my CC, but Google has no record of it. I kind of like the USB C and fast charging bits, but waterproofness is cool too. (I like to read in the bath, and while I've never had an accident, you never know.)

 

[paperwastage]

Oh, Google somehow managed to lose my pre-order. I still see the pending charge on my CC, but Google has no record of it. I kind of like the USB C and fast charging bits, but waterproofness is cool too. (I like to read in the bath, and while I've never had an accident, you never know.)

put another order.. dispute with cc if you get two phones

usb type-C will be a pain for a while.... current speculation/opinion is that the device only supports usb 2.0 (not 3.0), and 5X only comes with typeC->typeC cable (6P comes with typeC->typeC and normal USB->type C)


TBH, the 5X competes with Moto X Pure (excluding screen size), not the Moto G 3rd Gen

 

[Sheep]

I've been using the Moto G 2015 as a temportary replacement for about three weeks now after using the Nexus 5 2013 for almost two years. While the Moto G's battery life is nothing short of amazing, that's the only thing it has going for it, IMO. The Moto G simply doesn't compare to the Nexus 5 2013 in terms of smoothness. There's a slight lag present when typing or touching the screen that's annoying enough to me to be a dealbreaker.

Given this, I expect the 5X to trounce the Moto G in almost every way. That's to be expected given the price difference, though.

 

[Red Storm]

Nexus 5X gets my vote between those two.

 

[Chiropteran]

The 5X provides a terrible value. It's a $400 phone after taxes.. Unless you need that fingerprint get the Moto G is a superb phone for the money. I would even get the Moto X Pure instead of the 5X.

Well, unless you care about performance. The 808 in the 5X is vastly superior to the 410 that the Moto G uses.

I'm not trying to bash the G, it's great phone for the price, but it's performance is a bit lackluster compared to the high end.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

Basically a question of price. Is the 5X worth twice the cost to you? It's probably better in every way. I mean it had better be (possibly except in battery life).

Personally, I'd of course like a 5X, but I think the '15 G will be good enough for my use which is pretty minimal, like yours. At the moment I have a 2013 G and for over a week with half the screen shattered so anything will be an upgrade..

 

[kendalf]

I'm facing a similar decision as OP. Here's an alternative: the 2014 Moto X now starts at $299 for the 16GB Pure Edition. For only $80 more than the 2GB Moto G, you get a significantly better CPU and screen (and in a slightly smaller and lighter package too), and you still have the options in Moto Maker. A couple shortcomings compared to the Moto G are the battery (but Quickcharge can make up for that) and the Moto G camera is f2.0, slightly wider than the f2.25 of the Moto X. Probably the most major shortcoming is that the Moto X 2014 does not have the option for expanding memory with micro SD cards.

 

[Bman123]

If you can handle the size get a nexus 6, they are $350 or less new online. I love mine

 

[hans007]

so i dropped my 2015 moto X pure on the floor at work yesterday. we have concrete floors. my moto X is toast screen wise. i think honestly its weight helped kill itself more .. sigh

so I took out my extra test phone (a 2015 moto E) and im using that again.

having to make the decision to buy either a new moto G 2015 or a nexus 5x and i went with the G on amazon (they have the 2GB / 16GB model now).

i need more than 16GB of memory so the nexus 5X would have had to be a 32GB version or it'd be annoying managing that space. given the initial reviews are saying the battery is less than great, and i don't think i'd miss the cpu speed that much (the E has an even slower cpu and its well not THAT bad... really just annoying to have its ram swap apps out) it is just hard to justify $430 vs $220. especially since i'd also have to buy a bunch of new USB to usb C cables.

 

[Bman123]

Or spend $175 and get the screen replaced thru moto and use a case in the future

 

[ThisIsChrisKim]

Camera differences will be pretty big between the two if that matters.

 

[lopri]

I would still go with the 5X between the two. Doze is a game changer for Android phones other than Sony's. (Sony already had excellent battery management which Google probably copied in 6.0)

 

[tsupersonic]

I would still go with the 5X between the two. Doze is a game changer for Android phones other than Sony's. (Sony already had excellent battery management which Google probably copied in 6.0)

Doze is great, however it depends on your use case. I personally let my phone standby here and there, but I move my phone a lot. Doze shouldn't be relying on movement of the device. Anyways, on Android 5.1, the Moto G absolutely blows out the Nexus 5x on battery life. I can get up to 8 hours of screen on time on my Moto G.

These two devices are in different classes. I'd honestly bypass the 5x, and just get the 6P. It's the only Nexus phone in my eyes this generation.

 

[postmortemIA]

I would still go with the 5X between the two. Doze is a game changer for Android phones other than Sony's. (Sony already had excellent battery management which Google probably copied in 6.0)

yep, it sounds awfully similar to "queue background data" setting I had on my phone since KitKat.

 

[postmortemIA]

Cheap android phones don't last long. You'll use it for a year top, and then you'll be in the same boat. And you won't get much for your cheap phone if you try to sell it.

Either they become slow, or they never work right in the first place. And then you also notice that they perform worse in about everything.

I have low-to-mid range Xperia based on Snapdragon 400 series, and the problem I'm facing is that I get no signal or data about the all the time. While AT&T network works fine for just about everybody else.

This is like buying Chevy Cavalier or Dodge Neon back in the day when they were utter crap but cheap: you get what you pay for.

 

[tsupersonic]

Cheap android phones don't last long. You'll use it for a year top, and then you'll be in the same boat. And you won't get much for your cheap phone if you try to sell it.

Either they become slow, or they never work right in the first place. And then you also notice that they perform worse in about everything.

I have low-to-mid range Xperia based on Snapdragon 400 series, and the problem I'm facing is that I get no signal or data about the all the time. While AT&T network works fine for just about everybody else.

This is like buying Chevy Cavalier or Dodge Neon back in the day when they were utter crap but cheap: you get what you pay for.

I think the Moto G is the exception. The 2nd gen which came out last year is getting Marshmallow, and so it the 3rd gen. The Snapdragon 410 in the 3rd gen. is plenty of power for my needs. That should say a lot because up until the Moto G, I was exclusively using Android flagship devices and iPhones. The battery life beats every phone I've used (screen on time literally doubled from every flagship I've ever used).

@ cheapness - I'm glad it's cheap. I'm not looking to resell this (which you're right, it's value doesn't hold over time). Moto uses close to stock Android experience, so it should run Marshmallow just fine. I think this is my "long term" phone - which is 1-2 years for me.

 

[lopri]

Well, I apparently was on drugs earlier and I thought the OP was considering Moto X, not Moto G. Moto G and the Nexus 5X are not in a same price bracket and the 5X is literally double the price of the G. They are not comparable at all.

 

[vi edit]

The finger print scanner is worth $100 on it's own. It's seriously that useful to me...work forces a 6 digit code. Tapping that out 50 times a day is annoying. I can unlock my 5X before it even leaves my pocket.

 

[Artdeco]

The finger print scanner is worth $100 on it's own. It's seriously that useful to me...work forces a 6 digit code. Tapping that out 50 times a day is annoying. I can unlock my 5X before it even leaves my pocket.

I really didn't expect to care about the fingerprint scanner, but yeah, it's worth $100 alone to me.

 

[desura]

The Moto G isn't particularly a good deal, unless the sd card reader is that important to you.

The 16gb/2gb model is $230. A 2nd Gen Moto X is now $250. And you can score perfectly good HTC One's on ebay for $150.