This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

The Moto X has a lot riding on it. Information technology is the outset Motorola telephone designed and conceived under its new auspices as a division of Google.  It is the commencement truthful Google telephone. Information technology is the first flagship smartphone to exist assembled in the US. And maybe most chiefly, this is the telephone that'due south intended to wrest control of Android abroad from OEMs like Samsung and back into the hands of Google. Today, a big batch of Moto X reviews finally arrived, and we're going to round them upwardly and run across whether the Moto X delivers — or whether it's just however another mid-range Android smartphone.

Moto X hardware reviews

1 of the biggest problems with the Moto X, at to the lowest degree on paper, is that its hardware specs are very 2012. For a $200-on-contract phone — the same toll as the iPhone 5 or Galaxy S4 — that could be a problem. While this year's flagship superphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC 1, are equipped with 1080p displays, the Moto X has to brand practice with a 720p unit. While the Ane has a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 SoC, the Moto 10 has a dual-core Snapdragon (that Motoroogle tries to dress upward every bit an eight-core chip with PR doublespeak).

The GPU (Adreno 320) and wireless connectivity (802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, LTE), however, are top-notch. The camera, on paper at 10-megapixels, should be skilful — merely most reviews suggest that it'due south actually sub-par, with the additional interesting caveat that finger smudges on the lens reduce epitome quality drastically.

Moto X Geekbench scores [Image credit: Ars Technica]

Moto X Geekbench scores [Image credit: Ars Technica]

In general usage, reviewers find no issue with the "older" dual-core CPU. The elementary fact of the matter is that, except for synthetic multithreaded benchmarks, there are very few valid applications for a quad-core mobile processor. The GPU, which is the same that you lot'll observe in the Milky way S4, is very well received by the reviewers. In essence, it seems that Motorola went for a good-enough dual-cadre CPU paired with a very fast GPU — the same approach that Apple took with the iPhone 5's A6 SoC. This provides fantabulous real-globe performance, while providing better bombardment life.

The display — a iv.seven-inch 1280x720p AMOLED unit — equally you lot would wait, generally divides reviewers. If yous similar the contrasty "pop" of AMOLED, then yous'll like the Moto 10. Some reviews betoken that the screen'due south lower effulgence impacts daylight viewing, as well.

Moto X press photo

Well-nigh every reviewer decided not to exam the Moto X's wireless features, unfortunately. In all likelihood, the 802.11ac WiFi is provided by the aforementioned Broadcom chip that powers WiFi in the I and S4, and you tin can expect similar (crawly) performance. LTE (and 3G/HSPA+/etc.) are provided by Qualcomm, and operation should be comparable to nigh other LTE phones on the market place that utilize the Snapdragon S4 SoC.

Moto X software reviews

If the Moto X'southward hardware isn't sensational, then you'd at least wait the software to be meridian-notch — and co-ordinate to the reviews, that seems to be the instance. With the Moto X, you substantially become a stock version of Android iv.2.2 Jelly Edible bean, with a few extra Motorola-specific features that differentiate it from other phones. (Read: Demystifying Android 4.iii.)

Agile Brandish shows notifications on your lock screen, which are activated whenever you jog your phone (such equally when you pull it out of your pocket). Active Display uses a little-known feature of AMOLED, which lets you power on just a small section of the display, saving lots of power (blithe GIF below). Agile Brandish can be configured to show a variety of notifications, and reviewers seem to universally like this characteristic.

Moto X notifications, animated GIF

Touchless Command (turned off by default) lets you control your Moto 10 just past speaking to it, even if your phone is in standby mode. You actuate it by saying "OK Google Now," and then you lot only issue control of some kind. Voice recognition, which is powered by Google/Google At present and supercharged by a local tongue processor (NLP), is pretty good. Reviewers seem to be generally positive of Touchless Control's implementation and functionality. Like Apple'southward Siri, your appreciation for Touchless Control will depend on how comfortable you feel when talking to your phone in public.

Near reviewers applaud how these extra, non-stock features seamlessly integrate into the otherwise-stock Android experience. The lock-and-feel of these new features, their settings panes, and the tutorials, matches that of Jelly Edible bean — a stark contrast to the third-party apps provided by Samsung or HTC.

Bombardment life

Without a 1080p screen or quad-cadre CPU to act equally the marketing front-man, Motorola and Google accept instead focused on the Moto X'due south battery life, which is apparently skillful for up to 24 hours of "mixed usage." Nosotros don't know exactly what that mixed-usage scenario is, of form, simply reviewers are mostly very positive well-nigh the Moto Ten's existent-globe battery life. Almost every reviewer made it through the day without needing to plug in. With the standard playing-Hard disk-video-on-a-loop scenario, reviews vary betwixt nine and eleven hours — with nine hours comparing very favorably to other smartphones, and 11 hours leading the pack by some margin.

It would appear that those two low-power coprocessors (the ones that plain make this an eight-core device, once yous factor in the two CPU cores and iv GPU cores) really are reducing ability consumption. There are ii chips — a contextual computing processor (CCP) that manages the Agile Display (and presumably other background tasks), and a local tongue processor that reduces the ability consumption of vox recognition, and allows Touchless Command to constantly listen out for "OK Google Now."

Adjacent page: Wait and feel, and is the Moto X worth $200?

  • ane of 2