
Moto X review - scholia
http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/05/motorola-moto-x-review/
======
nlh
Quick aside: This is a really well-written article in and of itself. Joseph
Volpe seems like an actually-great writer, and it was refreshing to see some
tech journalism that feels like old-school journalism.

It's not all bad out there, but as the lines between "writing" and "blogging a
scoop to get page views" blurs further every day, it's nice to see some people
still care about the writing itself.

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pearjuice
I cannot comprehend why they did not put this through the Nexus branding (of
course with slightly adjusted specs and price). Instead of having one true
Google line-up they segment even further away with this purified Google-ish
Motorola phone, the Nexus line-up and already existing phones of other brands
with stock Android (Google Play editions?).

Where is this heading?

~~~
Zigurd
Google is trying to spread the unmodified Android UX through at least three
tiers of branding: Nexus, Google Play Edition, and normal Google-logo
branding, but with a greater emphasis on a standard UX.

I think they could have done better. While the UX issue is annoying, the
killer issue for enterprise deployments is timeliness of security updates.
They could have had a pledge with incentives that would result in update SLAs
with OEMs. Then customers could count on getting updates within a certain
interval.

The Google Play Editions have announced updates, right after Nexus got
their's, so that's something. But even outside the Google Play store, I would
like to see some kind of formal commitment from OEMs. I have been pretty happy
with ASUS for updating, but their schedules seem to slip.

~~~
pearjuice
Every manufacturer slips when they release new top segment hardware. The real
problem is Android being too free in terms of support. Google should have set
requirements for distributors regarding updates. But then again Android
wouldn't have grown this fast this big if they did. Now they try to fix the
segmentation with mentioned line ups and work arounds (Google Play Services or
something, releasing new core features as installable applications) but I
doubt they will ever fix the core problems completley as it makes Android as
what it is.

~~~
Zigurd
> _Google should have set requirements for distributors regarding updates._

Google could have done that as a condition of getting the proprietary apps and
Google logo while maintaining unconditional openness in AOSP. And while you
are right that they might not have had that leverage in the first year of
Android as a commercial product, they could surely have started before now.

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cft
Too bad the Droid line of phones with physical keyboards is dead. For those of
us who write long paragraphs of text for work or need to ssh into a server,
it's a big loss...

~~~
nlh
I'm really surprised that there aren't more options on this front. I feel like
every day I talk to a non-tech friend who, despite the sinking business ship
that is RIM, _really_ loves (or loved & misses) their BlackBerry.

And every. single. time. I ask them why, it's about the keyboard and only the
keyboard. There is a solid contingent of people who just don't like touch
keyboards and there's very little anyone is going to do to convince them or
train them otherwise. Which is fine.

Apple's clearly a lost cause, but it seems to me that a well-designed,
BlackBerry'esque piece of hardware (with a physical keyboard) running and
properly mated to a smaller-screen Android OS would do quite well.

~~~
HorizonXP
Have you seen BlackBerry 10? Even as an Android dev, it's my daily driver.

------
magic_haze
Joshua Topolsky's review on the Verge
[[http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/5/4588922/moto-x-
review](http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/5/4588922/moto-x-review)] seems to
contradict the battery life claim:

> "Motorola could have built a monster of longevity like the RAZR Maxx — and
> it should have — but it didn’t. It definitely gets a full day of use: I used
> it heavily for 15 hours before it died, and if you use it like most people
> use their phones, you won’t need to charge it during the day. It lasted for
> 7 hours, 14 minutes on the Verge Battery Test, which loads popular websites
> and high-res images with brightness at 65 percent; that’s a very good score,
> far better than the HTC One and the GS4, but well below class leaders like
> the Maxx or the Galaxy Note II."

But personally, the biggest deal-breaker is this:

> "But there’s a catch. The touchless controls are rendered nearly useless if
> you have any kind of security lock on your phone. You can still use it to
> make calls, but everything else requires that you unlock your phone, which
> requires that you pick it up and interact with it… meaning you just defeated
> the whole idea of "touchless controls."

That said, I'm very curious about the sensors they've included, and can't wait
for Anandtech's breakdown.

~~~
bluthru
Would it be possible to have voice verification when saying "Ok Google Now"?

~~~
tomflack
It would be trivial for someone to record you saying it without your
knowledge, to unlock your phone at a later date.

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cryptoz
What sensors does it have? There doesn't seem to be a list anywhere on the
spec sheets from Motorola. I'm especially curious if it has a barometer - does
anyone know?

~~~
mikeash
Just out of curiosity, what's your use case for the barometer? How accurate is
a typical smartphone barometer?

~~~
subsystem
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cryptoz](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cryptoz)

~~~
mikeash
Heh, that answers that. Thanks.

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hadem
I find it odd that they are pushing the, assembled with you, aspect but only
one US carrier actually supports this feature (at this time).

Maybe I'm confused, but isn't this just a stylized cover plate? Similar to
what is on offer at all the kiosks at various malls?

~~~
bobbles
The cover is not replaceable, so once youve made the design, thats it.

(you could still get a case that covers the back i spose)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
They seem to be suggesting that you've got two weeks to change your mind and
return it for a different style, though I don't know how many times you can do
that.

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kephra
A lot of bla-bla, but missing the two most important questions:

\- Is it possible to remove/exchange the battery. This is a requirement for a
business cell phone, as its usual that everybody is removing his battery on
every phone, when talking real business. Having more then one battery is also
a requirement for some games, e.g. Ingress.

\- Is it possible to exchange the Linux kernel. Motorola has the bad habit to
publish the kernel source to follow GPL by word, but lock the kernel boot
loader and prevent freedom by meaning. In result every Motorola phone has
kernel bugs with known exploits, and every Motorola phone is ready for
trashcan just after unpacking from security point of view.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Wow, those questions don't sound interesting to me at all. I'm sure they
aren't interesting to 99% of the cell phone market.

~~~
gbog
Why do you say that? Being able to change the batteries is extremely useful
for many people in countries were you check it out before buying a new phone.

Having security issues is very important for all the business market, and
because of them the device might not be allowed in the business phones fleet.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I live in one of those countries...the battery is not the problem, otherwise
they wouldn't sell so many iPhones here.

Putting a custom Linux kernel on your phone probably won't convince your IT
manager one way or the other to let your phone on the network.

~~~
gbog
If I were in charge of security in a company handling sensitive data I would
consider enforcing that all connected devices run a stable and open source os
with root access and would add a special app checking for odds and phoning
home regularly.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
That would be a nice ideal, but that hardly represents the real world.

------
josephpmay
The benchmarks are impressive considering its older architecture. Combined
with the fantastic battery life and novel features, this may be the Android
phone to buy. I'm not exactly sure why Engadget concluded that it isn't worth
$200.

~~~
noarchy
That's $200 on contract, an important distinction for some of us.

But the battery life is definitely one of the killer features of this phone.
If you want good specs, without paying a lot, there is the very nice Nexus 4
(likely due for a refresh soon), but that phone in its current incarnation
certainly can't boast great battery life.

~~~
jsnell
I've seen people claim that the Nexus 4 has bad battery life, and just don't
understand it. I charge my Nexus 4 roughly every other day. And not because it
runs out of charge at that point, but because I don't like to have the battery
go much under about 40% or so. In my normal usage, the battery would easily
last at least 3 days. (I've got a screenshot of the battery being at 25% after
4 days since last recharge).

My use case is roughly:

\- About half an hour of screen on per day, mostly web browsing

\- About 2h of audio playback per day

\- About 3-4h on HSPA every day, on WiFi for the rest of the day

\- Several kinds of automatic syncing going on (for example all default Google
services, Google Now enabled, automated podcast polling + downloads)

Now, that might not be the heaviest workload in the world. But it's certainly
realistic, and at least compared to any other Android phones I've used the
battery life is nothing short of amazing.

------
peddamat
I wish people would elaborate more on the 'always on' access to Google Now. To
me, that's the most exciting, futuristic feature, since Google Now is already
an amazing product.

Perhaps not enough people use Google Now to care?

------
steele
engadget and theverge seem to have fairly different impressions on battery
life. Hoping anandtech will clarify. "mid-range" is not a bad word, and I'm
willing to support locally assembled products.

~~~
CrazedGeek
Midrange isn't a bad word, but a midrange phone at high-end prices is a bit of
a turn off.

------
pisarzp
Battery life alone makes this best phone on the market at the moment.

~~~
pearjuice
Except that a phone is more than its battery alone.

~~~
jwoah12
You're right. If the battery's dead all the time, it can also be a paper
weight!

------
microcolonel
It's funny, all this advertising...

They report and store everything their devices hear, now they're telling us
that the devices are ALWAYS LISTENING.

------
shreeshga
when you think; for $199 you can buy a HTC one and flash an AOSP ROM vs pay
the same for MotoX. I would go with HTC One every time.

~~~
JangoSteve
I agreed with you at first, the day they announced the Moto X. But now all the
head-to-head comparisons are showing the X to perform either on-par with, or
better than, the HTC One. Plus the X is a smaller form factor for the same
physical screen size (since it doesn't have the two front-facing speakers of
the One which I don't need). And it supposedly has better battery life, likely
in part due to having less pixels to power (which again I don't need) and two
less cores (which I obviously don't need if it performs the same or better for
all practical usage). In short, I'm now leaning back toward the Moto X
developer edition, which will have an unlockable bootloader.

EDIT: I should mention, the benchmarks I'm referring to are these:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmO5LeWUEeM&feature=youtube_...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmO5LeWUEeM&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

[http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/smartphones/motorola-
moto-x...](http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/smartphones/motorola-moto-x.aspx)

And I swear I saw one with Sunspider et. al. benchmarks that more or less
contradicted the benchmarks in this article.

