
Moto X phone specifications - soupboy
http://www.motorola.com/us/consumers/Moto-X/moto-x,en_US,pg.html
======
sk5t
This introduction for Moto X is really, really trying way too hard to be cool
in both the copy and design. It comes off almost as badly as the Samsung ad
mocking the uncool parents and nerds in line for iPhones.

Particularly cringeworthy:

* "Your socks, your watch, your bike say so much about you" * "Play Goldilocks and choose the right size for you: 16 or 32 MB" Was Goldilocks really the best pick here--isn't this the male pitch, badger hair shaving brush, tortoise shell glasses and all? Didn't Goldilocks have three choices? * "you'll never miss those OMG-that-was-sick-did-you-see-that moments" Sick copy brah. * "Moto X responds to your voice, no touching necessary. (That's what she said.)" This doesn't even make sense as a joke.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
wow that is actually their marketing copy... An actual "that's what she said
joke", holy shit.

I once wrote about Apple was losing their way in terms of their marketing
writing, but it seems their competition is not even close to catching up.

As a lowly marketer it strikes me as unfair/frustrating that there are people
out there getting paid triple what I get paid writing unconvincing drivel that
treats the customer as a dumb internet meme.

~~~
aboodman
They've removed the "that's what she said" joke. Hilarious.

------
cromwellian
I think if you're buying phones based on # of cores or Ghz, you're basing
purchases on the wrong thing.

If you want to buy a smartphone based on the fact that it has 4 ARM cores, you
are buying on specs, not on actual delivered capability, and those extra cores
may very well be eating up more power and more die space for no reason. (I'm
not talking about Moto X's low-power DSP cores, I'm talking about having 4
Krait or ARM 15 cores)

GPU cores are different because GPU workloads are automatically
parallelizable, but then again, you only need as many GPU cores as it takes to
drive average workloads at the given pixel density. It makes no sense to
include enough GPU to render a game at 250 frames per second. Developers are
most likely not going to spend time optimizing a game for a high end GPU like
it was some kind of console in a fragmented market like Android.

Point is, one should look at these phones from a practical standpoint and
ignore the spec sheets. Does it take good pictures? Does it feel fast? Does
the screen look good? Does the battery last long? Does it feel good to hold
and lightweight? Does it do cool stuff that makes you more productive, etc.

If you buy phones on spec alone you may end up with a POS that looks good on
paper but is irritating to use.﻿

Take the Galaxy S4, sure, on paper and benchmarks (some of which are cheats),
it looks great. But how often are those peak rates hit? How much Android
software really takes advantage of the full power of the device? How much
battery life is sacrificed, or size?

You could say that the screen or memory capacity might be objectively better,
but again, how much of a price in battery life are you paying for those
displays?

Also, on customization, consider that Motorola is going to build and ship, to
you, a phone in 4 days. Maybe you don't care about any of the color options,
but you have to admit, being able to assemble and ship a phone to you with a
4-day turnaround is impressive and is a manufacturing capability that is sure
to useful for other things in the future.

~~~
uncoder0
Who is complaining about the specs? I seriously doubt many people, even in
these parts, buy phones based on the number of cores in the cpu or gpu alone.

The big problem I see with the Moto X is the price. A mid-range phone should
not be 550 off-contract. I was seriously expecting a $299-349 price for this
kind of device. Maybe we will see that with the Play edition? I doubt it
though.

~~~
ok_craig
Basically every single comment on /r/android about this phone is about how the
specs are not high enough to justify the price. It's kind of disappointing and
amazing.

~~~
batiudrami
They are right though - spec for spec, this phone is priced much higher than
phones with equivalent components. Whether or not that matters is yet to be
determined, but we do know that in the past, Android handsets have dated
fairly badly, so specs are something that have to be taken into consideration,
even if the handset feels good now.

The high cost is a result of having it made in the USA, no doubt.

------
ajross
It's being reported that the bootloader is locked:

[http://www.droid-life.com/2013/08/01/moto-x-bootloader-is-
lo...](http://www.droid-life.com/2013/08/01/moto-x-bootloader-is-locked/)

So that's that. I was waiting for this reveal before deciding on a new phone
purchase, but that's not remotely acceptable for me. Looks like a GS4 Google
Edition is in my future instead.

~~~
gilrain
How bizarre that Google would push for and sell in their store unlocked
versions of the Samsung and HTC phones, but not release the Moto phone
unlocked to begin with. Like, why does their own phone need a Google Edition?
Hilarious.

Maybe the companies aren't integrated enough for that, yet? You'd think Google
would be more of a mind with its own company than with the competition,
though!

~~~
DominikR
A Google Edition will be released soon.

That this version is not available right at launch sucks, but it's not like
they can just dictate to carriers whatever they want.

They probably had to make some concessions (like the AT&T exclusive on the
designs) to get the phone in the front of every store. They obviously want to
go mainstream with that device, and for that you need the cooperation of all
the big carriers. (and thats probably not so easy considering that it took
Apple years to get its iPhone sold by most carriers)

~~~
Samuel_Michon
_> it's not like they can just dictate to carriers whatever they want._

Why not? Apple does. And because Apple has paved the way since 2007, it should
be much easier for Googorola. All it has to do is make a phone that consumers
want. That way the telcos won’t be able to ignore it.

~~~
wmf
I get the impression that carriers are selling Android _because_ it provides
an alternative to iOS that they can control.

~~~
calinet6
Yes, but someone needs to convince them that they are making the stupid
choice. My guess is that no one in Google or Motorola is that person.

~~~
ajross
Getting back to what I said way upthread: it seems like refusing to buy a
launch product through a carrier and going for a saner choice from the Play
Store might be a good way to convince them.

------
georgemcbay
I had low expectations based on the leaks and this thing is _still_ incredibly
underwhelming even relative to my drastically reduced expectations.

Surprisingly meh across the board, even if the price were in Nexus 4
territory. At $200 on contract it is a sad and unfunny joke.

Between this and the fact that Google destroyed Navigation with Android Maps
7.0.2, I'm starting to doubt my next phone will be an Android device at all,
which is an idea that would have been unfathomable to me a few months ago.

~~~
skizm
Is it $200 dollars on contract? I thought it was going to be in the range of
$200 dollars _off_ contract.

------
eob
Why "OK Google Now" instead of just "OK Google"? That seems like too much sub
branding, which is something I usually associate with Microsoft (every
Microsoft product is called Microsoft+SomethingElse).

They certainly want the prefix to all voice commands to be a low incidence
sequence of phonemes for any language so that you don't get spurious
activations and drain battery and/or accidentally execute a command, but I
would think "OK Google" is a rare enough phrase that it would suffice.

A five syllable "wake up" command just seems excessive.

~~~
Shooti
What's even stranger is that "OK Google" _is_ the hotword for the Chrome Voice
search thing they recently launched at IO.

Retconning "Google Now" into a voice assistant is weird because at IO they
were saying how they wanted Google itself be the assistant, by modelling it
after the Star Trek computer.

Also what happens when the actual, predictive Google Now comes out for Chrome?

~~~
calinet6
Betcha it's something inherent to the ability to process the phrase "Google."
Probably a usability thing, and a subtle one at that.

------
diakritikal
Is this a real product launch? This page is horribly broken for me:

[http://i.imgur.com/npxvDcQ.png](http://i.imgur.com/npxvDcQ.png)

There's a header element further down the page "Feminine mystique", not sure
what that has to do with a phone.

And then near the bottom there's some cringeworthy copy:

"Never ever, ever, like never, miss a shot ... And you'll never miss those
OMG-that-was-sick-did-you-see-that moments again either."

Like dude, that phone is so sick....what? Is it meant to be a caricature of US
youth?

~~~
nevster
Same here. A whole lot of blank white space. Had to do a Ctrl-A to find out
there was white text on a white background. Same on Chrome, Firefox and IE. I
thought perhaps our work network was blocking a stylesheet or something.

------
Fuzzwah
The upside of this website is that it is immediately obvious that I am not the
target market for this phone.

------
psbp
Wow, for all the hype, this phone is incredibly mediocre.

------
dcope
I'm curious if this page was even supposed to go live. There are _2_
references to 16 MB / 32 MB and also a "That's what she said" blurb.

Ouch.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
The MB thing appears to be fixed. I don't see it. Just GB.

"TWSS" is still a pretty popular (but pretty over used) thing. So I don't
really see the issue there.

~~~
philsnow
Motorola is not a "hip" or "young" brand. IMHO they should try easing into a
new self-image a little more slowly. This seems a bit Ballmer-esque ("GIVE IT
UP FOR ME!" / the dance monkey boy video).

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Really? I thought their whole "Hello, Moto" campaign was along these lines.
Not sure how "hip" or "young" it was... or this one for that matter. But I
know lots of "unhip, unyoung" people that still drop a TWSS almost daily.

------
secure
I wonder why it says Android 4.2.2 instead of Android 4.3

~~~
wmf
Didn't Google say they're operating Moto as a walled-off separate company so
that it would have no advantage over other phone vendors?

------
dmix
Can it swap batteries? I plan to continue sticking with Samsung Galaxy (3/4)
for this reason alone. The UX benefit of never having to plug the phone into
charge and just quickly swapping batteries when it dies (or on the road) is
amazing.

~~~
philsnow
How do you charge the SG3/4 spare battery ?

~~~
dmix
I've got one of these chargers:

[http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Battery-Charger-2100mAh-
Includ...](http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Battery-Charger-2100mAh-
Included/dp/B0089VO7QU/)

\+ bought an extra battery (for a total of 3 batteries for ~$30).

~~~
philsnow
that looks pretty sweet; I was just complaining the other day about the lack
of a robust accessories market for non-iOS devices, because a given retail
store can devote three feet of shelf space to iOS cases/chargers/whatever and
cover ~30% of people who have a mobile device, whereas if they have three feet
of android accessories, it probably covers much less of the market.

(though people who have samsung devices, given the market penetration that
samsung has, are probably in better shape than others in this respect)

------
yread
Apparently one of the scripts isn't loading so the images (which are
referenced only through data-stretch attribute)

[http://demandware.edgesuite.net/aahb_prd/on/demandware.stati...](http://demandware.edgesuite.net/aahb_prd/on/demandware.static/Sites-
Motorola_US-Site/Sites-Motorola_US-Library/en_US/v1375382790154/meet-
moto-x/hero-moto-x-01.jpg)

to

hero-moto-x-08.jpg

EDIT: looks like they are using this jquery plugin
[https://github.com/danmillar/jquery-
anystretch](https://github.com/danmillar/jquery-anystretch)

------
hayksaakian
Oddly, (or not?) the images were blocked by AdBlock, leaving me really
confused.

\-----

Very similar specs to my current

    
    
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Nexus
    

minor improvements in battery, and camera

~~~
olig15
Yea, the only image (even without adblock) that loaded was the motorola logo
at the top.

------
taopao
[http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/08/inside-story-of-
moto-...](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/08/inside-story-of-moto-x/)

------
lnanek2
Pretty sad. Guy Kawasaki had everyone super excited about building their own
phone and we end up with just color and capacity choices. Plenty of phones
with the later, not to mention SD card slots which are far more capable, and
nearly everyone can already choose their color just by tossing a case on it.
We even have companies selling custom 3D printed color cases with whatever you
want on them in far more detail than this allows.

------
revelation
_Motorola X8 Mobile Computing System_

Wow, please no. Google, just relieve them from their pain already.

~~~
Sven7
Hey wait a second...I am quite intrigued by that "always on" speech core and
that NLP core. Google has some great speech recognition tech(possibly the
best). This is one area where they can really leave the rest of the pack
behind, looking like cave men.

~~~
duaneb
Yes, this looks like a great little device but for the part about convincing
me to buy it.

------
cryptoz
Does anyone see a full spec list? What sensors does it have? The page linked
seems to only list some features.

Edit: "People are skydiving out of space ships." [Citation needed]! What ship
has gone to space and also let someone skydive?!

~~~
minimaxir
[http://www.redbullstratos.com](http://www.redbullstratos.com)

Old news, I know. :P

~~~
cryptoz
Hm. I am disappointed Google refers to those helium balloons as "space ships".
They're atmospheric balloons, not space ships, and there's a really big
difference. Okay, I'll calm down.

Back on topic, I'm still looking for the specs...

------
gschiller
Wow... terrible taste with the "Feminine Mystique" reference.

------
minimaxir
_Storage 16 GB standard, 32 GB version available online. 2 years 50GB storage
free on Google Drive_

Wait, so you get more free cloud storage than what the phone actually
supports? Interesting.

~~~
mathgorges
I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that the Google Drive mobile
app didn't store anything locally.

~~~
ajross
It caches locally, but it's not like dropbox and doesn't simply mirror your
online data.

------
supermesh
16 or 32 MB - I'm thinking this is an error.

[http://imgur.com/dKRihDu](http://imgur.com/dKRihDu)

------
jmomo
Buy a three year old phone, such as the HTC Desire with a 32GB SD card and you
will have more storage than the new Moto X, even twice as much as the 16GB
version.

------
detecti1914
I'm sorta disappointed.

------
outside1234
Motorola is still alive?

~~~
skaevola
Bought by Google.

------
rogerchucker
People were mostly anticipating a crazy good battery and an unprecedented low
on-contract price. Neither happened - time to move on.

~~~
zmmmmm
Crazy good battery may yet be in there ... depending on your definition of
"crazy".

~~~
rogerchucker
I often get 24 hours on my iPhone 4S (with a few things turned off). And
that's what Moto-X is promising. So I don't define that as "crazy good".

