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Motorola Moto X - Try The Tech Review by BandofBrothers.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Motorola Moto X "Try The Tech" Review.

 

 

moto x.jpg

 

 

The manufacturers specifications can be found here : http://www.motorola.co.uk/consumers/mobile-phones/Moto-X/moto-x-gb.html#specs-gb

 

Motorola’s product Information page can be found here : http://www.motorola.co.uk/consumers/mobile-phones/Moto-X/moto-x-gb.html#story-moto-x-gb-migrate

 

I would like to start my review with a thank you to Toby and Chiara our O2 Community Site Management, and 02 for allowing me once again to get my teeth into reviewing a mobile phone via the ‘Try The Tech Programme’, a handset which I normally wouldn't have tried out. 

To join this programme and perhaps try a phone out yourself then just keep an eye out on the forum board here :  http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/bd-p/3   ,and put your name forward. Its as easy as that.  Mexican Wave

As with all the phones I review I retire my own phone and use this one as my primary handset, with all the specs turned on to enjoy the fullest experience I can, and to give a balanced piece on it.

Design.

The design of the phone is curvy including a rubbery texture to the rear shell making it very easy to maintain grip, with the weight feeling very well balanced in the hand at 4.59 oz _ {130 g}, and also the layout of the Moto X is very well thought out indeed. It has a micro usb port at the bottom, power and volume rocker buttons on the right and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on top. All making it very useable phone one handed which is how as many of you know me by now how I like to gauge my choice of handsets.

In my humble opinion Motorola has got this just right on the Moto X and the buttons are also very responsive to use.

The 10 mega pixel camera on the rear sits very flush with the casing, which means there are no cumbersome camera humps to work your fingers around, as i had to do with my previous review phone the Nokia Lumia 1020, but as that phone camera specs are much higher than this phone one has to accept this nodule. I did find myself touching the camera during normal use.

The phone accepts a Nano Sim card which for me would be useful as i can swap my sim around from my iPhone 5s to this one. No adapters or sim swaps required = Happy days.

Their is no SD Slot to expand the phones memory and the model I used came with 16GB of internal storage, which after system usage gave around 12GB of user storage.

The other option is 32GB and Its Ram is 2048mb. {2GB}

However saying this regarding internal storage with facilities such as DropBox and Google Drive as examples one has other options where to store data nowadays.

Operating System and Ui.

What I found under its hood was stock Android 4.4. with a few Motorola enhancements.

The chipset is a Motorola X8 Snapdragon S4 Pro-derived dual-core design, Motorola has added two contextual processing units, with a 4.7” Amoled Capacitive TouchScreen Display {312ppi}

One interesting Spec that otherbreviewers have commented on is the Touchless Control : This is Motorola's naming for one of the features on the Moto X handset. So even with the screen off this phone is listening and waiting for you to say "OK Google Now" and give a command- at which point the phones screen will light up, and you can tell it to perform various actions from sending a text message, making a phone call etc. Its not a new technology being used but it does seem that the Moto X deals with it exceptionally well. The female voice is clear , audible and loud. Very on much the same level as Siri on iDevices.

Before giving this feature a try one has to train the phone to understand your voice pattern, and once that is carried out it only responds to your voice.

I got my partner to try to give it commands and it did not respond to her voice.

Active Display : When you receive a notification if the screen is off then the Moto X will flash up on the home screen the app icon that the notification came from. Awesome spec. Tilting it to see the headline is a really nice touch.

This actual icon kind of  breathes with the screen going on and off and then on again over a period of a few seconds until to touch the icon and swipe up.

Phone Calls , Texts, Internet and General Usage.

Moving away from all the frills and bells and whistles for a brief moment lets see how this device performed as its primary function - A Phone.  Whistle

I made several outbound calls and also received inbound calls which were clear for both parties, and the loudspeaker located on the back of the handset performed pretty well. I didn't experience any distortion at all.  

The keyboard was easy to use in sending text messages and writing posts on forums etc. 

Internet Connection was strong and 4G was very fast. The internet experience was buttery smooth using the Chrome Browser, and I was again able to use the Rich Editor on the 02 Forum, something lacking on my iPhone 5s.  Crazy  

Wifi connectivity both to my Home Broadband Router and shops and City Centre Wifi gave me no issues ref drop outs and Bluetooth connection gave me no issues.

I found the screen to be readable in all lighting conditions both indoors and out. The clarify of fonts and vibrant colours complemented the phone’s screen specs. As the screen is like a matt black it makes the app icons look vivid along with better readability.

The phone pushed my e mails to me from my server very well which is something that is a ‘want and need’ from any communication device I use. I did have some issues with links within the email showing lit up, which allows you to instantly navigate to the forum internet page it came from. I ended up using the Yahoo Mail App instead.Disappointing that the stock e mail didn't do something like this out of the box.

{Or I could not find the settings to allow them}

The Apps available from GooglePlay were the usual affair of useful, eye candy and dross.

The phone coped quite well with some games I tried out on the phone. Ones such as Captain America and Fifa 14.

The audible alerts were loud and clear again something which is a want and need due to the environment I work in.

Moto X owners get an extra 50GB of Google Drive storage on top of the standard 15GB free for two years, to safely keep and share photos, documents and other files.

Awesome !    Dance

 I liked the way a little ladybug ran across the bottom of the screen and waited for me to carry out a procedure or button press, and then opened out to a find it with a spotlight, and watch the toad snap it up with its tongue.{Its called Buggy Night, the Spotlight story} Eye candy Yes, but all the same very cute. slight_smile

Battery.

I turned on every spec within the phone and used it as my primary phone and found that it gave me around 15 Hours usage. {Please take into account I had everything turned on in the phones settings, e mails set to push every 5 minutes, and used it quite heavily} 

 In my opinion i don't want to turn this and that spec off, and reduce screen on times etc, and rush what I'm doing before the screen times out etc. I want to enjoy what the phone brings.

Camera.

The camera has a 10MP camera which suits my wants and needs to capture that ‘special moment’ picture. 

Music.

As a regular commuter on public transport all I ask is for a decent experience whilst listening to my tunes, which the Motorola X provided very well. Their are lots of bells and whistles for one to play around with within the music settings if you deem its warranted.

Accessories.

I found the usual affair of weird and wonderful expensive and low cost sleeves and cases for this phone on well known selling sites, and on the high-street.

 

This flip case caught my eye.

 

moto x flip case.use.jpg

 

The Good for me about this handset.

Fantastic design and quality of workmanship.

Excellant Performance overall.

Takes a Nano Sim so for me makes it easy to swap sims around.

Battery gave approx 15 hours of usage..

Active Display and Touch Less Control are cool features.

 

The Not so good for me about this handset.

Non removable Battery.

No option to expand memory via SD card. {No Biggie with alternative Options}

I found the phone was quite slow to charge up.

Payg Price is quite high.

 

My Rating out of 10.

8/10.

 

Conclusion.

I would very happily own and use this phone.

Random Pictures to help show how the camera performs.

Edward The Black Prince.... with his yellow jersey on !  LOL

 

statue with jumper on 2.jpg    statue with jumper on 1.jpg

 

A Bike Drummer !                   Tour de France Grand Départ 2014 in Leeds.

bike drummer.jpg   tour de france start.jpg

 

Screengrab of the Home screen. 

 

Screenshot_2014-07-02-15-00-36.png

10 Comments
jonsie
Level 94: Supreme
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Nice review @Anonymous slight_smile

Cleoriff
Level 94: Supreme
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Good review Lee. Also pleased to see the email issue was sorted.Smiley Very Happy

aldaweb
Level 26: Upbeat
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Good review @Anonymous 

Anonymous
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Cheers Guys.   Cheers

 

I'll be sad to send this one back. 

Anonymous
Not applicable
That is two then BoB as you also fell in love with the Nokia Lumia 1020.

I am sensing an expensive trip to CPW to treat yourself to some sim free backups.

Can recommend a good bankruptcy petitioner lol
Anonymous
Not applicable
Hi @Anonymous


You could well be right ! wink

I picked up the Lumia 520 for £49.95 from CPW on an O2 Payg Upgrade. Unlocked as per via them too.

The Lumia 1020 is an awesome handset and I'm sure I could get over the camera nodule on the back, but the colour , yellow , maybe not.....lol.
Toby
Former Staff
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I've just gotten around to reading this in full BoB. Awesome job! Love the pictures slight_smile
Anonymous
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Cheers Toby.

Appreciated the opportunity. slight_smile
sheepdog
Level 26: Upbeat
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@Anonymous wrote:

Cheers Guys.   Cheers

 

I'll be sad to send this one back. 


So was I. I now own one! I've since discovered the jedi hand trick where you just wave your hand over the front and up pops any notification/time. The text message/speech function is surprisingly good and does help with productivity when both hands are typing away at the pc keyboard. Hasn't even crashed once unlike the Nexus 4.

Anonymous
Not applicable
The post office lady had to prise the return envelope out of my hands. 😞

So you bought one as a result of 'Try the Tech' programme.

Awesome. slight_smile