Moto X: First Impression

We finally caught a glimpse of the much awaited product of the Motorola and Google union. If you would remember, Google bought Motorola for $13 billion last year and got access to more than 17,000 patents owned by the latter.

After that, the world has held its breath in anticipation of what could come out of the collaboration between the company that introduced us to Android and one of the pioneers of mobile communications.

Finally, we have Moto X. It is not going to change the world but it might change the way you look at smartphones.

The Look

Color – lots of them. That is the first thing you will think of when you see the many different colors you can choose from. In fact, if you order your unit online through Moto Maker, which is exclusive for AT&T, you will be able to select from more than 2,000 color combinations. This, however, only applies to the back cover as the front will only come in black and white.

It has a 4.7 inch display that does not feel too big or too small by today’s standards but it is disappointing that it is only featuring a 720p OLED screen. It is pretty light and comfortable to hold in one hand, however.

The Software

Unfortunately, the Moto X will not be featuring the latest Android Jellybean 4.3 update that was introduced in the latest version of the Nexus 7. This means that the latest additions like Restricted Profiles and Bluetooth Smart support will not be available on this phone, as of now.

What will pique your interest is their cool and possibly very useful voice command processor, which is Touchless Control. Siri has got nothing on this one. Touchless Control can definitely turn this device as a viable business phone as it allows for almost touchless interfacing with the device. Just say the magic words “Ok Google” and you can start asking questions, from weather to current sports scores. In time, it will be more homed in to your voice as you use it more.

The Performance

Google is marketing the Moto 8 tech that claims that the Moto X has an 8-core processor for optimal user experience. A closer look, however, will show that there can be some questions raised about the correctness of the 8-core chip count.

The truth is that the Moto X is only running a dual-core 1.7GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro processor that is working with a quad-core Adreno 320 graphics chips. To get to the vaunted 8-core count, Moto X is also featuring 2 low-powered processors in there. Each of the low powered key has a dedicated function; one is for contextual computing and the other is for analyzing spoken language. Because the two low-powered chips do not consume too much juice to perform its functions, you do get to save some battery power.

And it is not like the Moto X is a slouch on the speed department. It is definitely fast and responsive but compared with the new flagship phones from Samsung and HTC, this will probably fall behind.

Summary

The phone has great design and the unique Touchless control but the inferior screen display and processor makes it difficult to recommend it over other Flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One.