Moto X: The Inglorious Company Makes Up For Lost Ground
Motorola makes up for lost ground with the Moto X, a phone that shows how a dual-core processor can give a bang for your buck. Plus: Google’s Project Ara modular phone.
The inglorious company makes up for lost ground with this stunning phone.
Okay, we call it stunning not primarily for its looks, but for the rather smooth experience we’ve had with the phone.
With this phone, Motorola has really gone all in and changed the way affordable Android phones have been looked at, amidst the plethora of low-budgeted phones available out there.
The Moto X clearly has a richer feel as compared to other smartphones in the market, despite not sporting a visible metal bezel as we’ve grown accustomed to these days. The Moto X features a body made out of PET composite, a durable plastic but even then manages to feel rugged. Weighing 130 grams and sporting a sleeker chassis makes this phone ergonomically very convenient. That being said, despite a 4.7 inch screen the phone feels compact and thanks to the slight curvature of the back it is also very easy to use. Under the hood, the phone does not boast of Herculean hardware as opposed to its counterparts in the sub 25k price bracket. Despite donning a 720 pixel AMOLED screen, the Moto X brings an effectively clearer, brighter and crisper display, thanks to its 312 pixels per inch count. Colour saturation and composition appear bright even under direct sunlight, which does a good job despite not being an HD screen. The phone features a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor that on papers does appear to be a big flaw. Even though same processor powers the Nexus 4, other manufacturers have moved on.
What is lacking in the hardware is more than made up with software with a touchless control and quick capture. Touchless control makes the phone respond to your voice, enabling you to function on the phone without physically working on it. Quick capture lets you instantly launch the camera app when the phone is shaken. The 10 MP rear camera produces passable but not brilliant images which is a letdown. With an 1.7GHz processor and 2GB RAM, the phone is a stark performer, be it on games, videos, browsing or social networking. In terms of memory the phone has an internal 16GB count coupled with 50GB free storage on Google Drive for two years. For us, the only plausible letdown is the lack of dual-sim capability.
The phone sets a perfect example of how a dual-core processor can give a bang for your money!
Ace with Google’s Project Ara
- You could start with a bare bones phone with a crappy, low-resolution screen and weak processor and then slowly upgrade.
- Instead of discarding your device and buying a new one, you could just upgrade and swap components.
- With re-usable modules you can have two versions of your phone.
From the May 2014 issue of FHM India.
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