Motorola Moto X (2014): Bigger, faster and much more expensive

It was perhaps one of the most surprising devices of 2013: the Moto X did not focus on specs for once, but on a bare version of Android to which Motorola itself added some useful features: control via voice and seeing notifications without a having to press the button.

After more than half a year, the Moto X was also released and with a price of around 350 euros, you can say that it is not a high-end device. That’s why we had high expectations of the price/quality ratio of the Moto X (2014). That turned out not to be the case: Motorola has built a high-end phone and wants to sell it at a high-end price: the 16GB starts at 499 euros.

We tried out the Moto X, but Motorola gave the journal a total of 45 minutes for both the new Moto G and the new Moto X: because we focused on the G first, there was less time left for the X and we so we can’t try out all facets of this phone.

Hardware

One of the most substantial upgrades is the processor: where Motorola used a relatively old dual-core Krait processor from Qualcomm for the first Moto X, it has now switched to one of the newest: a Snapdragon 801 with four Krait cores at 2.5GHz and an Adreno 330 GPU.

While many people sometimes think that the differences between processors for high-end phones and cheaper models don’t make much of a difference anymore, the opposite is the case. Because the Moto X and Moto G largely run the same software, the difference is clearly visible.

The Moto G is fluid and fast enough for many people, but the Moto X proved to fly through applications and menus, a bit like the HTC One (M8): all applications launch quickly, switching between apps is without any lag, and the entire phone just feels rap at any time. The processor upgrade also gives it a big advantage over the old Moto X.

The X also has 2GB of RAM on board and comes with 16GB or 32GB of storage memory. This makes it up to date, unlike the previous Moto X.

Software and features

Where Motorola wants to distinguish itself, are the features. Users can now choose themselves with which voice command they can wake their device from sleep mode, so anyone who wants to wake up their phone with ‘hi phone from Arnoud’ or ‘pretty baby’ can set that themselves.

In addition, Motorola has made it possible to operate apps such as WhatsApp or Facebook with voice and it is also possible to set profiles; by saying ‘good night’ to the device the sound goes off in the evening, with ‘good morning’ he switches the sound on again.

In addition to voice commands, there are also gestures to operate the device, such as swiping the device to turn off the ringtone for an incoming call.

Motorola’s features are not as numerous as Samsung’s, for example, but they worked well with the first Moto X. Those of the new Moto X sound great, but whether they are so useful in practice will have to be seen in a review.

Screen

The screen is considerably larger: instead of a 4.7″ screen with 1280×720 pixels, it is now a 5.2″ screen with 1920×1080 pixels; it is still an amoled panel, something that Motorola still uses to display notifications on a small part of the screen without turning on the entire screen.

The screen looks nice and sharp and the contrast is high due to the amoled technology used. The colors looked a bit oversaturated, but you get used to that quickly; it is to be hoped that Motorola, like Samsung, will provide settings to adjust that.

Design

Because the screen is bigger, the whole phone is a lot bigger than the first Moto X. It’s now over 7cm wide, down from 6.5cm; that saves a lot. If you like compact devices, it is better to skip this one. It is most similar in size to last year’s LG G2, which also combined a 5.2″ display with small bezels.

The rim is now aluminum, something that has been seen with more manufacturers in recent times. The aluminum bezel isn’t necessarily better than plastic, but it looks good on the Moto X. There is no ergonomic benefit to using metal.

The back is made of plastic as standard, but you can adjust it yourself via Moto Maker. For an additional cost of 30 euros, users can then opt for a back made of, for example, bamboo or leather.