Nearly six months after its debut in the United States, the 2014 Moto X has finally hit our shores.
Sure, the S$765 phone is now up against this year’s upcoming hotshots like the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the HTC One M9, but it’s better late than never for Motorola Mobility, the company Lenovo snapped up from Google for US$2.9 billion.
The Moto X hits the right notes for the most part if you are looking for a high-end Android smartphone.
For a start, the phone is well crafted with an aluminium band that runs around the edges, giving it a premium feel. Its curved back that tapers towards the edges also places the phone snugly in your hands, whether you taking a call or checking your e-mail.
Now, here’s the disappointment. While Motorola is giving users in the US an option to customise the phone with a variety of back covers made of materials like bamboo, folks in Singapore will only get it in black.
But if you don’t have a thing for customisable back covers, it’s not really a deal breaker. The Moto X looks just as good as any top-end offering you find in the market.
In the display department, the Moto X’s gorgeous 5.2-inch AMOLED full HD display offers good viewing angles, razor sharp text and bright colours — even in direct sunlight.
Some folks may nitpick at the display’s slightly warmer colour temperature, which is great for watching movies, but less so for tasks like editing pictures where colours have to be rendered more accurately.
Performance wise, the Moto X’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor aided by 2GB of RAM is no slouch in handling videos or games. The Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system also ran smoothly with no signs of slowing down when handling screen transitions and switching apps.
Perhaps the pure Android experience and Motorola’s own software tweaks could sway buyers into choosing a Moto X over a Samsung or HTC device. I found Moto Actions, which silences incoming calls when you wave over the display, to be the most useful during a meeting.
This is followed by Moto Assist, which will automatically reply to missed calls with an SMS to inform callers that you’re in a meeting, or read text messages to you when it senses that you’re driving.
The Moto Display is also handy if you need to take a quick glance at an incoming text or WhatsApp message by tapping the screen while the phone is in sleep mode.
Some users may baulk at the Moto X’s 16GB storage, its lack of a memory card slot and less than stellar photographic capabilities.
The 13MP rear camera couldn’t focus on subjects occasionally, and shots – especially those taken indoors and at night – looked a little grainy. Motorola is expected to fix these bugbears in its next Android 5.1 update.
While the Moto X sports last year’s hardware, it offers a compelling Android experience that’s further enhanced by really useful software tweaks seen in few Android handsets. With smartphone makers all touting more or less the same hardware specs each year, it’s often the software experience that matters.
