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Moto X review

engadget.com

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Re: Moto X review

#51

Post by Zigurd »

pearjuice wrote: post #8

I cannot comprehend why they did not put this through the Nexus branding (of course with slightly adjusted specs and price). Instead of having one true Google line-up they segment even further away with this purified Google-ish Motorola phone, the Nexus line-up and already existing phones of other brands with stock Android (Google Play editions?). Where is this heading?

Google is trying to spread the unmodified Android UX through at least three tiers of branding: Nexus, Google Play Edition, and normal Google-logo branding, but with a greater emphasis on a standard UX.

I think they could have done better. While the UX issue is annoying, the killer issue for enterprise deployments is timeliness of security updates. They could have had a pledge with incentives that would result in update SLAs with OEMs. Then customers could count on getting updates within a certain interval.

The Google Play Editions have announced updates, right after Nexus got their's, so that's something. But even outside the Google Play store, I would like to see some kind of formal commitment from OEMs. I have been pretty happy with ASUS for updating, but their schedules seem to slip.

Re: Moto X review

#52

Post by kephra »

A lot of bla-bla, but missing the two most important questions:

- Is it possible to remove/exchange the battery. This is a requirement for a business cell phone, as its usual that everybody is removing his battery on every phone, when talking real business. Having more then one battery is also a requirement for some games, e.g. Ingress.

- Is it possible to exchange the Linux kernel. Motorola has the bad habit to publish the kernel source to follow GPL by word, but lock the kernel boot loader and prevent freedom by meaning. In result every Motorola phone has kernel bugs with known exploits, and every Motorola phone is ready for trashcan just after unpacking from security point of view.

Re: Moto X review

#53

Post by seanmcdirmid »

kephra wrote: post #52

A lot of bla-bla, but missing the two most important questions: - Is it possible to remove/exchange the battery. This is a requirement for a business cell phone, as its usual that everybody is removing his battery on every phone, when talking real business. Having more then one battery is also a requirement for some games, e.g. Ingress. - Is it possible to exchange the Linux kernel. Motorola has the bad habit to publ…

Wow, those questions don't sound interesting to me at all. I'm sure they aren't interesting to 99% of the cell phone market.

Re: Moto X review

#54

Post by pearjuice »

Zigurd wrote: post #51
pearjuice wrote: post #8

I cannot comprehend why they did not put this through the Nexus branding (of course with slightly adjusted specs and price). Instead of having one true Google line-up they segment even further away with this purified Google-ish Motorola phone, the Nexus line-up and already existing phones of other brands with stock Android (Google Play editions?). Where is this heading?

Google is trying to spread the unmodified Android UX through at least three tiers of branding: Nexus, Google Play Edition, and normal Google-logo branding, but with a greater emphasis on a standard UX. I think they could have done better. While the UX issue is annoying, the killer issue for enterprise deployments is timeliness of security updates. They could have had a pledge with incentives that would result in upda…

Every manufacturer slips when they release new top segment hardware. The real problem is Android being too free in terms of support. Google should have set requirements for distributors regarding updates. But then again Android wouldn't have grown this fast this big if they did. Now they try to fix the segmentation with mentioned line ups and work arounds (Google Play Services or something, releasing new core features as installable applications) but I doubt they will ever fix the core problems completley as it makes Android as what it is.

Re: Moto X review

#55

Post by tomflack »

bluthru wrote: post #38
magic_haze wrote: post #25

Joshua Topolsky's review on the Verge [ http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/5/4588922/moto-x-review ] seems to contradict the battery life claim: > "Motorola could have built a monster of longevity like the RAZR Maxx — and it should have — but it didn’t. It definitely gets a full day of use: I used it heavily for 15 hours before it died, and if you use it like most people use their phones, you won’t need to charge it duri…

Would it be possible to have voice verification when saying "Ok Google Now"?

It would be trivial for someone to record you saying it without your knowledge, to unlock your phone at a later date.

Re: Moto X review

#56

Post by gbog »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #53
kephra wrote: post #52

A lot of bla-bla, but missing the two most important questions: - Is it possible to remove/exchange the battery. This is a requirement for a business cell phone, as its usual that everybody is removing his battery on every phone, when talking real business. Having more then one battery is also a requirement for some games, e.g. Ingress. - Is it possible to exchange the Linux kernel. Motorola has the bad habit to publ…

Wow, those questions don't sound interesting to me at all. I'm sure they aren't interesting to 99% of the cell phone market.

Why do you say that? Being able to change the batteries is extremely useful for many people in countries were you check it out before buying a new phone.

Having security issues is very important for all the business market, and because of them the device might not be allowed in the business phones fleet.

Re: Moto X review

#57

Post by seanmcdirmid »

gbog wrote: post #56
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, those questions don't sound interesting to me at all. I'm sure they aren't interesting to 99% of the cell phone market.

Why do you say that? Being able to change the batteries is extremely useful for many people in countries were you check it out before buying a new phone. Having security issues is very important for all the business market, and because of them the device might not be allowed in the business phones fleet.

I live in one of those countries...the battery is not the problem, otherwise they wouldn't sell so many iPhones here.

Putting a custom Linux kernel on your phone probably won't convince your IT manager one way or the other to let your phone on the network.

Re: Moto X review

#58

Post by kephra »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #53
kephra wrote: post #52

A lot of bla-bla, but missing the two most important questions: - Is it possible to remove/exchange the battery. This is a requirement for a business cell phone, as its usual that everybody is removing his battery on every phone, when talking real business. Having more then one battery is also a requirement for some games, e.g. Ingress. - Is it possible to exchange the Linux kernel. Motorola has the bad habit to publ…

Wow, those questions don't sound interesting to me at all. I'm sure they aren't interesting to 99% of the cell phone market.

But we are not the 99% of the stupid end users. We are the 1%, the HN readers, hackers who want to own a phone, and dont want to be owned by the phone.

Re: Moto X review

#59

Post by mikeash »

smackfu wrote: post #42
mikeash wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, what's your use case for the barometer? How accurate is a typical smartphone barometer?

Barometers are also very useful for fitness training, to record hills for biking and running. The vertical accuracy of GPS is not great, and people often get better results by looking up altitudes on a map using the lat/long. The high-end GPS sports watches generally include a barometer to get more accurate altitude data.

How do you calibrate the sports watches? Or do they only care about deltas and thus don't need calibration?

Re: Moto X review

#60

Post by [deleted] »

tomflack wrote: post #55
bluthru wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be possible to have voice verification when saying "Ok Google Now"?

It would be trivial for someone to record you saying it without your knowledge, to unlock your phone at a later date.

[deleted]
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