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Moto X review

engadget.com

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Re: Moto X review

#41

Post by aroch »

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 does apparently get "trained" on your voice, however do you really want to shout your passphrase at your phone?

Re: Moto X review

#42

Post by smackfu »

mikeash wrote: post #10
cryptoz wrote: post #4

What sensors does it have? There doesn't seem to be a list anywhere on the spec sheets from Motorola. I'm especially curious if it has a barometer - does anyone know?

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.

Re: Moto X review

#44

Post by [deleted] »

nlh wrote: post #21

Quick aside: This is a really well-written article in and of itself. Joseph Volpe seems like an actually-great writer, and it was refreshing to see some tech journalism that feels like old-school journalism. It's not all bad out there, but as the lines between "writing" and "blogging a scoop to get page views" blurs further every day, it's nice to see some people still care about the writing itself.

[deleted]

Re: Moto X review

#45

Post by Shooti »

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…

Not necessarily, the Moto X seems to have a feature called "Trusted Devices" which gets gets past security when in range of aBluetooth device you've opted in with: http://i.imgur.com/EPKauya.png

Looks like Topolsky missed this.

Re: Moto X review

#46

Post by jsnell »

noarchy wrote: post #3
josephpmay wrote: post #2

The benchmarks are impressive considering its older architecture. Combined with the fantastic battery life and novel features, this may be the Android phone to buy. I'm not exactly sure why Engadget concluded that it isn't worth $200.

That's $200 on contract, an important distinction for some of us. But the battery life is definitely one of the killer features of this phone. If you want good specs, without paying a lot, there is the very nice Nexus 4 (likely due for a refresh soon), but that phone in its current incarnation certainly can't boast great battery life.

I've seen people claim that the Nexus 4 has bad battery life, and just don't understand it. I charge my Nexus 4 roughly every other day. And not because it runs out of charge at that point, but because I don't like to have the battery go much under about 40% or so. In my normal usage, the battery would easily last at least 3 days. (I've got a screenshot of the battery being at 25% after 4 days since last recharge).

My use case is roughly:

- About half an hour of screen on per day, mostly web browsing

- About 2h of audio playback per day

- About 3-4h on HSPA every day, on WiFi for the rest of the day

- Several kinds of automatic syncing going on (for example all default Google services, Google Now enabled, automated podcast polling + downloads)

Now, that might not be the heaviest workload in the world. But it's certainly realistic, and at least compared to any other Android phones I've used the battery life is nothing short of amazing.

Re: Moto X review

#47

Post by nlh »

cft wrote: post #26

Too bad the Droid line of phones with physical keyboards is dead. For those of us who write long paragraphs of text for work or need to ssh into a server, it's a big loss...

I'm really surprised that there aren't more options on this front. I feel like every day I talk to a non-tech friend who, despite the sinking business ship that is RIM, _really_ loves (or loved & misses) their BlackBerry.

And every. single. time. I ask them why, it's about the keyboard and only the keyboard. There is a solid contingent of people who just don't like touch keyboards and there's very little anyone is going to do to convince them or train them otherwise. Which is fine.

Apple's clearly a lost cause, but it seems to me that a well-designed, BlackBerry'esque piece of hardware (with a physical keyboard) running and properly mated to a smaller-screen Android OS would do quite well.

Re: Moto X review

#48

Post by phaus »

Osiris wrote: post #27
cft wrote: post #26

Too bad the Droid line of phones with physical keyboards is dead. For those of us who write long paragraphs of text for work or need to ssh into a server, it's a big loss...

I used a T-Mobile G2 for a long time because of the flip down keyboard. I'm using Swype on my current phone and it's pretty good, but it has a tendency to pick really uncommon words instead of the common word I tried to type.

I've owned several android devices, from the original g1, to a Stock Galaxy Nexus. As far as the actual hardware goes, the G2 was my favourite.

Touch screens are well suited to very specific things. Typing is not one of them.

Re: Moto X review

#49

Post by bobbles »

hadem wrote: post #14

I find it odd that they are pushing the, assembled with you, aspect but only one US carrier actually supports this feature (at this time). Maybe I'm confused, but isn't this just a stylized cover plate? Similar to what is on offer at all the kiosks at various malls?

The cover is not replaceable, so once youve made the design, thats it.

(you could still get a case that covers the back i spose)

Re: Moto X review

#50

Post by HorizonXP »

nlh wrote: post #47
cft wrote: post #26

Too bad the Droid line of phones with physical keyboards is dead. For those of us who write long paragraphs of text for work or need to ssh into a server, it's a big loss...

I'm really surprised that there aren't more options on this front. I feel like every day I talk to a non-tech friend who, despite the sinking business ship that is RIM, _really_ loves (or loved & misses) their BlackBerry. And every. single. time. I ask them why, it's about the keyboard and only the keyboard. There is a solid contingent of people who just don't like touch keyboards and there's very little anyone is go…

Have you seen BlackBerry 10? Even as an Android dev, it's my daily driver.
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