This guy right here is the Moto X for 2014 and while we didn’t do a full review here on PhoneDog.com, I do want to do some kind of update video also a long term review of this phone because it’s still one of the best phones that I’ve used in all of this year. So I know I’m really late but let’s go ahead and do the full review and update on the Moto X for 2014.
Let me go back to the last generation Moto X that had a beautiful 4.7-inch display. It had a really interesting design and people just ate that thing up like nothing because it was such a great phone, it had super great specs and somehow, the battery life was amazing even though it was a dual-core processor, a 720p display—it was just a great, fantastic phone and it ran near Stock Android. This year, Motorola has got a little bit more stock, which is kind of disappointing but also it’s good to see such a great design and build of their new Moto X.
So to highlight the changes of the new Moto X, we have a beautiful 5.2-inch Super AMOLED display with 1920 x 1080 in terms of resolution and we also have really great specs including the Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor clocked in at 2.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and 16 or 32GB of internal storage. Another big update to the Moto X this year is the build quality of the Moto X, now using aluminum magnesium on the sides and it’s probably the most solid phone I’ve used in all of 2014. I still have to get my hands on the Nexus 6, which is basically the Moto X just enlarged and it says a lot of things because Google chose the Moto X design for their Nexus 6 and it’s such a great design and it’s just super solid in the hands.
The other updates to the Moto X this year includes a 13MP camera on the back while the last generation Moto X had a 10MP camera and this one is pretty good actually. The images are really sharp. They’re definitely not the best images out of the Android OEMs. Obviously that title still belongs to Samsung in my book but it’s still a very good camera for this phone and it does take 4K UHD video, which is a big plus.
In terms of the software experience, the Moto X delivers one of the best software experiences I’ve actually had in all of 2014. Again, it’s running basically a near Stock form of Android 4.4.4 KitKat and they’ve actually announced 5.0 availability within the first 30 days of 5.0 being available and that was last week so we have three more weeks until this phone is going to be running Android 5.0. So software itself on this generation of Moto X running 4.4.4 KitKat is probably the smoothest software experience of KitKat I’ve had. And it’s just a very simple experience. You still have things like Moto Voice, Moto Actions, and all these great things that make the Moto X a very appealing device not only for just your standard Android OEM market but also something to add on top of stock Android.
The performance of the Moto X for 2014 is pretty topnotch in its class. Once again it has the 801 Snapdragon chip, runs 2GB of RAM in a near stock form of Android. So basically, this is all you need to run Android efficiently, smoothly, as you could ever want it to be. And again, everything just loads really quickly, browsing the web is really fast.
One thing that did bother me a little bit about the Moto X for 2014 is that there is no app kill switch when you’re actually multi-tasking. The reasoning behind that is because Android 4.4.4 KitKat and above has this toggle switch where apps that are currently not running will not be sucking that much juice, very similar to iOS 8 and all of the iOS that has multi-tasking in it. That really won’t drain your battery for running multiple applications. You’ll only be draining battery when you’re actually using the applications on-screen and not in the background.
The next segment is all about battery life on the brand new Moto X and I’m not super happy to say but the battery life is basically the same. Even though it has a bigger battery, the brand new 801 chip is not as power efficient as the XA architecture of the Moto X that the first generation had and that results in less battery life or really the same battery life run time as the last generation Moto X. that’s not saying it’s bad. You’re still getting about 4.5-5.5 hours of on-screen time depending on how hard I use that phone. But generally, I get through a full entire day without having this thing die on me.
I know this video is rather short for a full review of the Moto X, which is why this is more of an update video on the Moto X. this is still one of the best phones and I still use it to this day as one of my daily drivers. Whenever I need the Moto X, I just put in my SIM card, it runs, it works really well. I never have to worry about anything other than the camera. It’s still one of the best Android phones I’ve used in all 2014. And if you want something like the Nexus 6 that’s not the Nexus 6 because it’s too big, this is it—the Moto X. And when it has the 5.0, it’s essentially the same phone.