The debate is ongoing, and the war rages.... People either love, hate, or meh... their phones. I've finally found a happy medium between what I really want in a phone with the Moto X.
Size is important to me. The industry as a whole is racing ahead to continue to improve performance and specs on their newest models, (even Apple has finally succumbed to the demand for larger phones) and this has resulted in the top of the line phones no longer even being called phones but 'phablets'. This is the crux: Making something that is powerful also small is VERY difficult. The return on the amount of time and effort needed to miniaturize hardware is often not rewarded proportionately. For this reason and because of the need to turn a profit, companies are improving performance at the cost of size.
In my version of the perfect world I'd have a phone much in the same vein as the Sony Ericsson Mini Pro but with an additional 1" on the screen size. Maybe a little bigger overall frame and the front physical buttons removed so that the screen is the entire front. The biggest difference though would be the components. We can skimp on internal memory with the addition of a Micro SD slot, but RAM cannot be skimped on.
This brings us to the Moto X. It is not the flagship phone that the HTC One M8, or the Samsung Galaxy S5 are. It is however extremely capable, and performs just as well as either of the aforementioned phones especially if we are just talking about routine daily tasks.
This however is not what sets this phone apart to me. It's the software and integration of hardware. This phone demonstrates that you don't need the highest pixel count screen and fastest chipset. This phone runs Android 4.4 (KitKat) with no problems. I've never seen any slowdowns, and have enjoyed fast and fluid use of all my apps.
Motorola's Active Display is my favorite feature on this phone. Using a combination of the internal sensors the phone tries to detect when you might be looking at the screen while powered off. It only turns on the pixels needed to display the time and a notification icon provided you have any notifications. If nothing is touched on the screen then the display fades out again in a matter of seconds. Because the only pixels receiving power are the ones used it is an extremely cost efficient method to display notifications.
Should you wish to check your notification, you can briefly see the most current by touching the notification icon. A quick preview of it will appear above the icon. If you slide up you will be able to unlock your phone and go directly to the notification in question. Sliding down will unlock your phone normally (as if you pushed the power button). In conjunction with Power Toggles (Google Play - Power Toggles) you are able to turn off the display, lock the phone, power it on, and unlock without ever having to use a physical button. From a wear and tear point of view this is great, but because this feature is useful I don't even really care about that.
The phone also has hardware specifically designed to leverage voice recognition. I've found that this works relatively well, but in noisy environments it's efficiency is limited.
On the new Moto X (2nd generation) just announced you're able to replace the phrase used to activate the feature on the phone. This is a nice improvement and one I've wanted from the beginning with the 1st generation model. (This feature however is exclusive to the 2nd generation model.)
The ergonomics on this phone are amazing as well. It's nice to hold and feels like it was designed to be used. I know of no other phone that can brag about being so comfortable to hold. Some hands might find it difficult but I can reach anywhere on the screen with my thumb while holding it one handed. I wasn't able to do this on the LG Optimus G before.
A neat feature is how you can activate the camera at a moments notice. If you simply pull it out of your pocket and flick your wrist twice it will automatically open the camera app.
The last great feature of this phone is that it uses a practically vanilla android build. You are running a nearly native implementation of KitKat. The only difference is that their features are integrated at the system level. (Active display, Voice recognition, etc.)
All of this combined and it is a phone that is just simply usable, powerful, and the perfect size.
All that said I'm now thinking about getting a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. More on that later...
-Matt-Fu
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