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Alright, last Moto X update of the day, we promise (maybe). There was a lot of hoopla surrounding Motorola’s “Motomaker” service, an online hub where would-be Moto X customers could jump on and design their own Moto X to suit their tastes, customizing everything from the front, trim, back cover, even accessories to match their newly purchased device. While I think we can all agree that this level of customizabilities is pretty damn awesome, the fact that this feature was locked down to solely the AT&T version of the X left some with a bad taste in their mouth.
Looks like this was nothing more than an AT&T exclusivity deal, with ‘ol #2 shelling out _ amount of dollars to lock Motomaker to only their X for a set amount of time. How long you ask? Well, a few months, judging by Verizon’s latest tweet. On their Twitter news account, Verizon says you can expect Motomaker to offer Verizon’s Moto X as well, only you’ll have to wait until later on in the year. Let’s hope that along with Verizon, other carrier variants of the device will also follow. Guess AT&T just wanted it more.
[Twitter]
With the Verizon version, anyt text that you type in as your signature for the back will magically turn into “Verizon Wireless 4G LTE”
whine much?
You sir, are the Buzz Killington of Phandroid.
This device turned out to be such a disappointment. I don’t think there’s been a greater indication of carrier tampering and influence.. When you combine their IMO failed attempt to pleasing everyone by compromise with the Hubris it took to price it like a halo device.. Really unfortunate Moto ran this project into the ground.
So it’s just the dual-core CPU and display resolution that didn’t impress you?
Poor dual core performance, poor initial display reviews (typical amoled saturation complaints + non-super spec), 4.2.2. not 4.3 from a Google Company, missed opportunity on the wireless charging rumor, carrier timed customization exclusivity, and that offensive price.. Also, I was personally unimpressed with the thickness on paper but obviously have yet to hold one in hand.
There was a big opportunity for Moto here and until we see a play store price we can assume they missed it with this first shot. Moto X is a brand so I’m hopeful, but the year is wrapping up and we’ve got some strong devices to come. The timing of launch for this handset is unfortunate if you ask me..
This device belongs in 2012, back then a device with this type of hardware at that price would have been normal but a mid range device at a high end price tag just seems weird no matter what features it comes with. Just think how this will compare to the optimus 2 which is going to come in at 200 and 300 on contract based on storage or the galaxy note 3
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/performance-preview-the-moto-x-sports-a-great-gpu-respectable-cpu/
Hardware doesn’t matter outright. Check out how it rates compared to S4. It’s actually rather comparable with what you consider inferior hardware. Also, as mentioned here, it loads a slew of applications faster than the competitors you are pitting it against. Give it a shot before shooting it down :)
Good post, i’ve seen that article posted earlier on G+. People definitely need to give this phone a chance.
I was willing to give it a chance at a lower price.
The overall gpu performance is good but again that’s because its using a 720p display, instead of a 1080p. Also browser benchmarks don’t matter much because they don’t depend on the processor as much as they depend on which browser you are using, you could be on the same device using 5 different browsers and it will give you a different result for each one. I will be looking out for real world performance comparisons though. At this point im more interested on how this will hold up against the flood of S800 devices coming soon, the adreno 330 is pretty beast.
Well, about the 4.3 thing, Motorola’s CEO said they have no special access to Android code so they get it at the same time as everyone else.
A lot of people love SAMOLED. I think it’s nice, especially with the battery savings and non-Pentile display. The phone is thin, it’s just a little thicker up at the top.
Even with the dual-core processor, it’s a good one and has the same GPU as the Snapdragon 600.
I’unno. I think the phone looks great. *shrugs* :T
Poor dual core performance? Have you seen the benchmarks reported on it?
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/performance-preview-the-moto-x-sports-a-great-gpu-respectable-cpu/
Yes, those were actually exactly the ones I had in mind. I compared those results against my trusty old GNex and E4GLTE and was further unimpressed.
u werent going to buy it anyway…I think if it at least had a 1080p screen it would have been
Actually I was.. As a Ting (Sprint MVNO) customer on a CDMA Galaxy Nexus I was hoping for more from this handset. Being on a CDMA network means we missed the N4 and wait for our Android updates from Samsung (no 4.3 in sight on Sprint). This device could have really been something special to CDMA consumers rather then coming up short and costing the same..
Personally I can live with sub 1080p on a device < 6 inches in screen size. What I can't live with is the spec of AMOLED they utilized to cut costs. The power savings are a valid argument, but the choice in spec speaks to cost cutting and nothing more.
This whole thing has me hysterical! So many people on here ready to commit suicide because this phone isn’t what they demanded. News flash!!! No one cares what the 1% thinks! These phones will sell like hotcakes because they are customizable. This is a huge marketing ploy and if Moto/Google gets its advertising right, the masses will eat these up. To the rest of the 1%….crawl out of your parents basements.
But they throw me pizza rolls while I’m trolling
this
Abrasive but usually a sound argument that falls on deaf ears considering the environment.. I don’t think anyone is ready to commit suicide, and that in itself is further proof Moto missed their mark. IMO they lost the tech fanatics early on when the specs leaked, timed exclusivity (like that you mentioned) carrier customization will limit the mainstream effects, and the price lost most everyone else.
Considering most people put < $20 TPU cases on their handsets I highly doubt a blue anodized camera ring and matching volume rocker will be the difference..
Yea…I suggest you watch the video. You can customize it with a clear case. And most people don’t put cases on their phones anymore.
Oh I saw it.. Funny thing was I specifically thought about how I hadn’t seen what looked like an acrylic case on a handset in a long time. I’m sure many people will have a night terror of a Moto X in a wood back featuring your beloved acrylic looking case.
“These phones will sell like hotcakes because they are customizable.”
In case you missed it, the phone is not customizable for the vast majority of people.
Obviously, you can’t read. The article that you are commenting on is stating that the customizer for the X is coming to Verizon soon. So just because AT&T has it first, doesn’t mean it won’t be opened for all.
Obviously you are incredibly naive. Anyone who knows anything about Verizon knows that “soon” means anywhere from 6 months to a year, and “later this year” means as close to December 31 as possible. This phone will be all but forgotten by the time you can customize it on Verizon.
Didn’t know you could tell the future. What are the powerball numbers for Saturday?!? Its great you can just call that out with no bearing on reality. Customizing is something that will help sell these phones and get more carrier sales. Moto/Google bent Verizon over the barrel last year with updates and sales which is why the Razr and Bionic all of a sudden got updates after the Verizon “freeze” came off. Google hammered Verizon to play ball or the whole android line would be pulled from the carrier killing their sales. Which is why Verizon has been pushing the iPhone lately. They knew when the new Droids and X dropped, they would be forced by Google to push these devices at much lower price points for them. Moto/Google is getting more money from each sale of the Droids and X.
You’re the one who said “These phones will sell like hotcakes because they are customizable.” I Didn’t know you could tell the future.
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Verizon’s history is taking excessively long to bring anything to market, it would be foolish to expect that to change. And it takes a special kind of moron to think the entire Android line would get pulled from the largest carrier in the country.
Have you seen the price points? Since your math doesn’t seem to be working, I’ll let you in on something. The price points for the Droid are not low. The expected price point for the X is not low.
easy children, it’s an effin phone
yes daddy, now give me my allowance so I can buy a phone
I’m not sure that many people are going to get all giddy over a purty pink back plate. This phone needed to be competitive with N4 pricing to succeed, and it isn’t. It’s more Q than N4.
What kills me is why they did that. I can see paying extra for customizations, that’s reasonable. Just why couldn’t they offer them with a lower price in plain black and white. That’s the only choices Verizon customers get for nthe time being.
Why did Google let AT&T (or anyone) win an exclusive period? That kills the Moto X for me, more than anything to do with the specs, though the specs certainly don’t help.
That is my thing. I could deal with the lower specs thanks to the tweaking they did to match their hardware. I could even come to terms with the $199 on contract price point. But the fact that I know have to wait to not only get the phone but even longer to customize it? Screw that! If they had released it within a week of the announcement with the customization available to all carriers (or even just limited customs to certain carriers), I would have pre-ordered today.
yeah this was a complete let down. my honest opinion looks like a sell out version of “droid” on at&t.
I will just stick with my nexus 4 and future nexus devices
Lol on contract I would rather get the lg optimus g2 or the galaxy note 3 for 50 bucks more with snapdragon 800, 1080p large display, and a bunch of other features than and custom mid range phone with a high end price, but that’s just my opinion.
I keep seeing so many people complain about specs, but with the lack of bloatware and the task specific processors, how big of a deal will the processor be? The ram is going to be the important part here, and 2gb is great. Also, 1080p display on that size screen? I mean, you can probably marginally tell the difference at that point. Do you have super-eyes?
You can tell the difference in screen resolution, I used to think the same thing but everything just looks so much more crisper, sure you cant see the individual pixels but just looking at a 1080p display and a 720 side by side, their is definitely a difference especially when it comes to Amoled. As for the specs, im not saying their horrible, im saying their not worth the price tag, with all these other more powerful phones being released, their are going to be a lot more processor intensive apps that will be developed sooner or later, it doesn’t matter how much optimization the phone has received it has a performance cap and its lower than that of most phones these days, even more so when compared to the S800. As of right now the processor acts more as a bottleneck not the RAM, you will never use up that much RAM on a mobile device.
I’ve maxed out ram several times on devices, but I don’t notice a bottleneck with processor. Also, in regards to screens, is this a matter of color correction, or really pixels? I’ve seen a lot of phones that have pushed over saturation or other tricks on top of the resolution, not just the increase in ppi. What about some of the other features that are being mentioned here? While I can’t say that I’m sure how I might use the voice commands or camera function, I do admire the attempt at breaking the norm. Right now you have a push incrementally in processor, ram, or screen size/ppi without regard for user functionality improvements. Sammy has attempted with touchwiz, but in my opinion, their addons have actually resulted in the need for these increases in hardware. The X will be running almost stock, with the hardware even optimized for the user experience. I think this should give a very fluid experience with the device, while not needing to rely on the highest specs outright.
lol run any graphically tense game like GTA or any other and you will get drop frame rates while only using 3/4 of a gig of ram , by the time you get just barely over a gig you will not only see dropped frame rates but extremely slow load up times . Like on a PC for instance you can have all the RAM in the world but unless the cpu and gpu are powerful enough you wont be able to run any application over a gig even if you meet the RAM requirement.
Verizon’s version will absolutely have bloatware. The specs on the HTC are exactly the same +some. In addition I know that I could root my HTC One and get the GPE rom on it within an hour of getting it home. Let’s just hope the One gets to Verizon soon.
I am not switching to AT&T and I am not buying one with less than 32 GB. So I guess I will be waiting for months and likely getting something else.
I was actually looking forward to buying this phone, I’m not crazy about specs. I liked this phone because it’s suppose to be reliable, fast enough for daily usage and have a better battery than average phones. Plus it is almost stock android with some features I actually liked, also the customizable part was a good option for a change. But what got me disappointed was the huge price they will slap on this phone ($500). But I guess I let myself be driven by all the rumors about it being a cheap and reliable phone. Now the next one I’ll be waiting is the next iteration of the Nexus.
it is cheap…. for subsidized price. you will never ever get a new phone for $200 un-subsidized. if anything, $500 is still cheaper than buying a samsung or an iphone, and you are also participating in the made in america experiment (china owns 80% of resources that make the parts for smartphones in agreement with brazil) so this is a hell of a deal in my opinion. and just to sting a little at apple, they only design the phone in photoshop in california, still completely made in china.
Photoshop? Really?
But yes, I do think bringing middle class jobs stateside are a good idea. Even if it is in texas where benefits aren’t the greatest, these manufacturing positions are likely paying at least in the 13-18$ an hour range. Not great for the legacy manufacturing positions that have been lost in the past 12 years, but a start. Imagine a system that supports more products and systems stateside to support overall device manufacturing!
The rumors about it being that cheap were unbelievable on their face. Reportedly the materials alone are around $250 as I recall, and that doesn’t include manufacturing costs, packaging, marketing, shipping, and all the other sundry costs associated with making and shipping a phone. And that’s just the cost of the phone. Google still needs to make some profit, even if they keep the margins low.
What people were speculating would have cost Google/Moto as much as $100 per unit. You don’t make money paying customers to buy your product.
This is pretty much exactly 100% how I feel. This phone wasn’t rolling out with the most badass of specs, but I was OK with that, because it was supposed to be a pretty “pure” Google device and had some great features. I love the “OK Google Now” even though others have put on their tin-foil hat and disliked it. I LOVE the ~24 hour battery life. The Moto Maker customization website is KILLER and I would absolutely make myself a custom looking phone with a white faceplate and some nifty colors. The fact that there is no Google edition on release and that the custom one is tied to AT&T only?!?! Friggin’ RIDICULOUS. Like I am astounded at the idiocy of this move. AT&T is saturated to levels of disbelief in Los Angeles and there is no way I would move to that carrier. Google really failed on this effort by letting a carrier dictate how they release a device. Moto Maker should have been open to every single carrier and you basically just pick which network you want to go with while building your device. The “unlocked” version should have cost $349 and they would have sold 1,000s of them immediately. I would buy one right now. As Axel has stated – now I’m going to wait and just continue to update the custom ROMs on my SGS2 until the next Nexus. Major Fail.
As a libertarian, I carry around my tin-foil hat everywhere. I might leave it at home for this phone.
Not going to ATT! And if i were an ATT customer whos contract is close to expire(the ones who can actually buy something subsidized) ill go for the Lumia 1020, just to find out if windows 8 is that bad to the point i wouldnt be able to enjoy an incredibly great camera on my phone. And since im not an ATT customer and i am an Android User, i guess ill wait for the next Nexus Phone as well. Nokia and now Motorola(surprised?) just decreasing considerably their target market for some ATT dollars.
after watching this video……C’mon T-Mobile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Same. On verizon family plan with the wife. Can’t jump ship to ATT without her even though I’m off contract.
yea i am so over my gs3 and samsung in general…. this looks like a real convenient smartphone
verizon is smart to let att test the waters of this phone. I don’t think its anything that special.It’s grouped in a line of phones that most of us already have. I don’t see it as a huge seller. by the time this comes out for verizon the note 3 will also and who would pick this over the note 3? uhm… no one :-)
someone who wants a phone that fits in their front pocket? All kidding aside, it is a large device for some people.
There is talk of a Note 3 mini that will be smaller. If that’s true, the large size would be a moot point.
i agree with chad…note is friggin ridiculous…go buy a normal phone and a n7 u look stupid coming to my desk n plopping that thing down bc u always carry it and cant fit in your pocket or lighting up the whole table at the club when u flip your cover open…stupid stupid stupid
I agree. I need a bar/club friendly phone. I need my phone to be tight, portable, durable, and have good battery life.
I don’t think Verizon let AT&T get exclusive rights to it, to test the waters, they were probably too cheap to fork up enough money for it just like everyone other phone that doesn’t have a droid branding, HTC one still nowhere in sight. were never getting the Optimus G Pro, Xperia Z, ect….. kinda sad that as of the past 8 months only 1 flagship device has made it to Verizon.
It is a good phone and I like the Motomaker idea but, it’s really a shame that the phone will only be available in Americas and so far only US gets the Motomaker.
IMHO if you can’t design the phone (which I reckon is the selling point) then, the phone is not worth the money.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, Hasn’t Samsung proven that releasing the same phone on all carriers is the way to go. The only thing decent about this mid-level Moto X is the customization and they hand that to ATT for several months exclusively? By the time this comes to other carriers, new super phones will arrive and no one will even care about the already outdated Moto X
I like Google but they just don’t get it. Theyelease the Nexus 4, limited availability. No accessories at launch. Now the Moto X with the much hyped customization and they give it exclusively to ATT. How stupid can they be
Major disappointment, this crippled the phone.
This phone should be $50 on contract and $450 outright. Simple as that.
But it’s built on American Soil. probably drove the cost up by $70-100. which will help our economy. If successful.
So you want a phone for what a decent dinner for two costs?
You got the HTC One, S4, and Xperia Z with better hardware. You have the iPhone 5 with equivalent hardware (only minus being iOS and 4″). You have the Nexus 4 at $300 and $350.
Where would you like the Moto X to go? My opinion would be in between the flagship phones and the Nexus 4, which would mean $50-$100 on contract and $450-$550 outright.
I want Blake Lively to sit on my face, but neither of us will get what we want
shut the f up idiot. you are a tool
VentureBeat reported that in some real world usage they had 70% battery remaining after 18 hours. I’m ready to drop the GNex for that alone. I’d rather rely on actual reviews and feedback to make a decision than be kneejerk about the specs. I recently set up an S4 and it was laggy so those quad cores weren’t really that impressive when it counts.
That’s probably because the GS4 is made by idiots who couldn’t write software to save their lives (probably all the people who used to work for RIM and ran it into the ground).
As much as I hate to say this, people like the iPhone so much because it is really good at doing what it is supposed to do. That is because Apple designs its processors, it designs all of the hardware and they write the software SPECIFICALLY for said phone. Everything is optimized to work on that unit.
Phone’s like the GS4 are just a conglomeration of bs from different manufacturers whipped together quickly with the highest spec components available. I don’t care if the phone is 8 core and has a 3Ghz processor, its still going to suck if you can’t optimize the software on it properly. Same thing with that 40 megapixel camera that’s “so fantastic”. Making a camera that high of resolution on a phone is completely pointless. You’re just going to get a massive file that looks like crap and fills up your SD card after like 20 pictures. When taking a picture through a teeny tiny lens its never going to compare to a real camera.
All that being said, from what I have read, I am hoping that since Motorola and Google are the same entity now this phone will have the level of software optimization that we should expect when we buy a product. I hate to say this, but more like what Apple is doing and what they should have done from the beginning. The hardware specs seem mid ranged but hopefully the goal was to make it more streamlined and more efficient for a flawless user experience. The almost (stock) android experience should definitely help in this regard as well.
that video was awesome. Motorola did it again the best in the world
If you go moto, the obvious choice is the droid maxx . Huge 3500mah battery, wireless charging mat, 5″ screen, and all the same software and features.
I’ll be honest, I could care less what a phone looks like. As long as the screen is crisp and clear, the phone performs well, and isn’t so giant that when its in my pocket it jabs me in the hip when I sit down I’m happy. Fit and form are more important than looks and colors. If they want to design a custom phone they should let you choose custom backings. Maybe someone prefers a flat back instead of the stock curved back.
pick a black or white woven one , no other options at this time.. of course it will be a few weeks until it is possible.