ABI Research, an analyst firm focussed on “Technology Market Research”, has recently made a bold claim regarding the iPhone. More to the point, they say the iPhone is being roundly defeated by none other than the Moto X.


In a white paper release, ABI notes that the Moto X “trumps Apple in engineering design and creativity.” They go on to claim the “iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, show only minor improvements over last year’s iPhone 5 while Motorola Mobility’s 3rd quarter offering, the Moto X, shows a number of creative engineering solutions.”

ABI goes on to essentially dismiss the iPhone offerings as tired, saying;

“The iPhone 5c simply sports a new housing material in a variety of colors. The 5s keeps the original housing but adds finger print ID, a sensor hub, and a dual-core 64b processor: all of which have all been seen before. Finger print ID was first introduced in handsets by Motorola a few years back on the ATRIX HD 4G; sensor hubs have been populating most of the new smartphones throughout all of 2013 (STm being one of the popular ones); and the 64b processor is just Apple’s way of providing more processing power.”

In contrast, they praise nearly every aspect of the Moto X, saying “the Moto X features innovations such as always-on voice commands, ergonomic form factor, and a much underrated display are a few of the attributes that set the Moto X a step above the rest.” To back these claims up, ABI released info about power draw on the devices.

“The A7 processor drew 1100mA during fixed point operations and 520mA during floating point operations. The iPhone 5 drew 485mA and 320mA for the same test.”

ABI also had this to add regarding the Moto X;

“Features like always-on voice commands typically would draw too much current to be practical, but the Moto X accomplishes the task with 4.5mA allowing the phone to maintain over 200hrs of standby time. The display is a bigger surprise though—the Moto X display draws 68mA at low output levels and only 92mA at high output levels, making it a new standard for high output level current drain.” The iPhone 5s draws 80mA and 220mA (~2.5 times as much as the Moto X) while sporting 20% fewer pixels.”

13 COMMENTS

    • Is that for screen-on time? Driving a smaller, lower DPI model will be cheaper energy-wise than driving a larger, higher DPI screen, given the same technology. Scale the Iphone’s display up to the same area as an AMOLED screen and you’ll see that the endurance will be longer for AMOLED displays.

    • I call bullshit. The only way this is valid is if it is with screen off and all radio turned off. In real world tests, the battery on the Moto X absolutely annihilates the iPhone

    • “We’re be still digging into the iPhone 5s’ real-life battery performance but Apple promises the same exact numbers as last year – 250 hours of stand-by, 10 hours talk time on 3G, 8 hours of browsing on 3G and 10 hours on LTE and Wi-Fi. We’ll update this page with the results when our test completes.”
      Maybe not?

  1. I’m just waiting for MotoMaker to be up and running for T-Mobile or full unlocked phones… and I’m back to Motorola. So far I’ve gone from a 3GS to an Atrix 4G to a Sony Xperia P…. and maybe back to MOTO.

  2. ok, if the Moto X is that good, then start selling it Internationally. I wouldn’t mind buying one if it was actually available outside the US… and at the right price.

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