Today is officially Motorola day. After all the waiting, and loads of leaks and rumors the Google Moto X is finally official, and we have all the details. Here in New York City we’ve just learned all about the “New Motorola” and their impressive next-gen smartphone, and you certainly won’t be disappointed. Everything we knew leading up to today was accurate, and this 4.7-inch contextually aware and customizable phone is as real as it gets.
Google and Motorola have just took the covers off of their entire project, and it was a big one. Where should we start. When can you get one? The Google partnered Motorola smartphone will simply be called the Moto X, and it is coming to all 5 major US carriers in late August and early September. Yes, we don’t have a release date yet, but will get one soon. This will vary by carrier, and we have a feeling Verizon won’t be waiting around to come out last this time around, as we have their model in our hands.
So what about the Moto X. We’ll tell you. Motorola’s new phone indeed has a 4.7-inch 1280 x 720p (316PPI) active AMOLED display, and it’s covered in Corning Gorilla glass. For size it comes in at 129.3 x 65 x 10.4 mm. The thinnest point (due to those curves) is 5.4mm, and the thickest is 10.4mm. However, it doesn’t feel thick, at all, and this curve helped them get additional space for a bigger battery while making the phone “feel” thin.
Just as all the reports and rumors have stated, the Moto X runs on the same 1.7 GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro dual-core processor as the new DROIDS. However, don’t let the term “dual-core” fool you. This has a powerful dual-core processor, and the same quad-core Adreno 320 graphics GPU processors as the new Snapdragon 600. Then Motorola’s added two special additional cores that makes up their Motorola X8 computing processor powering this device. And it’s plenty fast! So we have a 1.7 GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro with 2GB of RAM, the X will come in both 16 and 32GB configurations, as well as 2-years of 50GB Google Drive storage free.
We have their brand new and impressive “Clear Pixel” camera on the back coming in at 10 megapixels, and they explain this as being an RGBc sensor, with the extra clear pixel allowing for 70% more light capture. This will make all types of photography better. There’s a 2 megapixel front shooter capable of 1080p capture, and surprisingly enough the phone only runs with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. No 4.3 here, but surely that is coming soon.
The curved back allows for a super sleek feeling phone (Moto studied our hands for the design) yet still curves to a greater width in back allowing for a 2,200 mAh battery. Now that isn’t as big as some, but with less cores sucking power and a 720p display Moto promises 24 hours of mixed and “average” usage.
Of course we have the newly confirmed dual-band MIMO antennas, WiFi a/g/b/n, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, Micracast wireless streaming, NFC, GPS, GLONASS and more. As far as colors, we have Woven Black and Woven White, and tons of customizations. Sadly, these customizations will be exclusive to AT&T, and we’ll have more details on that coming up quick.
For those curious, yes the bootloaders are locked, but all carrier models will be offered in unlocked developer versions direct from Motorola. We have tons of pictures and video coming up in our hands-on, so stay tuned. The new Moto X will be available on AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, and US Cellular in late August, starting at $199 (on contract) for the 16GB model, and $249 for the 32GB.
Nope. 199 on contract. Forget it.
I was really hoping for $299 off-contract. I have to pay full retail for my next phone or I lose my unlimited Verizon LTE. At this point I may as well wait for the new Nexus announcements this fall and consider T-Mobile. Boo.
$199 on contract? No thanks. Fail moto
Yea, this sucks. I was hoping to be ordering today direct from google. $299 seems pretty fair to me off contract. So what’s the prices full msrp without contact (T-mo or direct)?
This aren’t Nexus phones. Google isn’t doing anything direct. It’s still a Moto/carrier launch. Sadly
Holy hell did they drop the ball. I was expecting sometime much sooner than late August to order one and not $249 on contract? I mean BALLS!
At&T released the full price at $575. $25 more and you can get either the HTC One from Google. Spend a little under $100 more and get the SG4 from Google.
Dang I totally read that last sentence wrong and instead of on contract I read off contract. I was all set to plop down my $249 off contract Moto X but now, nah, I’ll pass until Amazon or some other offers this for less than the carriers. Dang Moto…why oh why, is this the Google influence?
No 4.3
$200-$250 ON contract
Less than stellar battery life (which was hyped to be “revolutionary”)
720p screen…
This is the “game-changer” Google and Motorola promised?
No thanks.
They actually promise 24 hours of battery life with “mixed” usage throughout the day.. So hopefully it will deliver.
Ugh!! Now all we have left to hope for in a sub $400 phone is the pricing on the next Nexus 4 and HTC One mini.
“….you certainly won’t be disappointed”
Uh – no, I’m fairly disappointed.