The past few days have truly been good to fans, owners, and would-be owners of Motorola‘s Moto X flagship. The device has just seen a price cut that has now extended even to the unlockable Developer Edition being sold directly from Motorola’s website.
Late last month, Motorola slashed the prices of the Moto X by half, reducing the amount from $199 to $99, but still with a two-year contract from some carriers. Then just yesterday, Verizon, who was still carrying the original price tag, finally implemented the cut and also offered the Moto X for a full retail price of $499.99. If the luck of Verizon’s customers hold, they will also soon be seeing the MotoMaker customization tool on the carrier by Monday.
Now the Moto X Developer Edition is following suit, though it is still a bit pricier than carrier options. The unlockable version of the smartphone is now priced at $549.99, whereas it previously sold for $649.99. This applies to both the GSM-LTE model that is compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile networks as well as to the Verizon variant. As before, the Developer Editions are only available in black or white color options, though the 32 GB storage capacity unavailable on carrier models might make up for the lack of customization options.
The Moto X, both developer and carrier editions, are also scheduled to receive Android 4.4 updates, though that schedule is still unknown. Hopefully considering Motorola’s ties to Google, it wouldn’t take too long.
SOURCE: Motorola Moto X Developer Edition (GSM), (Verizon)
VIA: Android Police
I think I am about to be done with Verizon and am debating on a Moto X outright from AT&T or a Nexus 5. I hear middling things about the Nexus 5’s battery life and hit and miss camera. Any thoughts?
The Moto X’s camera is a bit hit-or-miss as well. Overall I think it’s decent, but you need to learn when it’s best to take HDR photos and when it’s best to take normal ones. HDR photos have much less de-noising filters (see bilateral median filter for an idea of how it looks). It can take photos of stars, which I find impressive 🙂 If you’re looking for a phone with a great camera though, you probably want to look elsewhere.
I think the battery life of the Moto X is decent and I like the size/feel quite a bit. The battery will be down to 40-60% by the end of an average day for me. It gets about 6 hours of browsing time, which means 4 hours before I decide to pocket it and wait for a charger. My battery widget says it drains about 1.2% an hour when I’m not using it (although sometimes it goes up to 2%), so after a full 24 hours of non-use, expect the battery to have about 60-70% left. Although this also means that if you are without a charger for about 12 hours, you’ll have 80-85% left if you don’t using your phone much at all. The battery widget says I drain (almost consistently) about 15% per hour when the phone is on. I haven’t taken note how the battery performs while playing games. The battery monitor I use is Battery Spy (I chose it since it doesn’t require any special privileges and gives you a week worth of graphing information).
I really like the touchless controls of the Moto X, specifically it turning on every time you pick it up and being able to set alarms, reminders, call people, send texts, etc at any time without needlessly fiddling with the phone. Usually when I think about doing these things is when I get into a car and can’t put my full attention on my phone, which makes the always on voice controls perfect for me.
I haven’t had time to go out and play around with a nexus 5 yet, so I can’t say what I think about it. It looks pretty nice and I’m excited to try it out eventually. Hopefully someone else can give you more information about it.
i have a black 32gb nexus 5 and im looking up 32gb moto x on this page, so that should tell you something.
im quite certain the camera deal is about the same with nexus 5 and moto x, WE just havent got our fix yet. its forthcoming
battery situation is somewhat alarming. last week i went out for roughly 4 and a half hours and manages to run my phone down from full to about 10%, i went to a concert and didnt take many pictures, so i wasn’t REALLY pushing it. normal mixed use.
ive read a battery fix is also forthcoming as well, but 4.4 has the option to run experimental “art engine” which supposedly is better on battery life and also prevents stutters (it WAS something i noticed while skimming rss feeds smoothly) . ive only had it on a couple of days but i seems to help.
i want a moto for the notifications, touchless controls, and power consumption, but its kind of odd to imagine that i would have to pay more than a nexus 5 would cost for something has half as many cpu cores, lower display rez, smaller screen. then again, im sure thats why the moto is so good on on power. ive heard the nexus 5 called the most future proofed phone out there, but im just not sure for WHAT. with the battery it feels unbalanced
plus i just touched some moto x’s today, with that .3 inch less screen size, it seems to fit in my hand better and im more able to touch every point of the display. cant really say that for the nexus 5