We go hands-on with the Moto X!

If you haven’t heard, Motorola is back in the country, 7 years after their ungraceful exit from the PH market back in 2008. But now they’re back, and they’re bringing three devices with them to the PH: the Moto E, the Moto G and the Moto X. Today’s hands-on will be on the Moto X, a phone released by Motorola back in 2014. A little dated yes, but it still has more than enough grunt to compete with other mid-range phones today.

Motorola Moto X

• 2.5GHz quad-core processor
• 2GB of RAM
• 5.2-inch full HD AMOLED display, Gorilla Glass 3 protection, 1920 x 1080 resolution
• 16GB of internal storage
• 13-megapixel rear camera
• 2-megapixel front camera
• 3G, LTE
• WiFi, GPS, A-GPS, Glonass, NFC
• Android Lollipop
• 2300mAh battery

Initial impressions: impressive build quality, plus it’s the closest you’ll get to a pure Android experience next to a Nexus

We’ve encountered Motorola’s products before via review units that we sourced ourselves, and there’s no mistaking that the company knows how to make quality phones. The Moto X is no exception, and everything from the 5.2-inch AMOLED display, ergonomically curved back and metal frame feels solid and top notch. Simply put, the build quality is amazing.

While the design feels dated (the phone is almost a year old after all), it’s still a looker. While we’ve seen other phones with smaller and thinner bezels, the Moto X still has a good screen to body ratio. The back of the Moto X is curved, with Motorola’s logo embedded in a small dimple at the back. The 13-megapixel rear camera is located right above that. It may not look it, but the Moto X has an LED flash – two of them, in fact, flanking the camera module on either side.

The display of the Moto X uses a 5.2-inch full HD AMOLED panel. It’s one of the nicest displays we’ve seen, and can easily stand up agains the Super AMOLED offerings of its Korean rival, Samsung, easily. Because the Moto X uses on-screen keys for navigation, there’s no need for thick bezels below the display, further reducing the overall size of the phone.

The phone has two speaker grilles on the front, though only the bottom speaker grille is an actual loudspeaker as the other one serves as the earpiece. With the display off, the front of the phone simply looks like a monolithic block of dark glass, which makes it one of nicest looking phones out in the market today.

While the phone is almost a year old, Motorola has taken great care in providing timely updates to the device. The Moto X was one of the first smartphones outside of Google’s Nexus program to get Android 5.0, and Motorola sent out another OTA to bring the Moto X to Android 5.1 as we were setting it up for our review. Motorola’s prided themselves in providing a near-pure Android experience in their phones, and the Moto X is no exception. If you want a pure Android experience and you don’t want to go with the Nexus devices, the Moto X is the best option.

The Moto X is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 processor paired with 2GB of RAM. While it may seem dated compared to the 4GB monsters that play in its price range, that’s more than enough for everyday tasks. The Snapdragon 801 processor may be dated, but it’s still plenty powerful, especially its Adreno 330 GPU. Combine the hardware with the stock Android experience, then you get a phone that has zero lag when you’re using it.

That’s it for this initial impressions. We’ll be using the Moto X as our primary phone in the days to come, so watch out for that.