Motorola’s return to Philippines was announced last couple of weeks alongside with the launch of 2nd gen. Moto G, Moto E and Moto X. The Moto X, almost a year old in the market right now, will still be offered for P16,999 for 2GB/16GB model. Is the Moto X 2nd generation still worth for your money? Find out in our review.
Table of Contents
Design and body
The Moto X is a solid, premium-looking phone despite being in the market for a year. It is wrapped with metal frame, curved back and 2.5D glass which make it easy to hold in hands.
The front is covered with Gorilla Glass 3 from corner to corner, creating an impression of a 2.5D glass. Bezels are very slim, perhaps this makes the 5.2-incher Moto X one of the most compact flagship. On top and bottom on front are protruding metal speaker grilles. We mistakenly thought that the Moto X flaunts stereo speakers at first, but the top part serves as an earpiece upon inspection.
On the right side of the metal frame, there is a power and volume keys. The clicky keys are neatly positioned on upper part which can easily be accessed by your right thumb. The left part is left bare while the bottom part houses the microUSB port and the 3.5mm audio jack is positioned on top.
The back part has rubbery matte finish on top of curved back. A ring flash encircles the camera and at its bottom is the Motorola logo in the same crater ring size. The Moto X will support additional back panels in wood or leather finish. Motorola Philippines currently only offers the black polycarbonate version like on our unit.
The Moto X is still a standout phone which has solid build quality and stellar fit and finish. It is very compact phone with excellent screen-to-body ratio, hardly matched by the competition.
Display
While most phones are going with IPS LCD these days, Moto X has gone with 5.2-inch 1080p HD AMOLED display. The display is great with good amount of sharpness (424 ppi) and punchy colors.
I’m really impressed with the color saturation (though not accurate compared to IPS) of the Moto X’s display. The brightness is excellent producing very high sunlight legibility in either outdoor or indoor scenes.
Camera
The main shooter of Moto X is a 13MP camera that captures 2160p video, HDR images paired with dual LED flash aligned in a ring.
White balance and exposure are relatively good. Most shots has accurate colors and brightness. However, by close inspection, details are roughly preserved due to the amount of noise packed in each photo.
For starters, UI of the camera needs a little user’s adjustment. There is no dedicated shutter key and all controls are done with swipes on the screen.
The video quality is very decent, there is good amount of visible detail. Audio quality is very rich, thanks to the four noise canceling microphones.
Front snapper is a 2MP sensor that shoots up to 1080p video. The 2MP is reliable for video chat and selfie, image quality remain decent for sharing it to friends.
Performance and benchmark
Handling all loads is done by the Snapdragon 801 quad-core chip paired with 2GB RAM. Each core of the CPU is clocked at 2.5GHz. Performance is on par with latest flagship and upper mid-range devices, the benchmark results look promising for a 2014 flagship.
- AnTuTu – 46178
- GeekBench 3 – 974 for single, 2660 multi
- Basemark OS II – 1419
Software and experience
All Moto X models coming from Motorola Philippines run on Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box. So you won’t need to upgrade when receiving your new Moto device.
Software experience is closest to native Lollipop with enough number of preloaded apps to cater your needs. Customizations is quite limited compared to what LG and Sony offer in their LG G and Xperia series, respectively. But overall software experience is clean and user friendly.
Speaker
With mono speaker located at front, watching movies or listening to sound tracks are more convenient.
Though loudness is average, the sound quality of the speaker is one of the most balanced I’ve heard from a phone. The audio output is very clean, treble and bass are well-formed.
Battery
The Moto X packs 2300mAh battery which is small and short to keep your phone going until the next day. The maximum battery life you could get between charges is about a day including whole day of SMS, half hour of web browsing, voice calls and music playback while being connected to WiFI all day.
Price, Verdict
The Moto X is a flagship phone with a mid-range price. Given the fact that it still performs very well today, I would really put the Moto X on the list to be checked out if you got around P17k pesos budget for a new smartphone.
Motorola Philippines is currently offering the Moto X 2GB/16GB variant for P16,999. Some online stores offer cheaper price tag which could saved you few thousand bucks.
Moto X advantages
- Top-class performance
- Superb display
- Solid, premium build
Moto X disadvantages
- Poor battery life
- No microSD card expansion
- 13MP camera is average and dated
Moto X 2nd gen specs |
| 5.2-inch 1080p FHD AMOLED, 424ppi |
| 10mm thick, 144g weight |
| Water-resistant, Gorilla Glass 3 |
| Snapdragon 801 quadcore chip, 2.5GHz Krait 400 |
| 2GB RAM |
| 16GB internal |
| 13MP camera, HDR, 2160p video, dual LED flash |
| 2MP selfie cam, 1080p video |
| 4G LTE, nano SIM, Bt 4.0, NFC, WiFi ac, GPS |
| Android 5.0 Lollipop out-of-the-box |
| 2300mAh battery |
| Black, White, customisable back cover |
| P16,999 as of July 16, 2015 |
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