Verizon Moto-X Mini Review

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 6:42 am

Pulled the trigger Monday. Loving the phone.

First off, Verizon data is SO much better around here than Sprint. We live in the boonies here and Sprint has no 4G. AT&T and Verizon are both spotty I've been told, but I have pretty consistently been getting 4G on the Moto-X and bandwidth speeds has been very fast.

Verizon store clerk was EXTREMELY competent. I was in and out with 3 new phones (2 Moto-x, 1 iPhone 4s from my brother) in 30 minutes. Got a black one for me, and got the white one for the wife.

Love the feel of the phone. Performance is amazing - makes my old phone, and even my Nexus 7 tablet feel slow and clunky by comparison. I use the Dolphin browser, which is very fast on this phone. Chrome worked fine as well but I like Dolpin. Everything responds instantly. Very little Verizon crapware installed on it.

Loving the simplicity of the nearly stock Android OS. All my old apps work just fine. No regrets about not having an SDCard slot. I have the 16Gb phone (Verizon doesn't have the 32Gb yet) and really, it's plenty of room for me. I'm all loaded up, including a 2Gb map for off-line GPS, and still have 6Gb free, and I could trim that map down to just the geographic areas I need if necessary. I don't put videos on my phone.

Haven't played with the advanced Google Now feature yet.

Screen is extremely bright and really color saturated - maybe too saturated but I like it. Everything stands out nicely and blacks are very black.

Purposely ran the battery down yesterday by using the phone practically non-stop all day. I also used it as a wifi hotspot in the car to allow my iPod to download podcasts.

The speaker is very load and much clearer than my old Evo 4G which tended to crackle - even when new.

Camera is nothing great by today's standards, but it's way better than my old Evo HTC's miserable camera. I'm not a person who relies on a phone camera anyway - I have a pocket digital camera in my brief case all the time and the wife has a DSLR. The phone camera is just a backup.

I also bought the Motorola Roadster 2 BT phone speaker since my old one is not fully compatible:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407039,00.asp
You need to install the MotoSpeak app which gives you full hands-free functionality, including ability to send & receive texts audibly. I use SMS for Voicemail in lieu of a pager, so that's handy.

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 7:35 am

Awesome review and congrats!

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:23 pm

When I was with sprint about 6 months ago, the girl at the counter hesitated when I showed interest in the Motorola phones. She indicated that there was a noticeably higher return rate on them. That could be bull, but she didn't seem like she was actually trying to steer me wrong. I got an LG and didn't fare any better anyhow.

I'm running a Samsung S3 now and have to say that other than their bloatware (most disabled), it's a very nice phone.

The S4 is nice hardware but if I had bought it, I would have gone with the Google Edition (pure Android) but that's a LOT of money to cough up.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Sep 18, 2013 11:25 pm

I think she might have been steering you away because I hear the moto doesn't do well on Sprint's network. I hear the same thing about the Galaxy S4.

I've used Sprint for 15 years but they are way behind the times now. I always liked their support, but they're technology is outdated. Even Verizon's 3G is better than Sprint's 4G around here.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 12:43 am

I have to say that Sprint's connections both for data & voice left enough to be desired that our companies owner bought out of the contract. But I do agree, great service.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 8:05 am

Well I'm impressed with screen brightness and contrast. Sitting on my porch this AM with sun shining right on the screen, and it's clearly legible.

renovation · Post by **renovation** » Thu Sep 19, 2013 8:41 am

I will say Sprint has improved there service around here this last year / maybe last 6 months. also able to pick up some 4G in my area now but its spotty. Im using the Galaxy S3 my daughter using the apple I phone not sure what model. in Tampa and happy with it as long as she not inside her home. then it only good if she uses it in her up stair bedrooms. I have found the same Galaxy S3 at her place. you walk outside and the phones works great. the wife using a older Samsung slide out cell but she like it. 3G or 4G don't matter to her. all she do is phone ,text and take pictures on her phone.
what I'm finding is with Sprint anyway is were they do offer 4g service its only in limited area's. not covering a whole town. so its like maybe one cell tower (the newest one ) and the rest of there towers are only 3g.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Sep 25, 2013 11:31 am

Well, not that I have much to complain about the camera, looks like Motorola is rolling out an update for the Moto-X that dramatically improves the image quality:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7353/moto ... ra-quality

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Oct 14, 2013 1:27 pm

Interesting. I must say battery life is outstanding, and I'm not using super-aggressive battery saving techniques.

Moto X said to outclass and out-innovate Apple’s iPhone 5s
http://bgr.com/2013/10/10/iphone-5s-vs-moto-x/

Apple’s new iPhone 5s might be the fastest-selling handset in smartphone history, but is it really a big step forward for Apple? According to market research firm ABI Research, the answer is no. In fact, ABI thinks that both of Apple’s new iPhones are outclassed, out-innovated and out-engineered by Motorola’s latest offering, the Moto X. The Moto X doesn’t seem to have huge sales numbers to back up all that innovation according to carrier sources speaking with BGR, but ABI makes a compelling argument that Google’s Motorola really is a diamond in the rough.

“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,” ABI Research said in a recent note. “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. Other suppliers have elected to add cores (4 and even 8 cores are available) to accomplish the same result. Either more bits or more cores add significant performance but the trade-off is always current drain. 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.”

By comparison, ABI says the Moto X represents a huge step forward in power management, providing huge benefits to battery life despite touting a number of innovative new features.

“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,” ABI Research’s VP of engineering Jim Mielke said “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.”

According to ABI, Apple’s iPhone 5s draws 2.5 times more power than the Moto X even though its display has 20% fewer pixels.

“The combination of solid engineering, creative features, and timely introduction of those features was Apple’s trademark but it has faded in this category over the last two years,” ABI concludes. “Q3 2013 marks the start of another potential company that has put together that rare combination of traits that bring user friendly, innovative, practical products to market.”