Despite being a fan of the company, and its products, the company’s recent actions has left a bad taste in my mouth. The slow update to Lollipop for the Droid Turbo and Moto X 1st Gen that I had didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the company’s ability to do fast updates properly. Then there is the Moto X Play, which felt more like a Lenovo phone rather than a Motorola phone (not a praise).
It just so happen that I chance upon a set for sale a while back, and bought it on impulse. With the Marshmallow update already out for the phone, this could be a pretty relevant BLTN (better late than never) review of the Moto X Pure Edition with Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
Big, but not too big
Like a growing kid through puberty, the screen size of the Moto X has gotten bigger and bigger with each passing year. From the petite one-handed goodness of the OG Moto X at 4.7”, to the still manageable 5.2” of the 2nd generation Moto X. This year, we have a finger-stretching 5.7” phablet (hopefully it won’t be 6.2” next year).
Thankfully Motorola has done a pretty decent job at keeping the physical size of the device as small as possible. The phone feels smaller than the screen size hints at. The built quality is excellent too with a solid metal built around the sides, and a soft touch plastic back with a textured design. You could go for the wood and leather backs too if you feel like it on MotoMaker.
The Motorola dimple is now housed together with the camera and the dual tone flash on a metal strip. Which is a pretty nice touch if you ask me. The buttons on the sides have a nice tactile feel to them, albeit feeling just a little thin and wobbly. The power button is nicely textured too. The metal accent continues with the top and bottom speaker grills as well, which not only gives it a nice design touch, but helps elevate the phone a little so the screen doesn’t touch the surface when placed face down.
A minor gripe on the design would be the slightly sunken-in camera lens. While I understand it would protect the lens from scratches, it also traps a lot of dust and pocket lint.
Looking and sounding good
Comparing it to the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 with a 5.7” screen as well, it has similar dimensions, albeit being a little chunkier and heavier. I think it’s amazing how Motorola was able to fit front facing stereo speakers as good as these on this phone size. I would probably rate it just behind HTC’s BoomSound speakers. For comparison, the Nexus 6P is a larger phone physically with the same screen size, yet the stereo speakers aren’t as good as the Moto X’s.
With a large screen and a really good pair of speakers, I have found myself enjoying media content more often on the Moto X. Especially when the screen on the Moto X is actually pretty good too. While I am very disappointed that it is no longer an AMOLED display, it is a decent looking LCD panel. Colours look decent, and I didn’t have much issues using the phone under sunlight too.
With the use of LCD though, it does ruin the Moto Display feature a little for me though. The discreet notifications that use to conserve battery life by only lighting up the necessary pixels now lights up the entire panel, because that’s just how LCD works. Which isn’t a huge issue in daylight since the panel has pretty deep blacks still, but becomes really obvious in a darker room.
Smooth, but not the fastest
The phone is powered by a Snapdragon 808 with 3GB of RAM, which really isn’t even near the top performers in the market. It seems to have been properly optimised to play nice though. Performance is still really decent, and playing games like Need For Speed: No Limits felt okay on the device too.
Day to day operation is pretty smooth too except for the occasion stutter, and dropped frames in the animations. Though I’m pretty sure this is more towards software optimisation rather than a lacking hardware.
Like with other Snapdragon powered devices this year, we have to talk about heat. It does get warm when setting up the device. In day to day operation though, it only gets a little bit warm from time to time, and definitely nothing worth concerning about.
A quick mention on the network support, while the Pure Edition supports all local LTE bands, I wasn’t expecting it to support Cat 6 LTE here since it’s a US phone. I did a couple of speed tests, and surprisingly it is able to support the faster speeds, which is definitely a huge plus for those considering importing it.
Stock Android, or at least near it
Like Moto devices in recent years, one of the draw of the devices are that it runs near stock Android. Those already familiar with the Moto X devices would already know some of the very useful enhancements Motorola has included. The good news is that they are still on board, and the bad news is that after a year, there hasn’t really been any new features, just minor improvements.
Maybe I was just hoping too much from the company. For the uninitiated, some of the very useful feature includes:
(Double twist to launch camera)
(Double chop to turn on flash light)
(Waking the phone up with voice commands, though this is now pretty common. Even the lifting the phone to ear to activate the voice assistant for more discreet commands has been on iOS for some time now)
(Moto Display is still around, and now includes support for more actions. Wave to wake phone is still around, and still very useful. Though the use of LCD makes the feature look a bit weird in darker conditions.)
Marshmallow
I personally prefer Motorola’s approach to customsing their software, as it results in a lean system which allows for easier, and faster updating of software. Which is why the Motorola is one of the few devices that have already been updated to Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
That means that it come with some very useful features that I’ve covered in my Nexus 5X/6P review. Most notably, the ability to customise individual app permissions, “Doze” for better standby battery life, and unlike the Nexus which doesn’t have SD card expandability, the ability to integrate an SD card as internal storage.
It’s a feature that I think will be very useful for people looking for more storage at a bargain. Though do take note to use an SD card with good performance though. I tried an older SDHC card, and it immediately prompted me that the card is slow, and might adversely affect performance if I install apps on the SD cards. While this feature might not be that useful for a phone already with 32GB of memory, it will come in really handy for lower end devices, often with limited internal storage.
To backtrack a little to talk about performance, it has been largely pleasant on Marshmallow. In fact it felt like the Moto X Pure performed a little smoother than the Nexus 5X. Which gives me hope for the Moto X Play when it gets the Marshmallow update. Hopefully that will fix the performance issues on the device and make it a better phone.
Relatively fast updates… for now
As mentioned earlier, part of the appeal of a near stock Android experience is fast updates. While it is certainly true for the current generation flagship devices for Motorola, it might not stay that way when a newer flagship phone becomes available the following year. The priority for updates will always go to the latest devices.
Having been an owner of the Droid Turbo and OG Moto X, I know how long it took to get Lollipop (at least for the Moto X). While that might be a one-off due to a custom chipset, a good indication would be to see when the Moto X 2014 will get its Marshmallow update globally.
If you really want super fast updates consistently, the Moto series is not for you. The only phones you can buy are pretty much going to be Nexus or iPhones only. Just thought it’s important to clarify this.
Decent battery performance, but not great
Battery life has been decent for me, but not amazing. Having only a 3,000mAh, a processor not known to be particularly frugal, and a QHD LCD display, battery life isn’t going to be great. But it lasts me a day of solid use easily, which is pretty much the most one can ask for these days. Doze does help a little, but I don’t leave the phone lying around enough to reap the benefits.
The phone does comes with fast charging built in, and thankfully unlike other manufacturers like LG (G4), BlackBerry (Priv), and Sony (Z5), they included a fast charger. The downside is that the charger is pretty huge, and the cable is NOT detachable, making it a chore to carry around.
A decent camera, but not the best
The Moto X uses a 21MP camera which Motorola called “best in class” when it was launched. Which I guess was true back then, but not anymore now that the Nexus 5X is around. The camera is actually pretty decent, but it's just not “great” like some of the more expensive phones are.
In daylight, the camera performs well. The details are well-preserved, and colours look natural. The image processing can be a bit heavy for some, but only when you pixel peep. HDR works great too by not going over the top with the processing, and auto HDR works remarkably well at detecting when to activate HDR.
As the light goes down though, the image quality starts to drop fast. While shots generally still look decent, they tend to be a bit muddy due to the image processing. That said, the image quality is actually still plenty decent.
Capture speeds are great in both daylight and lowlight conditions. However I think the shutter speed could have been a bit better in daylight. At times when taking a shot in a less stable position, I can still see some camera shake in the image. Having OIS would have really helped here.
The camera app is pretty bare bones though, and the “drag to focus” mechanism isn't as intuitive as “tap to focus”, but it's a minor gripe as you could always install another camera app.
Overall this is a solid camera for the price. It's a camera that most people would probably be satisfied with as their daily shooter. Calling it “best in class” would probably be true at the time that it was released, but we now have the Nexus 5X, which offers a better camera for a slightly cheaper price.
Full resolution images can be found here: Moto X Pure, Moto X Play, Nexus 5X, Note 5, Xperia Z5, LG G4, One M9
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Conclusion
By this point you have probably realised the common theme with this phone. This is a really nice phone, but it's just not the best in the market. It is however still one of the best phone money can buy for its price though.
It has a really nice build quality along with customisability. The OS is smooth and is near stock Android with actually useful enhancements. The camera while not the best, is still a strong performer. The specifications are actually pretty good too, plus you have an SD card slot which comes in really handy with Android 6.0. And yeah, it runs Android 6.0 already.
There are things I do not like about the device though. The lack of fingerprint sensor might not be a huge deal now, but might be when more developers make use of Android 6.0’s fingerprint APIs. The use of LCD display rather than an AMOLED is a little disappointing considering the power saving trait while using Moto Display feature. While the camera as it is, is sufficient for my needs, having OIS will definitely boost its capabilities.
Overall, this is still a phone that I actually really enjoy using. It may not be the most cutting edge, but it does what I need it to do well, and it does so at a cheaper price. While phones in this price bracket with these type of specifications are a dime in a dozen, Motorola gets one thing right, and that is user experience.
While the Moto X Play made me a little worried about Motorola’s future, the Moto X Pure Edition gave me a little hope again.
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