Beyond the specs: Five reasons we are tempted by the Motorola Moto X

It’s only been a day since I’ve had the Motorola Moto X with me and I already love it. The Moto X has a certain charm to it which can only be appreciated once you actually use it. What makes the X special is not the numbers or the amount of megapixels in its camera. It’s the attention to detail and the small but very handy features that Motorola has incorporated in the X. Here are 5 reasons why the Moto X stands out from the crowd.   Dual-core that still packs a punch Granted that the Moto X uses a slightly outdated chipset but it still manages to hold its own amongst the competition. The Indian variant of the Moto X gets the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960T chipset. This consists of a dual-core CPU (Krait 200) running at 1.7GHz with an Adreno 320 GPU. The chipset is built on the 28nm fabrication process, which is what everyone still uses till date. Here are some benchmark numbers of the Moto X against some of the handsets in its price range. [caption id=“attachment_221433” align=“alignnone” width=“642”] Not too shabby for a two year old chipset[/caption]     True touchless controls If you thought the “Ok Google” voice command on the Nexus 5 was cool, the Moto X ups the ante once again. Thanks to a dedicated natural language processor, the Moto X can let its primary CPU idle while still managing to start Google Now without even waking up your phone. Not only that, you can train the X to only recognise your voice, which I think is extremely cool. You can use this when the phone is sleeping or from even within an app. [caption id=“attachment_221436” align=“alignnone” width=“691”] One of the most unique features of the X[/caption]     Deceptively simple lockscreen notifications The Moto X has a feature called Active Display which basically lets you glance at notifications without having to unlock your phone. It also uses the accelerometer to quickly show you the time and fades back out again. The X also smartly uses the AMOLED panel to only light up the pixels that form the message, leaving the rest of the pixels off. This was a feature that Nokia first used with the N8 but not many have exploited this unique ability of AMOLED panels. [caption id=“attachment_221435” align=“alignnone” width=“691”] The Active Display makes it easy to read notofocations[/caption]   Motorola Connect This is another simple but extremely handy tool which will further help save battery life. Motorola Connect lets you manage your calls and messages (SMS) directly from Chrome. After setting up the extension and signing in to the same account on the PC and phone, you’ll be able to read incoming messages and even choose to ignore or answer incoming calls. What’s more, you can even reply to the SMS through your PC without needing to use your phone. [caption id=“attachment_221434” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Manage your calls and SMSs from your browser[/caption]     KitKat out-of-the-box The Moto X wouldn’t be such a smooth operator if weren’t for the right software. The X comes with 4.4.2 KitKat out-of-the-box and hopefully, will be amongst the first to get any future updates as well, after the Nexus devices. [caption id=“attachment_221432” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] KitKat out-of-the-box[/caption]   Not so outdated after all Considering the Moto X is available in the US for $349, the launch price of Rs 23,999 is actually not bad. We still have to test out the battery life as its only been a day since we unboxed the phone. We’ll be bringing you the full review very soon but till then, you can check out our unboxing video of the Moto X and reasons why we feel it’s worth the Rs 23,999 price tag.