New Moto X first look: A great package, but price will decide its fate

Motorola announced the launch of three new devices the Moto G and Moto X smartphones and the Moto 360 smartwatch. **While the Moto G has been put up for sale** , the Moto X and **Moto 360 smartwatch will be coming to India later this month** .   Motorola hasn’t specified the price for either the smartwatch or the Moto X but **it is expected that the Moto X price won't change** drastically from the previous version, which launched at Rs 23,999 last year. In case of the new Moto G, Motorola reduced the price by Rs 1000 from the previous version, so there’s a good chance that they could do the same with the Moto X as well.   We took a quick look at the smartphone and this is the snap judgement.   Design and Screen: The Moto X comes with some new custom backs, but the colours that will launch in India are not yet known. There’s one with a black leather-feel panel and the other with a wood panel. According to Motorola, the back has actual leather on it, and yes it does feel great to touch this smartphone. It’s smooth, not tacky and looks exceptionally good. It sticks to the curved design of the earlier Moto X and the Moto G and the edges are now made of actual metal. Also Motorola’s M symbol is much bigger and bang in the centre of the Moto X. The logo really does standout compared to the one on earlier version.   You can see Motorola’s eye for detail in design and it feels impressive even when you’re just holding it in your hand. The only problem with a leather back is the worry over how easily it could end up getting dirty and of course whether it is durable enough. Will be safe in India’s terrible hot and humid weather? That remains to be seen. Moto X also has water-proof coating but that doesn’t mean you can go around dunking the smartphone in water. It will protect your phone from minor splashes but not a full fledged soaking.   The screen in a 5.2-inch with 1080p and an upgrade from the earlier which had a 720 p screen. Also there’s Corning Gorilla Glass to protect your device from scratches, which is great. With a full HD screen, you can never go wrong and this is a plus for Moto X.   [caption id=“attachment_232669” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Stock Android UI[/caption]   Processor, Memory:  The Moto X has a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 up from the previous 1.7 GHz processor. The RAM is 2GB, total memory space is 16 GB and 32 GB, although we’re not sure if both version will launch in India. As far as the battery is concerned, it has a 2300 mAh unit and according to Motorola Moto X will have all-day battery. The smartphone supports Turbo charging as well for quickly gaining some juice in emergency sitations.   With a more powerful processor the Moto X will definitely be a faster successor to the first generation smartphone, and one with a better display too.   Camera: Just like the Moto G camera got an upgrade, so has the Moto X one. The new Moto X ships with a 13MP camera over the earlier 10MP one, and has a 2-megapixel camera on the front. The flash DUAL-LED ring flash and according to Motorola it will make sure that the pictures don’t have that bit of harshness when you use flash. The camera also supports Ultra HD 4K video recording, although how this feature will be for battery of the smartphone remains to be seen.   Some of the new softwares features in the camera include the Best shot ability where the camera starts taking a bunch of pictures even before you click and then shows you the best shots taken to choose from based on smiles, motion blur, etc. We have to admit while one Moto X had the best shot feature running, we couldn’t quite get this mode to work for us in the demo zone. Probably we’ll have more time to explore this when we have the review unit.   [caption id=“attachment_232668” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  The new Moto X has a 13MP camera[/caption]   Software : This one also runs Android 4.4 and comes with a sure-shot update to Android L. Of course the special Moto Voice feature is available in this addition as well. The Moto Voice assist has got some upgrades it now allows users to share a Facebook status update, name the smartphone (borders on creepy but then some people like it) and give the smartphones commands like hey take a selfie. The Moto X will then switch on the front camera and also keep a timer ready to tell you to get ready for the selfie. More on this once we’ve reviewed the phone in detail.   Other Motorola features are Moto Migrate (which allows user to import their contacts, videos and photos from other smartphones), Moto Assist, (which allows users to set actions on the smartphone such as a regular no-disturb hour) and Moto Alert (which lets the smartphone alert your friends or family during emergencies).   In Conclusion: Given how the first Moto X was priced, this is definitely going to be a little over Rs 20,000 but can easily give other premium smartphones a run for their money. For users who want a smartphone that’s a little better than their last mid-budget buy, this could be the perfect phone to upgrade to.