When the Motorola Moto X first arrived with a hefty $199 price tag, many industry analysts said that was simply too expensive in this world of multiple smartphone choices. The Amazon Wireless store has responded by pricing the Verizon Moto X 4G handset at $99 on contract. And at least one respected industry analyst has stated that their research shows the Moto X 4G to be a more innovative handset than the new iPhone 5C and 5S options.
Analysts at ABI Research recently published the results of their teardown of the Moto X recently, and they argue that the Motorola Mobility effort delivers better power efficiency and design than either of the new iPhones. The Moto X 4G delivers a unique touchless control that Motorola says offers an “always on” experience. Basically, the natural language processing core on board the Motorola Moto X responds to your verbal commands, even if the handset is in standby mode. You simply say, “Okay, Google Now” and the phone launches the Google Now search and personal assistant feature.
The analysts at ABI Research pointed to that always on availability and the slightly curved form factor of the Motorola Moto X 4G, along with what they called “a much underrated display”, as significant advancements over the iPhone 5C and 5S handsets. The researchers also pointed out that the Moto X display “draws 68mA at low output levels and only 92mA at high output levels.” This is extremely efficient for any smartphone, and easily outperforms the iPhone 5S, which draws 80mA and 220mA respectively. And the new iPhone varieties have a full 20% fewer pixels.
Also, for the first time in Apple’s existence, they have given their new iPhone models cheaper plastic housings and the addition of a fingerprint ID scanner, a technology which has been available for years since first introduced by Motorola on its ATRIX HD 4G. Running on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE system in the United States, the Motorola Moto X is very light in weight for a phone with such a large display. The Moto X handset weighs in at 4.59 ounces (130 g), but still delivers a large 4.70 inch True HD screen with a pixel density of 316 pixels per inch.
A layer of Corning Gorilla Glass protects the front of the handset, with DuPont Kevlar fiber offering a durable back plate. Talk time is better than the industry average at 13.0 hours after a full battery charge, and the phone is powered by a collection of 8 processing cores. A dual core Snapdragon S4 Pro central processor is clocked at 1.7 GHz, and joins a powerful quad core graphics processor, separate natural language processing core and contextual computing core in the hardware package. The Moto X delivers 16 GB of built-in storage with a free 50 GB of Google Drive virtual storage space, and 2.0 GB of RAM system memory, a rear facing 10.0 megapixel camera and front facing chat cam. You can also purchase the Verizon Motorola Moto X handset at a discounted price tag at select online retailers starting at $99.99.
