Motorola Moto X (2013) Review

Google owned Motorola for two years and this is the phone it had to show for it. The Moto X ignored the 2013 spec race on purpose. Its X8 system paired a dual-core Snapdragon S4 Pro at 1.7 GHz with two tiny low-power cores, one listening for the phrase OK Google Now with the screen off and one watching the sensors, so the phone could wake up with a breathing Active Display notification on its AMOLED panel or open the camera when you twisted your wrist twice.

Nobody else had a phone that listened for you without touching it; within a few years everybody did. The 4.7-inch 720p screen was sharp enough, the 2200 mAh battery outlasted the quad-core rivals, and the near-stock software got KitKat within three weeks of its release, ahead of some Nexus phones, and ran on to Android 5.1 before support ended. Moto Maker let you choose the colours of the back, the accents and the front, and the phones were assembled to order in Fort Worth, Texas.

The 10 MP Clear Pixel camera was the flaw: its exposure was erratic, its detail soft, and a software update only partly rescued it. The other problem was price. Motorola sold it at 199 dollars on contract, the same as a Galaxy S4, with an unlocked price near 600 that it cut to 399 within six months. At the lower price it was one of the best Android phones of its year.