After Google acquired Motorola Mobility last year, many wondered what was next for the smartphone company. It spent ages clearing out its pipeline of smartphones that were already in development before rumors of an X Phone made in America started making the rounds. In those early X Phone days, Rick Osterloh, Motorola’s SVP of Product Management said the team that worked on the device was plopped in front of a whiteboard and asked to describe the product they wanted to make. That brainstorming, plus loads and loads of user testing, came together in the form of the Moto X.

Motorola isn’t the same company today as it was when Google snapped it up last year — it’s smaller, leaner, and if recent reports are indication, gutsier than ever. The Moto X is that new Motorola’s coming out party, and I think they’ve finally got something worth celebrating.

But, after a year in the works, Motorola is hoping that the Moto X will be the Android phone you know and want. On the back of the colorful phones reads “Designed and Assembled in the USA;” the phone is the first device built from scratch since Google acquired the company and is being built in the U.S. so it can quickly ship to American buyers.


That power is important though for the new Android software tricks. Similar to some of the features available in Motorola’s new Droid phones for Verizon, the Moto X has what the company calls “Touchless Controls” and an “Active Display” features. The touchless control works similarly to Google Glass, without having to touch the phone your phone can listen to you. After training it, you should be able to say “OK Google Now call mom,” without ever tapping or lifting the phone.

The tagline for this new smartphone is “All Yours” — this is because you can customize the phone to your liking. According to Motorola, the smartphone “…is truly yours, because you design it. Through our online studio, Moto Maker, you choose the colors, and decide on the details: front, back, accents, memory, wallpapers, even add a name or a short message. When you are done, we assemble your Moto X right here in the USA and ship it to you for free in four days or less. Choose from more than 2,000 possible combinations, with more to come. We’ll be constantly exploring new offerings, such as real wood backs, starting later in the year”.

MotoX-512x460The Active Display feature aims to solve checking your lockscreen for the time or new messages. You don’t have to wake the screen, instead, periodically the phone will flash the time and if you have any new messages. Even with those notifications, the company promises up to 24 hours of battery life.

Motorola also doesn’t want you to spend too long trying to get at your camera. The phone has a 10-megapixel camera that you can get to by just shaking the phone, launching the viewfinder in under three seconds. You can take a photo by just tapping on the screen; the phone will auto focus for you. You can customize all the camera settings, however, if you’d prefer to manually turn on the camera and take the photo. The phone will ship with Android 4.2.2 and will be updated to Android 4.3 soon.

Motorola is gearing up to make itself a purveyor of a smarter kind of smartphone, but it does mean that there were few surprises to get worked up over this morning. Even so, the X is exciting for what it represents. It’s hard not to think of the X as Motorola’s take on Google’s Nexus concept — the phone itself is a template for Motorola’s vision of mobile computing.

KEY FEATURES

Rear Camera: 10MP CLEAR PIXEL (RGBC) / LED Flash / 1080p video (30fps)
Front Camera: 2MP 1080p HD video
Operating system: Android 4.2.2
Architecture: Motorola X8 Mobile Computing System
RAM: 2 GB

Storage: 16 GB standard, 32 GB version available online. 2 years 50GB storage free on Google Drive

Bluetooth: 4.0 LE + EDR

WiFi: 802.11a/g/b/n/ac (dual band capable), mobile hotspot

Bands: GSM/GPRS/EDGE, UMTS/HSPA + up to 42 Mbps, CDMA/EVDO Rev. A (CDMA model only), 4G – LTE

Display: 4.7″ AMOLED (RGB) / HD 720p

Battery: 2200 mAh. Mixed usage up to 24 hours

http://oshadami.com/2013/08/google-moto-x-android-smartphone/