Motorola Moto X (Verizon, 1st gen.)
Phone Scoop Review
Oct 3, 2013 by Eric M. Zeman
The Moto X is a better pick for Verizon customers than the newest Droids. Here is Phone Scoop's take on Motorola's latest Android smartphone. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
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Unbloated Pretty Pure Android: Nice Job Motorola
After 5 months of daily usage:
Pros:
Battery almost always makes it through the day with heavy use.
Motorola add-ons like: Touch-less Control, Migrate, and Active Notifications are all big winners.
Miracast works great off Wireless Display function.
Almost NO Bloatware. Thank you Moto and Google
Camera works great perfect with Google+ back-up
OK Google Now voice activation featurewith phone sleeping is excellent
Cons:
No SD card
Native Android Contacts App is lacking
Untested:
Global GSM Nano Sim usage with VZ
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All Hands On The Wheel Phone
For the record this is a better device on Verizon's network than AT&T. There were no latency issues when using Google Voice on Verizon's network, I could issue a command and immediately reissue another command without waiting for the network to 'regroup'. The Moto X is my mini co pilot while driving many miles per month. I've set alarms with voice commands, which is great when you are half tired.
The Touchless control works well, the voice call quality is excellent and the sound quality of music is excellent.
The battery gets me through 12 to 14 hours (GPS always on, navigation to two locations, 45 minutes of music streaming, download a few apps, talking, texting and some web browsing).
This is a device that I believe would be easy for anyone to operate, once the phone is voice trained. It's less than 5 minutes to train the device for your voice and calling and navigating is all touchless, which allows for all hands on the wheel driving.
There's no MOTOBLUR, you get Motorola's extra device security features, which have been around a minute and you can decide to use them or not. Motorola's Smart Assist is a trimmed downed version of Smart Actions. They probably selected the MOST used.
The screen is very nice, although it's no S4 or retina display, I would have preferred a larger screen, but oh well.
The camera is adequate, but it's NOT an S3 or S4, HTC, Nokia or iPhone camera quality. You have to pick what's important to you.. The on screen keys take up much needed real estate with web browsing, but I guess they couldn't fit it ALL in.
The software under the hood of Moto X is what led me to this phone. It does have a stronger signal than my previous S3, Moto Connect is a bonus if you work somewhere where you CAN'T take your phone in. It's very well thought out device.
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Final and fast reliable phone!
I have been a loyal apple user for over four years.. I have always enjoyed their product. Recently I tried the galaxy note 2 and glaxy s4. Neat products with innovative style but I need something that is reliable and easy operation thus I stock to the iPhone finding it more comfortable with solid performance. However recently with info about the iPhone 5s finally revealed I decided it was time to try one last android phone.
I decided to get the Moto X... AMAZING! beautifully designed with solid performance and long lasting battery. The user interface to accuracy its by far one of the best for response time and accurate when typing.
All over great phone the notification displays are gorgeous. I highly recommended this device to anyone looking for sleek and modern with a hard drive to match.
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Moto X Gen 1 Verizon.
Have had for 2 years, perfect size, durable, fast.
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awesome, switched from iphone 5
first let me say that i love the iphone but the competition is catching up. i took the dive and went for the moto x mostly because i could customize it and it only cost $299 for the 16gb version, without a contract.
pros:
easy migration from iphone with a google/gmail account
custom fit with motomaker
gets the job done as a phone and internet appliance
Battery life is pretty good for a phone. Can get through the day with moderate use on a single charge. Better than the iPhone in this area and one of the main reasons I switched.
Love the hand feel of this phone (got rubberized back) and not as slippery in the hand as an iPhone
cons:
the app selection is good but ive noticed that they're not as polished as the ios apps. that is some of them hang sometimes and are a bit laggy (ie the nytimes app)
reception bars have been wonky (jumping from 4 to one) but all the calls ive made have been clear so not sure how accurate the signal bar is.
turned off imessage like they said but some of my friends with iphones still had my texts going to imessage. deleting the original text thread fixed that.
overall, im pretty happy with the switch and slimmed down, google designed phone. if you're making the switch from an iphone, it's pretty painless.
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Moto X'd
I have not gotten everything set up yet, but so far I like this phone very much. It feels much lighter than my previous Galaxy S3.
Since it just updated to Kit Kat 4.4, I have to learn how some of the new things work and the differences between this and Jelly Bean as well as the phones themselves.
The only thing so far I see is the bland settings menu, a little color would be nice and the calendar app, it needs to show more info in monthly view.
As I see more, I will be back to update.
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Near pure Google and a wonderful phone
This phone has been wonderful for over 4 months now.
I came from a Galaxy Nexus so I was hoping to have as close to a stock android experience as possible. Motorola has added little things here and there but every enhancement is actually an enhancement, not a reskinning or rebranding of something that already exists in stock android.
Active Notifications:
If you work in a indoor desktop environment like I do, active notifications are WONDERFUL. Just leave your phone on your desk and when you hear a buzz you just glance at it to know if it is a email, txt msg, or app notification. Even if you keep your phone 90% of the time in your pocket it is still wonderful because the instant you pull your phone out of your pocket, the notification displays what type of message you received. You can just press and hold down to see the notification msg, or chose to swipe up to view the whole message in the application.No swiping down the notification tray to see a little more detail to decide if you want to actually open the notification. It is all built into active notifications.
Camera:
This is what most people complain most about on this camera. As a freelance photographer it was a big concern to me as well reading reviews. I have found this can be a very good camera if you know what your doing. If you know where you want to set the exposure of the image on. This can easily be learned. I have gotten some wonderful shots that rival my DSLR. I would say the camera is not perfect, but it is still really really good. Also twisting your wrist to pull up the camera is WONDERFUL if you have kids. You can snap a shot in a couple seconds, before the moment is over.
Speakers:
I am not an expert at sound, but I think it is good enough for me. The high end is very very loud, the bass is lacking a bit. Overall it is loud enough for my notifications ringtones, and playing videos and music.
Battery:
This phone will last through most peoples day easily.
