If you have been interested in picking up the Motorola Moto X, you’re in luck. Due to the upcoming release of its successor, the Moto X+1, the original Moto X is getting a serious price trim of about $100. Thus, the Moto X can now be picked up from T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T or Verizon for the exceptionally affordable price of $349. This is the price without a contract, completely carrier-free, mind you.
Granted, the Moto X isn’t the most powerful smartphone on the market, but it certainly has a couple of things going for it. For one, it’s surprisingly fast, despite not looking like much on paper. This is a consequence of an incredibly well optimized, near core Android OS that works like a charm. The hardware is fast enough to make the Moto X a blazing fast phone that’s pure pleasure to use. It also has great design features going for it, finding an optimal balance between weight, size, display size, handling and durability.
Unfortunately, the Moto X does suffer from two very important drawbacks. First of all, the camera of the phone is way below average, and cannot be used for any serious photography. It’s a poor camera that just has no appeal to it. Second of all, the phone has horrible battery life, so no matter how fast it is or nice it feels in your palms, if it’s constantly begging for a recharge, it’s not going to do much for anyone. But you can’t have it all, especially not for $349, and considering that it’s on the lower end of the medium-budget, the Motorola Moto X is a damn fine phone that’s definitely worth a look.
On the other hand, the price-trim also means that we’re approaching the release of the Motorola Moto X+1, the successor of the original, and a phone that’s probably going to build on its predecessor’s solid foundation while ironing out its flaws (such as storage, battery life and camera). Some hardware upgrades are surely going to be included, with rumors circulating around 2 GB of RAM and a faster Snapdragon CPU. The main boost will be to the phone’s display, which will get bumped up to 5.2 inches and 1080p. The camera is getting upgraded to a 12 MP one, although the 10 megapixels in the original Moto X weren’t the problem to begin with.
One important thing to note is that the Moto X+1 is said to launch with Android KitKat 4.4.3. How great this change will be remains to be seen. We loved the OS version on the Moto X, and it was one of the prime reasons why the phone performed so well. As long as the company manages to keep the Moto X+1 at that level, we’ll be happy though, and so will Android enthusiasts. The phone is likely to cost around the $550-600 mark, but exact pricing hasn’t been revealed yet. Will the changes be enough to justify the significant difference between the Moto X’s price and the Moto X+1’s? We will have to wait and see. Below you can take a look at the specs of the Moto X and the Moto X+1 (rumored).
Motorola Moto X
- Size: 129.3 mm (5.09 inches) H, 65.3 mm (2.57 inches) W, 10.4 mm (0.41 inches) D
- Display: 4.7 inch 1280×720 p, AMOLED display with ~ 316 PPI
- CPU: 1.7 GHz Dual-Core, Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU
- Storage: 16/32 GB, 2 GB of RAM
- GPU: Adreno 320
- OS: 4.2, upgradable to 4.4.3 KitKat (once released)
- Main Camera: 10 MP
- Secondary Camera: 2.1 MP
- Battery: 2200 mAh battery
- Price: $349 (carrier-free)
Motorola Moto X+1
The Moto X+1 will bring additional customization options, such as a wooden cover. It’s also going to be larger than the original Moto X.
- Size: Unknown
- Display: 5.2 inch 1920x1080p, 5 finger gesture support, Gorilla Glass 3
- CPU: Snapdragon 800, 2265 MHz Quad-Core CPU
- Storage: 24 GB, 2 GB of RAM
- GPU: Adreno 330
- OS: 4.4.3 KitKat (once released)
- Main Camera: 12 MP
- Secondary Camera: 2 MP
- Battery: 3000 mAh battery
- Price: $550-600 (carrier-free, estimated)