Motorola Announces Four New Products, All Of Them Flawed
Today, Motorola made four product announcements for the new Moto X and Moto G smartphones, for the much-awaited Moto 360 smartwatch, and finally for its "Moto Hint" Bluetooth headset; but all of them seem to have some deal-breaking flaws.
Let's take the Moto X, which effectively is Motorola's attempt at a flagship handset. It comes with a Snapdragon 801 processor, which isn't even the latest Qualcomm chip (Snapdragon 805), and it's not even a 64-bit ARMv8 processor, which is something that seems to be long overdue in Android flagships. The lack of such a chip for this holiday season seems like a major disappointment considering that Apple has already had one for a year in its iPhone.
The Moto X has a 1080p resolution, which is probably just about ideal for a high-end smartphone these days. However, the disappointment here comes with the 5.2" screen size, which is too large for most of the customers who bought the Moto X last year precisely because it was a smaller phone than so many phabet-type devices. Now the Moto X is 5.2" just like all the other competition at the high-end, losing its major size differentiation appeal.
The battery has barely improved, too; Motorola raised the capacity from 2,200 mAh to 2,300 mAh, while the competition is now more in the 3,000 mAh range. The Moto X could get away with the smaller battery last year thanks to its lower resolution 720p display, but now it has double the pixels, and even though it features a more powerful GPU, the battery life may suffer compared to the previous model.
Finally, the device retains the small storage options of 16 GB and 32 GB despite the plummeting costs of flash storage over the past few years. To make matters worse, it still doesn't offer a microSD slot, which would be handy for the higher-resolution pictures.
There are some things that have improved over the previous model such as using a newer-generation Super AMOLED panel; a metal frame that improves the in-hand feel of the device; and a 13MP Sony camera that has been in Galaxy S4, LG G2 and LG G3.
It also comes with a price tag of $500, which is lower than those Samsung and LG devices, but $500 doesn't feel like it's low enough to compensate for the Moto X's flaws this year. The Moto X's price quickly fell to $300-$350 last year, which many felt was a much more appropriate price point considering its good-but-not-great specs. For this year's model, $400 rather than $500 feels like a much better price for this device; the Moto X wouldn't make it as high-end handset against competing smartphones out there, but at least it would be great value for the price.
Then there's the new Moto G, which disappoints even more than the new Moto X because the device has barely improved at all. The main changes to the new Moto G are a higher-resolution 8MP camera (up from 5MP), a 2MP front-camera (up from 1.3MP), an increase in screen size to 5" (up from 4.5"), the addition of front speakers and 802.11ac connectivity.
However, the Moto G comes with exactly the same Cortex A7-based Snapdragon 400 processor, storage and RAM as last year, which means there will be no improvement in terms of performance. It's especially disappointing that the Moto G doesn't have the ARMv8-based Snapdragon 410, which is the successor of the Snapdragon 400 processor that is being used by some of HTC's recently announced phones. There's also no word about an LTE version yet, so customers in LTE countries could find that a deal-breaker.
While the storage is the same as last year, with only 8 GB and 16 GB options, this year the new Moto G does bring microSD support up to 32 GB, just like this year's Moto G 4G model. MicroSD's are going to continue to remain an important feature on Android devices, whether internal storage increases or not.
Finally, the battery remains the same, despite the new Moto G being a larger device. This, combined with the higher-resolution camera that requires more processing power, could lead to slightly lower battery life compared to the old Moto G, too.
The much-awaited Moto 360 does indeed look like the best smartwatch money can buy right now, especially the beautiful design that should appeal to a wide range of people (not just tech nerds). However, the deal-breaker could be its battery life; even Motorola seems to be recommending that users charge it at night, which means it won't even last 24 hours. If a smartwatch becomes just another thing people have to worry about charging, then it won't be especially appealing.
The main reason why most of the new smartwatches can't break even two days of battery life is the display technology they are using. A smartwatch can't be treated like a smartphone, because then it will have the same battery life as a smartphone, or perhaps even less than that.
The smartwatch should have a display panel that allows the device to last days or even a week on a single charge. Right now, the only candidates for that are Qualcomm's Mirasol display technology, transflective LCDs (that Pebble is using), and e-ink (that e-readers use). An operating system like Android Wear, which is heavily animation-dependent, may not work as well with e-ink (which works better with very static content), but the other two should be appropriate.
Motorola has also launched a new Bluetooth headset called the Moto Hint that looks to be as attractive a Bluetooth headset as you could want. The Moto Hint hides in your ear, rather than covering your whole earlobe like most other Bluetooth headsets do. Its price is probably not what everyone wanted to see for it, though; at $150, it's only $100 less than a Moto 360 smartwatch, so that could be a deal-breaker for many.
Overall, while both of its phones have improved in some ways, and Motorola has introduced a couple of new products, it doesn't feel as though Motorola is making nearly as a big of a push as it could have this year. Motorola is still owned by Google right now, so perhaps Google didn't feel the need to try too hard with Motorola's product pipeline this year. We'll have to wait and see if Lenovo handles the company any better next year and makes its products any more competitive.
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Next, the $179 Moto G. This device was perfectly smooth with the old specs, and since the purpose is to be solid at a low price point, the increase in cameras and screens is a pretty big boon. the kind of upgrade that'll actually help the market this phone targets rather than make a gadget freak feel superior.
I'm on the fence about the Moto 360. It looks great, but battery life estimates have varied wildly, going as high as 36 hours and as low as 10-12. If it veers toward the latter, I'll be waiting for the next gen, but if it legitimately lasts 24 hours then yes, you'll have to charge it every night, but so what? It's a smartwatch, not a watch or a Pebble [which in comparison can barely hold onto its smart designation].
Lastly, the Hint is expensive, but not flawed. It's an astounding piece of tech that serves an utterly different purpose than the Moto 360, so comparing the price is kind of useless.
"the device retains the small storage options of 16 GB and 32 GB despite the plummeting costs of flash storage over the past few years. To make matters worse, it still doesn't offer a microSD slot, which would be handy for the higher-resolution pictures."
"but $500 doesn't feel like it's low enough to compensate for the Moto X's flaws this year"
Wow, you guys are really ripping into Motorola about not having enough improvement between their device generations and cost... yet you always praise Apple when they release a new generation?
I'd like to see your next Apple article to be titled "Apple Announces Product Refresh, All Of Them Flawed". Then you can go on about how little they have updgraded their hardware yet the price seems high.
Next, the $179 Moto G. This device was perfectly smooth with the old specs, and since the purpose is to be solid at a low price point, the increase in cameras and screens is a pretty big boon. the kind of upgrade that'll actually help the market this phone targets rather than make a gadget freak feel superior.
I'm on the fence about the Moto 360. It looks great, but battery life estimates have varied wildly, going as high as 36 hours and as low as 10-12. If it veers toward the latter, I'll be waiting for the next gen, but if it legitimately lasts 24 hours then yes, you'll have to charge it every night, but so what? It's a smartwatch, not a watch or a Pebble [which in comparison can barely hold onto its smart designation].
Lastly, the Hint is expensive, but not flawed. It's an astounding piece of tech that serves an utterly different purpose than the Moto 360, so comparing the price is kind of useless.
"the device retains the small storage options of 16 GB and 32 GB despite the plummeting costs of flash storage over the past few years. To make matters worse, it still doesn't offer a microSD slot, which would be handy for the higher-resolution pictures."
"but $500 doesn't feel like it's low enough to compensate for the Moto X's flaws this year"
Wow, you guys are really ripping into Motorola about not having enough improvement between their device generations and cost... yet you always praise Apple when they release a new generation?
I'd like to see your next Apple article to be titled "Apple Announces Product Refresh, All Of Them Flawed". Then you can go on about how little they have updgraded their hardware yet the price seems high.
This is it. I'm done.
This is it. I'm done.
This. Horrible slant against the Moto X, which by all accounts is FAR closer to a flagship than last year's model. I disagree with whomever wrote this. I can't believe they complain that there's no 64-bit processor in it. No one makes one for flagship Android phones right now. Sure, they're starting to come out, but damn. Also note: this is not a flagship. $499 unlocked is not flagship pricing.
Either someone pissed on your cereals today morning or you're a raging fanboy of another company.
Cheers!
The author, who has not had any hands-on time with any of these devices and likely pulled the info here from other sites' reviews and press releases, feels like he is informed enough to not only write a "news" story about it but is also confident enough in his conclusions that he claims that they all "have some deal-breaking flaws".
Time to start turning AdBlock on for Tom's if they're going to start posting trash articles like these. This isn't a news article. This is a biased blog piece from a self-proclaimed "tech enthusiast".
Just compare this article with the one published on Anandtech:
http://anandtech.com/show/8491/the-new-moto-x-intial-impressions-and-hands-on
I hate to say it, but there is no comparison. The Anandtech article is informative and balanced, the author knowledgeable and restrained. This just sounds like an angry rant by some random uninformed kid on a tech forum.
For a very different perspective from a reputable site, check this: http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/5/6108473/the-new-moto-x-could-be-the-best-android-phone-ever-made
In addition to being based on actual hands-on experience, they also bothered to collect facts instead of just guessing.
I understand. But Motorola have proven before that specs don't always tell the full picture. And in the case of this story, even the specs are incorrectly described. Check some of the hands-on reviews, you'll get a very different story.
Oh, and I'm not a Motorola user, I'm Nexus 5.
Same with the watch. The purpose of a watch is to tell time. Anything else it might do is secondary. So, how accurate is it? Does it sync to a time server periodically? What type of battery does it take? As I mentioned before, the primary function, that of time-teller, must not be dependent on a rechargeable battery that can't make it through a two-week vacation, six weeks of a remote training class, or even a six-month deployment.
I don't think that's the point, at least it's definitely not the point I was making.
I don't think there's any information in this article I couldn't have simply read off a spec sheet. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if that's pretty much all the author did, followed by reactions (2300 mAh battery?! Snapdragon 801?! no 64-bit?!) Even if he only regurgitated that information (like Tom's news articles usually do) I probably wouldn't have had a problem with it. But then there's the rant and rush to judgement based off this limited information... On top of this there just seems to be a general lack of insight and knowledge about the market and industry. I think the author's expectation of 64-bit SOC's in the MotoX and MotoG are a great example of this.
I do agree there are things in the announcement and spec sheets that seem like strange decisions, the battery capacity in the MotoX and SOC in the MotoG are two that popped out at me. But I would hardly call that cause for immediate condemnation without further review and analysis.
guys, this isn't a definitive review of all four products, this just stated that those new devices - as most devices - aren't quite flawless. granted, the article and headline aren't a stroke of genius, but just looking at the statements, i tend to agree with most of them.
the moto x is surprisingly big, which is seems contrary to the "compact flagship" from last year, the battery is the smallest in its class and not going with the faster and more efficient sd805 can only be argued with the slightly lower price, compared to the competition.
and it still lacks a micro sd slot, when even on the g it comes standard now.
those are all valid points, but that doesn't mean the moto x will be a bad phone. as we all know, motorola's ace is its software and its practical features, so while for some there might be deal breakers (for me it would be the omission of an sd slot), for others it may be the best smartphone ever built.
same with the g: it got bigger, but without increasing the resolution, the price stayed the same, but we don't get better specs either, so year over year, now it seems like a worse deal than when it was originally introduced. i'm not grying for a faster soc, or 64bit or whatever, but they could at least have upped the ram to 1,5gb, no?
but at least now it comes with an sd slot standard and the front speakers are nice too, even if they don't look too great.
i'm not gonna talk about the moto 360, but further, yes, i can understand the author if he's not too happy with an earpiece costing as much as a nice pair of headphones.
and now let's put away the pitchforks again, shall we?
and now let's put away the pitchforks again, shall we?
Well, for my part, I never owned a Motorola product in my life. I read about the original Moto X last year, and know ONE person who owns it (whom I haven't seen in six months). That's all. I am just an averagely informed Android user.
Yet, when reading this article, I was offended by its lack of insight and guesswork's approach to reporting. After reading reviews from others sources with actual hands-on, which contradicted even the raw "facts" reported here, I felt compelled to register and post my reaction.
So pitchforking? Yes maybe. But with publishing comes a responsibility, which in this case is severely lacking, for whatever reason. I haven't spent time on Tom's Hardware in years, so I cannot speak to whether that is common. I guess it worked from a clickbait point of view...