As a half dozen of my colleagues toil away in Berlin bringing you the latest news from the likes of Samsung and Sony, I'm more than 4,000 miles away in the city of Chicago. Specifically, I'm in Motorola's headquarters, which spans 600,000-square-feet across four floors high atop the Merchandise Mart, a large and impressive commercial building built in 1931. After taking a grand tour through its facilities, I finally encounter Motorola's latest flagship smartphone: the Moto X.
So no, not last year's Moto X. I mean the new Moto X, the one that it's announcing today to the world. Yes, the company -- which Lenovo has recently agreed to purchase -- has decided to keep the name the same. But aside from the name, the new Moto X promises to be different. It's bigger, beefier and it boasts a number of new features and design tweaks that should up the X's desirability quotient considerably. All of that, and the new Moto X is priced to please: It starts at only $99.99 on-contract and $499.99 (£419.99) unlocked.
So no, not last year's Moto X. I mean the new Moto X, the one that it's announcing today to the world. Yes, the company -- which Lenovo has recently agreed to purchase -- has decided to keep the name the same. But aside from the name, the new Moto X promises to be different. It's bigger, beefier and it boasts a number of new features and design tweaks that should up the X's desirability quotient considerably. All of that, and the new Moto X is priced to please: It starts at only $99.99 on-contract and $499.99 (£419.99) unlocked.
Now let's dive into the details, starting with that screen. To be honest, it's not that much bigger than the old one; the 5.2-inch AMOLED display, still in Corning Gorilla Glass, is only roughly half an inch wider than last year's X. But now it sports a 1080p full HD display instead of a 720p one, which makes it a touch more pleasing to the eye. The screen takes up almost the entirety of the phone's face, leaving just a bit of bezel on the bottom and the top, so it gives the illusion of a much larger display. To make room for the larger screen, the phone itself is also just a hair bigger -- it measures 72.4mm wide by 140.8mm tall and it weighs about 144 grams. The new Moto X retains the curved back from the original, but with a slightly slimmer width-- arching from 3.8mm at its thinnest to 9.9mm -- that still cradles nicely in the hand.
While we had no real complaints about the build quality of the original Moto X, the company wanted its latest iteration to feel more premium than before. That's why instead of a plastic frame, the new Moto X has a smooth piece of aluminum wrapping the entire edge of the phone -- it's thin around the corners and fattens up as it approaches the middle. That also happens to be where the external antenna is housed. If you're concerned about antenna issues -- like, uh, that certain other phone from that company in Cupertino -- Motorola assures us that due to an advanced "Dynamic Tuning" technology that knows how to compensate for your grip, there is no wrong way to hold the phone. read more
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