The New Motorola Moto X (2nd Gen) Review
by Joshua Ho on September 17, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola
- Android
- Mobile
WiFi Performance
For the most part, WiFi performance is generally driven forward due to an increasing need for better battery life and higher speeds. In order to get a closer look at this, we use iperf on UDP mode. In the case of the Moto X, we see that the WiFi solution continues to be the same WCN3680 that is quite popular amongst OEMs as a 1x1 802.11ac solution. In order to get ideal performance, the phones are connected to Asus' RT-AC68U router as the sole client in order to try and eliminate the router as a gating factor.
As one can see, there's a mild performance uplift compared to the previous Moto X. The Samsung Galaxy S5 continues to lead because of its 2x2 MIMO solution, but the new Moto X doesn't give any reason for concern when it comes to WiFi performance.
GNSS
While at this point GNSS reliability is not nearly the issue that it was in early smartphones, there are still some differences to be had. For the most part though, any phone with a Qualcomm modem is utilizing IZat to enable GPS. In the case of the Moto X and Snapdragon 801 phones, this is IZat Gen 8B. Any lock with the cellular radio on is incredibly fast as the initial time and location data from the modem drops time to first lock to about 8 seconds in good conditions. From a cold start without assistance data and on airplane mode, it takes about 30 seconds to get a location fix. The Moto X seems to have a strong GPS antenna, and it's relatively easy to reach 10 foot accuracy if the sky is visible.
Misc.
Unfortunately with these reviews it isn't feasible to cover every aspect in the level of detail that I'd like to, but I still want to mention some of my observations. First, the TFA9890 speaker amp seems to only drive one speaker at a time, and while the lack of stereo speaker functionality is a bit disappointing the speaker gets quite loud, and feels comparable to the M8 in sheer volume. There is a BCM2079x NFC controller in the Moto X, and tap and pay with Google Wallet seems to work. I also see an Atmel touchscreen but I'm unsure what family it falls under as there isn't any public information on the model. The same TPA6165 amplifier is used for the headphone jack as on the previous Moto X, so any improvements will come from the new audio codec in Snapdragon 801 when compared to Snapdragon S4 Pro. In addition, while I don't have a setup to test noise cancellation I wanted to note that Motorola has made their own custom solution for noise cancellation instead of using an Audience or Qualcomm Fluence solution. Finally, if the "STM401 Sensor Processor" is really the STM32F401CC MCU made by ST-Microelectronics, there's potential to integrate similar functionality into Samsung Galaxy S5 as it has a similar IC for sensor hub functionality.
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Endda - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
and the Sony Xperia Z3 CompactNBMTX - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
The Z1f outsold the iPhone in Japan and it's seemingly only getting more premium AND more durable at the same time with the Z3c... though I like the Z1f/c's sides a bit more than the Z3c's.piroroadkill - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Alpha is a PoS compared with Z3 Compact.NBMTX - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
+1,000,000I would have really liked Moto to have gone head to head with the new iPhone staying at [a more compact] 4.7" with a much better sRGB calibrated display, a tested and quality 8mp camera with ois, a decent headphone amp (more important than stereo speakers, imo) with at least decent headphones, an included turbo charger, and something amazing like shell cordovan leather (vs delicate current options) that would [theoretically] only get better with the level of use our phones get...I think with small changes like that, it could have easily unseated the iP6 as a "premium device with attention to detail"...
wffurr - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
I was pretty disappointed to see the new Moto X go to the larger screen size. I think Apple nailed it with different devices at 4.7" and 5.5". I wish Moto had kept the X at 4.7" and just upgraded the internals, maybe done the metal band thing, and introduced a new larger phone as a separate model.Maybe they don't have the internal resources to do two models, so they had to compromise and release a phone that's too big for one hand but not big enough to compete with the Note or iPhone 6+. That seems like a really poor choice to me, if so.
NBMTX - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
I'm with you but my guess is they simply settled on making it directly in between both sides of the argument... which makes sense. I guess.Also, Apple's 4.7" is fairly different than Moto's 4.7", if it's Nexus 5 like dimensions (but thin, with rounded edges) are anything to go by. Moto's was perfect, IMO. I'm glad the curvature is seemingly here to stay.
fokka - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
wonderfully put. also, if they wanted to be part of the 5-inch crowd so bad, why not just make it 5 inches? why go for 5.2?they should just have stayed at 4.7", that was a big part of what made the x stand out in the first place. a more efficient SoC, bigger battery, better camera and maybe, just maybe, even an sd slot and they would've been good for another year.
but as nice as the new x looks, now we have yet another phablet sized phone with mediocre runtime and mediocre camera.
soccerballtux - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
having the Nexus 5, I think it's just a bit too small, but every 5.2" phone I use, I feel is perfect. 5.5" too big, but not 5.2.kasakka - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Agreed. It's not a coincidence that Apple went with 4.7" for the iPhone 6. It's probably the perfect display size for a smartphone at the moment, provided the bezels are very slim. As an owner of the Galaxy S4, I feel it is just a tiny bit too big to hold and use comfortably with one hand.I truly hope the trend swings around soon and manufacturers realise that there is a good market for slightly smaller, high performance phones. In Japan I had the pleasure of trying the Sharp Aquos XX Mini (4.5") and it was pretty amazing (battery life at such a small size w/ 1080p screen is questionable though) and would've bought it if it had had support for 3G/LTE in my country.
soccerballtux - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
I am not the only one that thinks 5.2" is the sweet spot and wishes my Nexus 5 had a 5.2" screen.