After much anticipation and speculation, Motorola Mobility and Google have finally announced their new Moto X phone. The handset, which is the first developed by Motorola under Google's wing, will hit the retailers later this summer for $199.
Built in the U.S., the Moto X sports a 4.7-inch 720p display and packs the same 1.7-GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor found in the new Droid RAZR Ultra. That chip, which features what Motorola calls its "X8 architecture" is comprised of two CPU cores, as well as cores for a contextual computing processor and natural language computing.
MORE: Moto X Full Review
The Samsung Galaxy S4, on the other hand, has a 5-inch 1080p display and 1.9-GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor, while the HTC One features a 4.7-inch 1080p display and 1.7-GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chip. Battery capacity for the Moto X is listed as 2,200 mAh. That's much smaller than the Galaxy S4's 2,600 mAh pack, as well as the HTC One's 2,300 mAh battery. Despite that, Motorola claims the Moto X's battery will give users upward of 24 hours of usage time.
Cameras for the Moto X phone include a 2-megapixel shooter up front and 10-MP in the rear. Compare that to the Galaxy S4's 2-MP front camera and 13-MP rear shooter, and the HTC One's 2-MP front camera and 4-MP rear. Of course, HTC doesn't rely on megapixels and instead says its handset uses an Ultrapixel camera. As with Motorola's new Droid smartphones, the Moto X lets users twist the phone in their hands to turn open its camera app.
The Moto X' specs are certainly lower than the S4 and One, but processing power isn't the name of Motorola's game with this smartphone. Instead, Motorola is focusing on personalization. A user can customize their Moto X's appearance by using Motorola's Moto Maker website.
Available to AT&T customers at launch with other carriers to follow, the portal allows users to customize their Moto X' chassis with up to 18 different colored back panels, 2 front colors and 7 accent colors. You can also choose to have a customized message written on the phone's back panel.
Overall, the Moto X trails its biggest competitors when it comes to clock speed and screen resolution, but we'll have to see if those drawbacks affect everyday use.
The Moto X will land on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and Verizon later this summer for $199. We'll bring you plenty more information about the Moto X in our review.
