Motorola’s big move: Hands-on with the Moto X

Motorola is bringing its Droids to all the networks that aren’t Verizon, but the company is concealing them in a different package. The new Moto X is almost functionally identical to the Droids that were announced last week, down to Motorola’s new X8 “mobile system,” camera app tweaks, and contextual awareness.

But the Moto X not only works on more carriers, it comes in a much more appealing body. In fact, Motorola’s focus is almost entirely on the package. The company seems to think it has the internals and functionality down pat enough that it can apply minimal alterations to Android and focus on the appearance. While we can’t quite agree with that premise, the Moto X does look and feel pretty good.

The look of the phone from all sides is asymmetric from top to bottom. The curvature of the back puts the bulk of the weight and volume of the phone toward the top. But the asymmetry can only be seen, not felt. The phone feels completely balanced and very nice to hold. I found that the tip of my index finger tended to rest right on the indentation of the Motorola logo while holding the device.

The front cover of the phone is a glossy white or black plastic, while the back is a softer plastic that covers a black or white weave pattern. More colors will be available in certain circumstances.

The micro-USB port is centered on the bottom of the phone, with the volume rocker and sleep button on the right-hand side. Per the design paradigms of the later versions of Android (Android 4.2.2, in this case), there is no home button. But Motorola has worked out a better approach than buttons: a contextual processor that uses sensors to wake the screen when the phone is moved or flipped over.

When the phone wakes up this way, it presents a handful of notifications, the clock, and an unlock slider. You can get in to the phone with no hardware interactions required. Not a game-changer, but a nifty trick.

This feature worked nearly perfectly when I picked the phone up from facing down on a table, but it only triggered sometimes if I picked it up when it was facing up. To benefit from this setting, I’d have to get in the habit of putting the phone face down on different surfaces, which gives me moderate anxiety about the screen touching or being scratched by damaging objects or substances. The bezel is not raised in comparison to the screen, which won’t give you a whole lot of protection from putting it down on unsavory surfaces.

The contextual processor also affords the same camera activation gesture as the Droids. A few twists of the wrist will unlock straight to the camera screen, where you tap on the screen to take a photo or hold down for a burst mode.

Because of that processor and the phone’s sensors, it’s also possible to access Google Now while the phone is asleep. The phrase “OK Google Now” brings it to attention, and then speaking a command will get the phone to execute it without requiring you to touch anything. The phone does customize its responsiveness to your voice, says Motorola, so in theory someone shouldn’t be able to cause mayhem by walking into a room full of Moto X phones and saying “OK, Google Now, call John.”

Setting up voice activation involved saying “OK Google Now” three times in different cadences. The phone woke consistently, but the commands are as good (read: middling) as they’ve ever been with Google Now. If it doesn’t understand a word, it ignores it and doesn’t ask for clarification. This sometimes leads to incomplete commands.