Moto X: What You Need to Know

The long awaited product of the Motorola Mobility acquisition by Google is finally here, the Moto X! Google made the exciting announcement back in August 2011 that they were purchasing Motorola Mobility for a whopping $12.5 billion, and (as highly anticipated) announced in late May of this year that a new phone was in the works. The Moto X is that phone, and was unveiled just last month.

The Moto X runs on Google's Android operating system, and has a bevy of mid-to-upper range specifications. Its big marketing ploy however, is that it is made here in the United States and that you can customize its design to suit you. The product is not aimed at the tech geek seeking the fastest, most powerful phone available. Instead, it is aimed at the average consumer seeking a phone with a cool design and flashy, new features.

Specs:

• OS: Android 4.2.2 Jellybean
• Display: 4.7" AMOLED 
• Resolution: 720p HD
• Build: plastic
• Weight: 4.6 oz
• Rear Camera: 10 MP w/ LED flash
• Video Recording Resolution: 1080p HD
• Front Camera: 2 MP
• Battery: 2,200 mAh and removable
• On-board Memory: 16/32 GB
• Expandable Memory: none
• RAM: 2 GB
• Processor: 1.7 GHz dual core Snapdragon S4 Pro

Features:

• Color customization
• 50 GB free Google cloud
• Hand gestures 
• "Acitve" notifications
• "Touchless Control" voice commands

Verdict:

The Moto X has many pros and many cons. On the one hand, you can customize your own color scheme (currently only on AT&T), you get a great screen size with a very attractive AMOLED screen and an almost nonexistant bezel, you get very efficient battery allocation, and you get a phone user interface that comes very much like Google intends with little add ons or bloatware. On the other hand, however, the operating system is an update behind, the resolution is not full HD, the back is all plastic, the rear camera is purportedly awful, and the phone is still full price.

With all of this in mind, I would highly recommend you go into the store and play with the phone hands-on to get a sense for whether or not this is something you might want. All in all, it is a product you should really consider as the next phone for a teen, young adult, or someone looking to make the first step from Apple to Google.

Video Review:

As always, an in depth video review from Marques Brownlee.