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The (maybe) "Epic" Motorola X Pre-Release Thread

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The_Chief said:
I am disappointed simply because I was ready to throw money at Verizon and walk out with this phone. Now I'm seriously on the fence :(
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Pretty much in the same boat as you. Was not impress by the Moto X. No announcement of off contract pricing.
 
shalemail said:
I think it's fair to say that if this phone launches at an unsubsidized price of $300 16GB and $350 32GB customized, then it blows up like a A bomb and you start seeing this thing everywhere. Maybe even $400/$450

However if you have to pay $200/$250 ON contract, it's going to hurt sales because the majority of the ones buying it will be idiot teenagers that just want a neat colorful phone and don't care about carrier contracts, especially now that you can "upgrade at any time" :rolleyes:.

That said - with time prices drop.
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awww - but, I've already given so much of my time to this :(
1. my first realization/hearing of a Motorola X phone (aka iPhone killer) - February '13
2. anticipation build up for Google I/O and possible X Phone mention - May '13
3. various leaks and speculation articles - May-July '13
4. Moto X Phone announcement - Aug '13

... granted it's only 6months, but still.
I previously said that this X Phone was the first phone in my life that I've followed up to announcement... I guess what they say about "hype up" really does hurt on the way down on announcement day :D
I'm getting weary :p
 
egDonald said:
awww - but, I've already given so much of my time to this :(
1. my first realization/hearing of a Motorola X phone (aka iPhone killer) - February '13
2. anticipation build up for Google I/O and possible X Phone mention - May '13
3. various leaks and speculation articles - May-July '13
4. Moto X Phone announcement - Aug '13

... granted it's only 6months, but still.
I previously said that this X Phone was the first phone in my life that I've followed up to announcement... I guess what they say about "hype up" really does hurt on the way down on announcement day :D
I'm getting weary :p
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She was mine to
 
IHateMyTreo said:
Interesting comparison matrix with the Droid lineup.

Moto X vs the new Droid lineup: fight!

Not sure any of them will make me switch from the RMHD, which has the battery I want/need and SD storage.
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Pretty much what I thought. Looks like the best buy is the Droid Mini. Same phone, Kevlar case, capicitive buttons, .4" less screen real estate, $100 less off contract.

Edit: Forgot about the Amazon option, possibly making it $49.99. Sure I would sign my soul to Amazon, but it's worth it.
 
So Moto's CEO told cnet that they're working on a cheaper version for prepaid:

"The experience of devices you can get for less than $200 is subpar right now," Woodside said. "We want everyone to have access to affordable smartphones."
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The fact he said under $200 and not $350 keeps my hopes alive. I just hope they announce the off contract pricing and availability today.
 
egDonald said:
I previously said that this X Phone was the first phone in my life that I've followed up to announcement... I guess what they say about "hype up" really does hurt on the way down on announcement day :D
I'm getting weary :p
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Well, don't let it get you down compadre. ;)

It's actually fun in the long run and VERY informative to follow interesting models from rumor to release.

Even if you don't find the phone you like, you'll be informed of what's possible and what others are really doing while on your way to looking at other phones.

~~~~~~~~ Some general info -

Over half of US adults own a smartphone now and the rate at which they're upgrading is dropping - not a lot - but noticeably.

The phone game still hasn't changed and it goes like this:

Release a phone with enough substance to get a lot of people on board, and leave enough off so demand remains for an upgrade or for waiting and not going to competitors.

That's the way it's always been.

HTC was impaled for the One X in the press - because it came with 16GB, no sd card, and a fixed battery.

Sound familiar?

Android is all about choice - if this one doesn't float your boat, look around, another likely will.

There are no perfect phones, just the phone most perfect for you at the time you buy one.

And they're never going to try to make the perfect phone.

If they did, not only would we all buy them, we wouldn't upgrade and then they'd go under.

That's just the way it is. ;) :)

~~~~~~~~~~~

PS - despite press releases, I still don't know the street price of this phone because it's not on the street yet. :cool:
 
my quick initial opinion is Flop for this device. At least in the eyes of Android enthusiast. Moto will probably sell a ton of the devices tho to the average consumer which is probably 95% of the people out there.

Seriously though how are you going to advertise the customizability so hard and then its only available through ATT? Then the ALWAYS NO LAUNCH DATES.......oh and then it comes with 4.2....what a buzzkill. not to mention the locked bootloader. Total dud to me.
 
EarlyMon said:
Well, don't let it get you down compadre. ;)

It's actually fun in the long run and VERY informative to follow interesting models from rumor to release.

Even if you don't find the phone you like, you'll be informed of what's possible and what others are really doing while on your way to looking at other phones.

~~~~~~~~ Some general info -

Over half of US adults own a smartphone now and the rate at which they're upgrading is dropping - not a lot - but noticeably.

The phone game still hasn't changed and it goes like this:

Release a phone with enough substance to get a lot of people on board, and leave enough off so demand remains for an upgrade or for waiting and not going to competitors.

That's the way it's always been.

HTC was impaled for the One X in the press - because it came with 16GB, no sd card, and a fixed battery.

Sound familiar?

Android is all about choice - if this one doesn't float your boat, look around, another likely will.

There are no perfect phones, just the phone most perfect for you at the time you buy one.

And they're never going to try to make the perfect phone.

If they did, not only would we all buy them, we wouldn't upgrade and then they'd go under.

That's just the way it is. ;) :)

~~~~~~~~~~~

PS - despite press releases, I still don't know the street price of this phone because it's not on the street yet. :cool:
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I agree with this to a point. However I will say there are perfect "for now" phones. I LOVED the Atrix 4g, it was perfect, and heck I might still be rocking it if it hadn't degraded over time like they all do.

As a consumer, my needs change from time to time, I said in an earlier post I used to want the everything phone, fastest, coolest, newest, most gadgets, gizmos and toys ... now my needs have changed, that stuff is fine, but I want solid no fuss no miss performance, good call quality, good build, durable yadda yadda yadda. This COULD be perfect, for me right now, but we will have to wait and see.
 
Please don't take this the wrong way gang -

I'm not speaking as a mod and I'm danged sure not speaking with an ounce of snark but I have a question for a lot of you.

I'm on Sprint. I know all about their network, but it works for me so yadda yadda yadda.

Now - Sprint is rooter friendly. Insanely rooter friendly.

Verizon - so far as I've seen over the many years - never has been.

It took them only forever to get a Nexus and they tried to hold back the bootloader on that. (fact)

Google got so fed up that when the Nexus 4 came out, what did they say? No CDMA for you.

So my question is - given Verizon's history of locking down any phone that's not locked down on other carriers - with the exception of the GNex -

Why are so many of you calling this a phail because of the locked bootloader on Verizon?

What isn't locked down over there?? What are you going to get on Verizon that isn't locked down?? :confused:
 
Off contract pricing is the ONLY thing still interesting me with this phone. The $700 off contract price tag is HUGE for the Motorola Droid Maxx. However, getting an extra day of charge is HUGE as well. Truth is, I'm not sure either of the two are worthy of my attention.
 
EarlyMon said:
Please don't take this the wrong way gang -

I'm not speaking as a mod and I'm danged sure not speaking with an ounce of snark but I have a question for a lot of you.

I'm on Sprint. I know all about their network, but it works for me so yadda yadda yadda.

Now - Sprint is rooter friendly. Insanely rooter friendly.

Verizon - so far as I've seen over the many years - never has been.

It took them only forever to get a Nexus and they tried to hold back the bootloader on that. (fact)

Google got so fed up that when the Nexus 4 came out, what did they say? No CDMA for you.

So my question is - given Verizon's history of locking down any phone that's not locked down on other carriers - with the exception of the GNex -

Why are so many of you calling this a phail because of the locked bootloader on Verizon?

What isn't locked down over there?? What are you going to get on Verizon that isn't locked down?? :confused:
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I don't think it is a fail. Off contract price so far seems too close to a high spec'd phone.
 
Fact is, the carrier subsidized version is going to be locked on every carrier. Motorola locks everything and has for the quite some time. Verizon has also locked every phone since the Gnex, so no surprise there either. Maybe some of the variants will be permitted to be unlocked via their dev website, and maybe they won't. The fact of the matter is if you want an bootloader unlockable phone, you can't buy a carrier version of it.
 
jhawkkw said:
Fact is, the carrier subsidized version is going to be locked on every carrier. Motorola locks everything and has for the quite some time. Verizon has also locked every phone since the Gnex, so no surprise there either. Maybe some of the variants will be permitted to be unlocked via their dev website, and maybe they won't. The fact of the matter is if you want an bootloader unlockable phone, you can't buy a carrier version of it.
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Does that mean that if I buy a Moto X or a Motorola Droid Maxx that I won't be able to root it now? Or does it mean it will only take a bit longer than 24-48 hours to obtain bootloader and root access?
 
Cincybearcatfan said:
Does that mean that if I buy a Moto X or a Motorola Droid Maxx that I won't be able to root it now? Or does it mean it will only take a bit longer than 24-48 hours to obtain bootloader and root access?
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Eventually a dev will probably find an exploit for root. Getting a bootloader exploit is very slim, though possible as we've seen in the past. Without an exploit for the bootloader, that likely means no custom roms unless a workaround is found like 2nd init or bootstrapping can be accomplished, but that's still not as clean and nice as an open bootloader. I wouldn't count on the subsidized Verizon and AT&T variants being eligible to unlock on their dev website. However Sprint and US Cellular have had ones eligible in the past, and who knows about T-Mobile.
 
EarlyMon said:
Please don't take this the wrong way gang -

I'm not speaking as a mod and I'm danged sure not speaking with an ounce of snark but I have a question for a lot of you.

I'm on Sprint. I know all about their network, but it works for me so yadda yadda yadda.

Now - Sprint is rooter friendly. Insanely rooter friendly.

Verizon - so far as I've seen over the many years - never has been.

It took them only forever to get a Nexus and they tried to hold back the bootloader on that. (fact)

Google got so fed up that when the Nexus 4 came out, what did they say? No CDMA for you.

So my question is - given Verizon's history of locking down any phone that's not locked down on other carriers - with the exception of the GNex -

Why are so many of you calling this a phail because of the locked bootloader on Verizon?

What isn't locked down over there?? What are you going to get on Verizon that isn't locked down?? :confused:
Click to expand...

I believe it's a fail on Verizon just because it doesn't stand out from the other phones on the network at the $199 on/$599 off contract prices. The only hope for those of us with VZN is they offer a CDMA Play Edition at a lower price, but I'm not holding my breath based on no CDMA Nexus 4 or S4 GPE...

It should do well for other providers that don't have 3 other similar Motos too choose from.
 
jhawkkw said:
Eventually a dev will probably find an exploit for root. Getting a bootloader exploit is very slim, though possible as we've seen in the past. Without an exploit for the bootloader, that likely means no custom roms unless a workaround is found like 2nd init or bootstrapping can be accomplished, but that's still not as clean and nice as an open bootloader. I wouldn't count on the subsidized Verizon and AT&T variants being eligible to unlock on their dev website. However Sprint and US Cellular have had ones eligible in the past, and who knows about T-Mobile.
Click to expand...

No real need to root unless there are custom ROMS. Used to be rooting was to open the door to wirless tether, but with tiered data wireless tether is included (althought I still have unlimited data grandfathered).
 
jhawkkw said:
It will help you get rid of all that bloatware :p
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True, I always forget about bloatware. None on the GNex. Although with Nova Launcher and APex you can hide those silly unwanted apps from the drawer. I know not the same as removing them but at least we wouldn't have to look at them.
 
shalemail said:
I agree with this to a point. However I will say there are perfect "for now" phones. I LOVED the Atrix 4g, it was perfect, and heck I might still be rocking it if it hadn't degraded over time like they all do.

As a consumer, my needs change from time to time, I said in an earlier post I used to want the everything phone, fastest, coolest, newest, most gadgets, gizmos and toys ... now my needs have changed, that stuff is fine, but I want solid no fuss no miss performance, good call quality, good build, durable yadda yadda yadda. This COULD be perfect, for me right now, but we will have to wait and see.
Click to expand...

Hey, I can dig it completely! :)

Anyone as happy with their phone at any time as I am with my present HTC Evo 4G LTE is totally winning! :)

It's modified to beat the band and the performance is positively hellacious.

I get over 6 hours of screen on time per charge, easy peasy, and not uncommon to get 8 hours of screen on time per charge - and it's way fast for what I do (thanks to the mods).

I'd been looking at the HTC One - and I still am.

I've been happy enough that this time around, I can afford to look patiently and fairly at what's coming out.

For me, the Moto X is very likely a definite upgrade, here's why -

(edit - pretty long so I hid it - but it's fabulous so you should read it lmao! - ok, or not :D)
  • I'm running the Snapdragon S4, the X is the S4 Pro.
    • Faster clock and faster performance per clock cycle on the newer Krait CPUs than what I have.
    • Translation - less concern about maintaining my performance mods going with this model.
  • 2 GB of ram.
    • That's a winning formula for the Snapdragon S4 family where multitasking is concerned.
    • I took the better part of a year, privately as well as on a rom dev team, tuning my phone for speed and high multitasking performance - and a lot of that was due to it having 1 GB ram.
    • Translation - less concern about maintaining my performance mods going with this model.
  • Clear Pixel camera.
    • I have an 8 MP shooter right now and it rocks - thanks once again to root mods that unleashed the HTC photo compression software - and thanks to a nice f/2.0 aperature.
    • I expect more digital noise from the Moto X 10 MP shooter. That's just the physics of smaller pixels.
    • But I expect less processing noise due to the new RGBC array.
    • And I can get rid of compression noise that this camera will have - and trust me, Android is really sucking in this department - by simply buying "Camera JB+" from the Play Store.
    • Translation - less concern about maintaining my performance mods going with this model.
  • Barometric and temperature sensors.
    • I've never owned those.
    • They're better for GPS locking and elevation accuracy.
    • And I live at higher elevation. :)
  • 10% bigger battery than what I have now.
    • Did I mention that I'm getting 6 to 8 hours of screen on time per charge? Without babysiting anything or doing anything like a phone helicopter parent?
    • I took a chance on the fixed battery trip last year, to my total surprise, I'm cool with it.


Now I love rooting as much as the next guy - probably more so, I'm pretty fanatical about controlling my device.

And it's nice to have the know-how and dev support to give me what I, me personally, need and want.

But to my way of thinking, not having to sweat a lot of that is a step up.


Most people would objectively call all that an incremental upgrade, not an actual upgrade.

And that's fair enough, I can't argue that and wouldn't try.


Downsides from what I have now or if I go with the One -

  • I have a 64 GB sd card and I use it.
  • Would seriously prefer louder speakers.
    • Not sure I need the One, but I'd like that pretty well.
    • My og Evo from 2010 was plenty loud, every Evo owner reading this knows what I'm talking about. That was a moose. :)
    • No idea how the X performs in this area - but I'll say right now - I don't trust thin phones to do this right.
  • I love my hardware buttons and on-screen real estate.
    • I'm willing to compromise. :)
    • I'll bitch and moan about it, but if everything else rocks, that'll just be my normal bitching and moaning. :)


My Don't Care List -

  • X8 and the better GPUs
    • The GPUs in this thing simply rock and they rock insanely.
    • If there's truly four where other S4 Pros have less (and I believe that's true and why the rumor-sphere couldn't decypher the MSM8960D/DT markings) this thing is going to be a screaming beast on complex graphics.
    • Doesn't concern me.
    • I'm into media.
    • In the Snapdragon S4 family, media is handled by a block of:
      • GPU
      • Audio/Video Hardware Accelerators
      • Hexagon DSP
      • Multimedia processor
    • If I were into gaming and synthetic benchmarks, I'd care about the way cool GPUs
      • If I'm wrong, it will go in my favor anyway.
  • I'm going to be in love with the voice, Hey Google Now thing or whatever it's called.
  • I'm going to use the hell out of it and enjoy every second of it.
  • Then in one, two weeks tops, I'll turn it off, having satisfied myself that it really works should the day come that I need it.
    • Which - it won't.
    • I've done that with voice recognition on Android since 2010, this year will be no different. :D


And the final thing that I want to give a spin because it's been too many years and I never could deny it -


Motorola build quality, Motorola radios.


That's my bit, cheers. :D
 
If there's one thing to take away from this Motorola X event, it's that Motorola and Google are indeed going to act very much like different companies. Obviously this isn't what a lot of us tech nerds wanted, but it's what Google has been saying for a little while now.

Nexus devices are made and sold with virtually no profit margin, while it appears Motorola is going to sell devices for a much larger margin and be in line with other Android oems just like they always have.
 
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