Motorola has announced their new flagship smartphone, the Moto X and the Moto 360 at their press event earlier today, alongside a new Bluetooth headset, called the Motorola Hint.
The three announcements will probably be the last from Motorola this year, evidently the Lenovo acquisition has not stopped them from launching another smartphone with the Moto brand, although this one will not be made in the United States.
Moto X
Motorola is going the HTC way and not changing the name of its flagship smartphone. The Moto X, not the Moto X+1 or X2. Even though it takes the same sort of look on the front, there are a lot of changes on the new smartphone.
The first change is on the display, the new Moto X comes with a 5.2-inch 1080p display, a big upgrade. Motorola has added four infrared sensors on the front, allowing users to wave over the front to open Active Display, showing recent notifications.
Motorola has added new styles for the back of the Moto X, now with leather backs. The wooden backs will return on the new Moto X. On the side, the frame has changed from plastic to metal, given the Moto X a more premium feel.
The camera has been upgraded as well, to a 13MP shooter with OIS. The flash is built into the camera’s wedge, instead of having it on the side of the camera. This is a nice touch, even though we thought the wedge would be used for optical zoom.
Internally, the Moto X has had an increase in performance, with a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801, 2GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. The battery life looks to be around the same as the predecessor, at a good 12 – 16 hours, depending on usage.
Moto 360
The Moto 360 has been hyped for quite a few months and rightfully so, out of the three launch smartwatches running Android Wear, the Moto 360 looked in a league of its own, with a circular display and higher-end materials.
Motorola has come a little late to the party, already LG has their new G Watch R, a circular smartwatch with higher-end specs, coming later this year. Samsung has also announced another smartwatch running Tizen OS.
Design wise the Moto 360 is still top of the pack, even with the indent at the bottom of the display for drivers, the size and stainless steel on the watch-face make the Moto 360 a much more compelling smartwatch than the LG G Watch and Gear Live.
Internals look a bit more rash, according to most early reviews, the Moto 360 does not last a day and the screen still shows pixelation, even on a screen smaller than 2-inches. This could be bad for extended use, as the display and battery degrade.
