It’s no secret that I am fickle when it comes to technology. My curiosity is insatiable and I always want to try and experience new and different things. This approach has actually worked well for me (although it would work much better if money were no object). Through first-hand experience, I have been able to learn about the inherent strengths – and weaknesses – of every major platform (BlackBerry, iOS, Android, Windows Phone) and decide for myself what works best for me in a smartphone.
I hadn’t tried out an Android device in nearly 2 years, so I decided it was time to revisit. My last experience with an Android phone was with a Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Google Play Edition), and I managed to keep that phone for an entire year. It had staying power with me, and I wanted to see if I could recapture that magic. I wanted to try one of the best Android phones available, running the latest version of Android available, so, in early December, I obtained a brand new Motorola Moto X 2nd Generation, or Moto X 2014 as it is also called.
After using the X as my daily driver for 3 weeks to give it a fair shake, I decided it was time to jump back over to my trusty BlackBerry Q10 (for the time being). So sit back, sip your favorite beverage, and relax while I give an in-depth account of my experience with the Moto X, what I liked and disliked about it, and why I ultimately decided the device – and the OS it runs – aren’t for me.
The Moto Maker Experience
I managed to score a Cyber Monday promo code to chop $140 off the off-contract price on a Moto X through the Moto Maker store. The Moto Maker experience is a fun one. You can choose custom backs, accent colors, front color (black or white), custom engraved message on the back, and even a customized message on the Android boot screen. Understanding my own fickle nature when it comes to tech, I opted for a conservative look – slate back, royal blue accents, black front, and no custom engraving or boot message.
You have one hour after you place your order to make any changes. After that, they’re set in stone. I wanted to see if I could change the slate back to an ebony wood back, but it was more than an hour since I ordered, so I called the customer service hotline to see if there was anything they could do. The rep said unfortunately it was too late, but without any complaining or asking on my part, she offered me a $25 promo code towards any accessories from their online store. I gladly accepted and ordered a bumper case and external battery pack in a separate order.
The phone shipped from China via FedEx and arrived several days earlier than my order initially estimated. The accessories, however, took much longer to ship and were estimated to be delivered by the end of December.
Overall, my experience with the Moto Maker, online store, and Motorola customer service was a good one.
The Hardware
The Moto X 2nd Gen is a high-end Android flagship, and it shows both inside and out. It features a 5.2″ AMOLED screen with full HD resolution at 1080p, a pixel density of 423 ppi, and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 which is fingerprint and scratch resistant. I’m not very picky when it comes to screen technology (AMOLED vs LCD), but to me the display on the X is gorgeous and just a pleasure to view and interact with.
Internals include a quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor at 2500 MHz, an Adreno 330 graphics processor, and 2 GB of RAM. This made the phone very quick, responsive, and – with a few exceptions which I attribute to the OS and not the hardware – it was able to easily handle anything I threw at it.
The X sports a 13 megapixel rear facing camera with dual LED flash and a 2 megapixel front-facing camera. I had trouble getting pictures to not come out unfocused and blurry, but when I was able to get it to work right the pictures were crisp and clear. Being able to record video in full 4K is another perk of this phone, although it’s a storage hog.
Speaking of storage, the X only comes with 16 GB or 32 GB of internal storage (64 GB is available only for the Pure Edition as of the date of this post) and no Micro SD slot for user-expandable storage. I opted for the 32 GB model. I figure it’s better to have more storage and not need it than to be faced with deleting files or apps to make room.
The external speaker is plenty loud enough for my needs, although it would be nice to have 2 instead of just 1.
Reception on both the WiFi and LTE antennas was good, and I experienced no problems getting signals.
The overall look and feel of the X is great. The curved back lets it sit well in the hand, and the metal around the border gives it a refined, premium look and feels great to the touch. The fact that you can customize it so much gives it the potential to be more personalized than any other phone available and really stand out.
The OS
Using the Verizon website and the enclosed instructions, it was fairly easy to get the X connected to my account. I installed all my apps (the first one I installed was BBM) and setup all my accounts without a problem. It was also easy to set up the Moto Assist features, which I’ll cover in more detail later on.
The X came with Android Kit Kat pre-installed, but it immediately prompted me to upgrade to Lollipop. This is one of the advantages of going with a Moto X, as it was one of the first phones to get the update. I hesitated for a few days, because I read about some problems people were having, but I eventually threw caution to the wind and updated. The only issue I had was that immediately following the update, Google Play Services wasn’t syncing any of the apps. A couple of reboots fixed the problem.
Lollipop offers many enhancements over its predecessor, including a more polished and consistent look following Google’s new Material design standards, actionable lock screen notifications, improve notification settings, battery saver mode, and more. It is a significant step forward for the platform and is definitely worth updating to, if you can.
The Good
Before I get into the reasons I decided Android and the Moto X are not for me, I want to highlight those things that really made a good impression on me.
Screen – I said this earlier, but I really loved the screen on the Moto X. In fact, I consider it the best of any device I’ve used to date. The resolution, pixel density, vibrant and crisp colors, contrast – it really was a joy to view apps and videos and interact with. The Gorilla Glass 3 also lived up to its reputation, proving to be fingerprint and scratch resistant. And having that much screen real estate (5.2″) was just wonderful for reading, using apps, etc. The Q10’s screen is capable for most things, but in a completely different class. I won’t be watching a lot of videos or using certain apps on my Q10 because it just doesn’t make sense for the form factor.
Look and feel – I also talked about this earlier, but the X really does have a premium, classy look and feel to it. I guess I’m partial to the metal rim around the edge of the phone from my Bold/Q10.
Speed – the quad core CPU, 2 GB of RAM and Adreno 330 graphics make the X fly. Apps loaded quickly, the flow and movement of the OS was fast and fluid. It’s got flagship specs, and it really shows.
Moto software enhancements – The Moto X ships with some great features that you can’t get in other Android phones without 3rd party apps and modifications. Moto Assist allows you to interact with your phone using only your voice. Just set your custom trigger phrase (mine was “hey there Moto X”), and whenever you say it, you will be prompted to say a command. You can do many things with it, including check the weather, set your alarm, read aloud current notifications, send text messages, do web searches, and more. Motorola Connect allows you to view and respond to text messages from a Google Chrome browser extension. Motorola Camera lets you take pictures by tapping anywhere on the screen (BB10 users are very familiar with that feature), multiple pictures in succession by tapping and holding, and you can even go straight to the app from sleep by twisting the entire phone back and forth twice in succession.
Nearly “vanilla” Lollipop OS – It’s like having a Google Play Edition phone, except you also get the great Moto software along with it. No bloated skins or launchers gumming things up. You get to enjoy the sleek Material design experience and all the enhancements Lollipop brings with it. And the X is among the first to get OS updates after Google releases them.
Google integration – If you use and are dependent upon Google products and services, it makes sense to go Android. Google has done a really good job of using its services to enhance the experience of your phone, and also using your phone to enhance your Google services experience. They have a synergistic relationship that works very well. The more services you use – especially Gmail and Google Maps – the better your experience will be.
App experience – there’s no shortage of great apps on Android, and all the ones I tried – with one exception (the game UNO, but probably because it hadn’t been updated for Lollipop) – ran beautifully. You can, of course, run Android apps on BB10, but you run into some limitations in performance, and Google Play Services is not officially supported. It’s not quite the same experience as running them on their native OS.
Customization – The Moto Maker website, which allows you to customize the look of your Moto X and add personalized engravings and boot messages allows you to make this device truly your own. Combine that with the ability to customize Android to your heart’s content and it’s probably the most personalized, unique smartphone you can buy.
Google Now – It displays “cards” of information that might be useful to you depending on your location, time of day, etc. You can customize what cards and information you want to see – things like the current score in games being played by your favorite sports teams, local attractions and points of interest, and weather conditions. I found Google Now to be particularly useful during a recent trip. It displayed a card showing what time I would need to leave my current location to get to the airport in time to catch my flight. It even took into account current traffic conditions. It would also display information about my flight – whether it was on time, delayed, etc. All of this was gleaned from my Gmail account, where I received the confirmation emails from the airlines. BlackBerry Travel does offer this same functionality on BB10 phones.
The Not-So-Good
While I do feel the Moto X has more things going for it than against it, there were some things I didn’t like about my experience. Every phone has its issues, and here were the ones that stood out to me about the X.
Inconsistent audio notification settings – I actually like the improvements to the notification settings in Lollipop. I had been waiting for Android to implement a native feature like “phone calls only” that BlackBerry phones have had for ages. The problem I ran into was that when I had it set to only let priority notifications through, it was inconsistent. Sometimes it would work fine. Other times, I’d get notifications from apps that I had not marked as priority apps. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to why it would work one time and not another. I eventually ended up just setting my phone to “None” to avoid the possibility of being woken up in the middle of the night by an unwanted notification. So it rendered the improvements useless for me.
Inconsistent Motorola Active Display - One of the neat Motorola features you can enable is Active Display. All you have to do is reach for the phone or wave in front of it and it shows the time and icons that indicate if you have any notifications. For more information about specific notifications, you could touch and hold the specific icon and the information would display at the top of the screen. To open directly into the specific app, you drag the icon up to another icon above the clock. All that worked fine for me, but the problem I had was that notifications for certain apps including BBM never showed up, even if I had ensured they were enabled for Active Display. I tried toggling, untoggling, installing, uninstalling, to no avail.
Random reboot – One time I was outside going for a walk and playing Ingress, a location-based game. Suddenly, the game froze, the screen went dark, and the phone proceeded to reboot without any prompt from me. I had played Ingress many times before without incident, so I’m not sure it was the game that did it. This was the only time a random reboot happened in the 3 weeks I used the phone, and I have no idea what may have caused it, but it was quite disconcerting. What if I had been on an important call, or responding to an important email? I’m willing to dismiss it as just a freak incident, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Frozen WiFi – This only happened with one particular WiFi network, but on at least 2 occasions, it would completely “freeze” the WiFi connection. When this happened, my data stopped working, I couldn’t disconnect the network or even disable WiFi in the settings, and I had to reboot the phone to get it to work properly. Weird.
Delay in loading home screen app icons/widgets – On some occasions, and with certain apps like camera, after hitting the home button I would return to a home screen completely devoid of any icons/widgets and would have to wait several seconds for them to reappear. It certainly can’t be a problem with the hardware – a quad core CPU and 2 GB of RAM should be more than sufficient – so I chalk it up to an inherent problem with the OS itself. It’s not a huge deal, but it does interrupt the flow sometimes when navigating around the OS and between apps. I guess it’s a perception thing. When I return to the home screen, I expect to see what I put there!
Battery life – This is one of the biggest complaints of 2nd Gen Moto X owners – it’s a flagship phone with an average battery at only 2300 mAh. By contrast, the BlackBerry Z30 – a much older device as technology goes – sports a battery rated at 2880 mAh. Apologists say that Lollipop helps improve battery life, which it did in my experience. Still, on an average day, from the time I woke up to the time I was ready for bed, I always had to put my X on a charger sometime during the day to keep it going. My Q10, by contrast, lasts me an entire day with power to spare. Granted, it has a smaller screen, but its battery is rated at 2100 mAh, only 200 mAh less than the much newer and bigger Moto X! I understand there is a balance between form factor and battery life, but for a flagship device, the battery on the Moto X is pretty pathetic.
Google keyboard – I’ve probably been spoiled by BB10’s virtual keyboard, but I thought the default Google keyboard in Lollipop was terrible. For 2 weeks I tried to let my muscle memory adjust and I just couldn’t do it. I think the layout and design are terrible, and even using the swipe feature was a pain. Even the Kit Kat default keyboard was better. I ended up installing SwiftKey and finding a custom theme that worked much better for me.
No expandable storage – I expect this from the likes of Apple, but et tu Motorola/Google? Yes, you want to push people to use cloud storage because it makes more money for you. I get that. But some people like to have music/video stored locally for those occasions when WiFi is not available and you don’t want to eat the bandwidth on your service plan. I’m not notorious for using a huge amount of storage, myself, but I definitely want the option if I can help it.
Why I Prefer BlackBerry over Android
Though I am a BlackBerry fan, I have no problem being objective when it comes to technology. I readily acknowledge that each device, each platform brings something to the table that the others do not. So I want to make myself absolutely clear on this: overall, the Moto X is a fantastic phone. It’s one of the best Android phones you can buy right now, and it has some excellent features that really make it stand out from the rest.
That being said, I’ve learned from my experience that the Moto X, and the Android platform, are not as conducive to the way I flow as BB10 devices are. When I say “the way I flow”, I mean the way I work, the way I play, the way I go about things day in and day out and the way I use technology to help me do those things. Let me be more specific.
BB10, for me, is a more complete, well-rounded platform that doesn’t depend on apps to enhance its functionality and usefulness as much as the others do. For example, BB10 supports cloud storage integration directly with its built-in file manager. That means that if you want to, say, attach a file in an email from your Dropbox account, you don’t have to open up the Dropbox app and use it to send the email. You can compose your email, hit the attachment button, and navigate to the Dropbox file directly in the file manager window.
The BB10 Hub, for notification and communication management, has no equal. In Android, even with the Lollipop improvements, you still have to navigate in and out of each individual app as you go through your notifications. In the BB10 Hub, you can view and respond to all your communications without needing to open individual apps. For me it saves time and sanity.
Active Frames is also, for me, a much easier way to navigate and toggle between multiple apps. Rather than swiping through recently used apps, I have up to 8 easy-to-see tiles that I can simply tap between to get where I need to be.
Dealing with that frustrating Google Keyboard really made me appreciate the time and attention BlackBerry has given to the physical and virtual keyboards of its devices. It was nice to be reminded that I shouldn’t take them for granted.
The ability to run Android apps has essentially closed the so-called “app gap” for me on BB10 devices. If I can’t find a native app that does what I’m looking for, I can usually find an Android version. There are some quirks here and there and some apps that don’t work properly on the Q10 due to its screen size, but those are the exception, not the rule. Other BB10 devices like the Z30 and Passport offer ample screen real estate for whatever apps you may want to run. And BlackBerry is constantly improving the Android runtime to enhance integration and efficiency.
BB10 version 10.3.1 will roll out in early 2015 and bring with it a host of improvements, but the feature I’m looking forward to the most is BlackBerry Blend. Blend is an application you can install on a desktop, laptop, or tablet that allows you to connect to and interact with your BB10 phone. You can manage emails, texts, BBMs, calendars, even access the files on your phone. Blend is the future of mobile computing and negates the need for so-called “cloud storage” because it makes your phone your own personal, secure “cloud”! BlackBerry Blend makes the likes of Motorola Connect look like a cheap gimmick.
There are many other things I really like about the BB10 devices I’ve used – the notification LED, dedicated micro HDMI out, expandable storage, excellent signal strength, call quality – the list goes on and on.
A Transcendent Experience
Beyond the individual features, specs, etc. that draw me to BlackBerry lie the intangibles – those things that appeal to me on a higher, broader level of thought and experience.
BlackBerry is more than just a phone. More than just a gadget. More than just a toy or a tool. More than a mobile device management system, server, network, or operating system. More than security and privacy.
BlackBerry – the company, its products and services, its ethos – is about being an extension of you. It’s about empowering you – allowing you to see past the device in your hand and unlock your ability to create, discover, innovate, work, play, do. It’s about connecting you, not with machines or databases, but with people, groups, communities – with the world around you.
BlackBerry engineers flow. And everyone flows differently. So rather than trying to shoehorn you into a one-size-fits-all mold and make you adapt to their technology, BlackBerry creates and enables technology that is powerful enough and versatile enough to adapt to you. And it does so without compromising your security and privacy.
BlackBerry devices allow me to avoid the time-wasting tasks and distractions that users of other platforms have come to accept as normal. BlackBerry helps me do what I do best, and that’s why I keep coming back.
An Android Flagship Couldn’t Sway Me From BlackBerry via BerryFlow.com.