Seriously, flagships need not be priced above that. Kudos to Motorola and OnePlus. That said, hope these devices are actually available to purchase....
You're probably going to have to wait for a One Plus 2 for a while due to the invite system. As for the Moto X, that would depend on if you use Motomaker or not. Amazon and other etailers will likely carry the Moto Xs with stock styles.
And unlike the Oneplus2, you might actually be able to own one while you still want to.
The Moto G is available right now online and next week in Best Buy, apparently. The Style will be available in the fall.
I wish that Moto had adopted LG's back buttons for volume up and down, as I've found that to be the most ideal placement for larger phones. It makes larger phones far less unwieldy; quite wieldy, in fact :)
By the time OnePlus did away with the invite system for their first phone, I already more than lost will to buy one.
It's a marketing tactic to build hype. They're a marketing firm that sells smartphones on the side. If the phone isn't widely available at or soon-after launch, it's not even worth mentioning as far as I'm concerned. Given how quickly we're seeing updates to current models, and how many new models are being introduced, I reckon it's a rather reasonable statement.
FinFETs are just on the horizon. How long are you willing to wait until you can actually get ahold of the OnePlus2? 6-12 months? Suddenly that 'flagship killer' becomes a 'Meh. It's okay for the price.'
@mrdude Yeah, I agree with you. By the time OnePlus offered me the chance to buy their first phone without an invite, I was like "It's been almost 10 months, why would I ever want to buy your phone now at the same price it was at launch? Cut the price by $75 and it's a good deal again"
Someone has not followed the unveiling...This year the invitation system will not be used to generate wait until sufficient numbers are produced. They have already produced enough at launch... They are not a marketing company - they are just a start up with low marketing budgets and have used social media and the invitation system as a means to manage cost where other companies ask for a higher per unit price to finance their huge marketing campaigns.
OnePlus 2 has already generated close to 4M hits on GSMarena (20+ for S6 and iP6). By comparison, Motorola who have launched the new Moto X devices the same day have generated less than 700,000 hits.
How do active notifications work with an LCD? I thought that was a driving reason for them to keep AMOLED around. Waking up a few pixels to pulse a notification at your was nothing, but to wake an entire LCD?
That's one of the first concerns that came to mind. Active display doesn't make sense on an LCD. Maybe they're doing away with it? Or more likely they'll just turn a blind eye to efficiency and elegance and implement it anyway, offsetting the higher power consumption with brute force (larger battery). That sounds about right.
I'm thinking they had no choice but to go with LCD. Samsung won't sell the newest AMOLED panels to its competitors, and I'm thinking that Moto wanted a better solution this time around and didn't want year-old panels from Samsung.
Possibly, outside of the active notifications (which having a Moto 360, I could care less about), it seems like the better LCD panels out there are still slightly more efficient... Particularly in broad daylight and/or when dealing with tons of white.
Dunno. Based on Lumia's with glance, my LCD Lumia's use only a few percent more battery On a day (glance triggers whenever motion over sensor OR when leaves place where sensor blocked for a while (pocket, being facedown, etc).
"Following the trend of larger screen sizes, it seems Motorola has taken this trend to its logical conclusion by cramming a 5.7” display into the phone"
Two sentences in, already lost all interest. Motorola either doesn't understand what made the original Moto X so popular, or simply doesn't care and for whatever reason wants to pursue a completely different audience.
+1 There HAS to be a market for something between this and the G, or for something sized like the G but with better specs. Hell I'd pay $399 for these specs in a package <5.2" even if they went to a mediocre camera.
Id like to have it as a 5-5.2ish 1080p, all other specs the same (smaller battery/physical size in accordance with the new size though of course) and would pay $399. It'd be the sweet size
Argh, that's a heck of a lot of phone for $399, with very attractive specs (808, big battery, removable storage, possibly a decent camera for once)... But 5.7"? Even with minimal bezels it's still huge compared to my Nexus 5, probably a pass for me.
What kinda hairs do you grow? :p It's 11mm taller and 7mm wider, that's a huge difference in the hand... Basically the difference between having to adjust your grip or use a second hand to reach the notification shade, or not needing to do either (and that's even with large hands, I'm 5'11" and have long fingers).
Not that it didn't tempt me, at least mildly (particularly because I could still renew and get it cheaper than it'd be to go contract-less)... Same for this X Pure and even the X Play, size still kills them all. Only phone that has seriously tempted me to upgrade the N5 was the Z3c but it would've required a carrier change.
I might be taking a closer look at any/all of them if it weren't for persistent rumors of another N5 this fall. If they do nothing else but bump the battery capacity and bump the SoC I'm in... I'd like weather sealing or a better camera but better battery life is the only thing I crave.
A N5 with better battery life that still has wireless charging would allow me to stop carrying the USB battery pack so often, seems like low hanging fruit but every single Android OEM seems intent on forsaking the mid size flagship space to Apple.
One of the reasons the Verizon versions are late to get upgrades is the special software. In particular, the HD voice is part of a Verizon-specific dialer interface. Does this get lost in a "Pure Edition"?
Ridiculous screen size, Motorola has lost the plot, the original Moto X had the best form factor and handling, the second gen. made it bad, the 3rd gen makes it a dinner plate phablet.
They're just chasing numbers and sales figures, if I had to guess. Anyone have any figures for sales of the two different sized iPhones? Would love to have that handy...
They also had a bunch of people clamoring for larger tho, as well as the entire Android market holding up larger phones as a trump card... Plus Most Android phones were smaller to begin with, even after the OG EVO launched at 4.3" it took a few years before we went completely over the edge...
It's really been the last two years that every flagship suddenly went 5.5", and they haven't even always done so with the goal of building in larger batteries... Maybe the OG Moto X sold really badly and it scared off the other OEM, who knows...
Motorola is missing one very important camera feature: optical image stabilization. You can do tricks and gimmicks but it's just needed and crucial in a mobile camera sensor if you want to call it high-end.
The value of OIS can be very relative, depending on what you're actually shooting. If you're shooting people in general it might not help much unless they're all posed shots of very still people, if you slow the shutter speed enough to take advantage of OIS you're just gonna suffer from motion blur... Shooting static scenes at night (two big qualifiers) it will definitely help a lot.
I think there is nothing "relative" at all about the value of OIS. It provides huge improvements for low light shots and stability of imaging in video. All the electronic image stablization solutions that claim to be almost as good always turn out to suck in actual practice and just be hype.
Does OIS improve every type of shot? No. But no specific camera technology does. It however vastly improves certain types of shots and the handful of truly good phone cameras have had OIS. You just can't claim these days to be focusing on the camera and being flagship quality, without OIS. As opposed to more megapixels and "ultra"pixels, which are just gimmicks, OIS is a real technology with real value.
The only truly great phone camera ever made without OIS was the Nokia 808. But that had a massive 1/1.2 sensors that still eclipses every other phone out there in size (being a good four times larger).
The best thing about the Moto X Style is the 1/2.4 sensors that is more respectable than the lame 1/3 sensors that have been standard for so long (even though that's nine year old technology). But still, it's kind of a joke not to have OIS and claim to be focusing on the camera. Even Samsung is finally using OIS.
I never said OIS wasn't of any value, but it's still relative to the kinda shot you're taking. Simply put, low light shots of people that aren't staying still won't benefit from it, posed shots will to an extent, static shots benefit greatly.
And if that isn't clear enough, if you're shooting people in their element you need a shutter speed fast enough that OIS won't even engage at all (way beyond 1/focal length)... Or shouldn't, if it does and the camera relies on it via a slow shutter speed you'll see motion blur, cause people like to move unfortunately. ;)
Just saying, it's not the end all solution great low light shots, but i wouldn't expect great low light shots out of a phone one way or the other, relatively speaking!
Regarding the price, I still don't understand why any manufacturer is charging more than this for a phone. When the iPhone first came out, it was $600, then it quickly dropped to $400. $400!! I think we can safely assume that LESS engineering work is needed on a year over year basis, and they find MORE ways to save money through economy purchasing of parts and better manufacturing processes. So why did phones jump HIGHER in price? There's a reason why all the 'cheap flagships' hover in the same pricepoint, and it's because that the real value of the product. I just hope that more people vote with their dollars so Samsung/Apple/HTC/LG/etc can wake up and charge a reasonable price for their phones.
If they're focusing on the camera, then why no OIS? Given that the phone is a very beefy 11 mm in the center hump, there's plenty of room for it. I am not impressed.
Motorola also really needs to make a version that works with wifi calling on T-Mobile. It makes no sense to buy a phone for T-Mobile these days that does not have wifi calling, so if Pure Edition is Motorola's answer for T-Mobile customers, then they are pretty much writing them off.
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lilmoe - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
"Flagship killer" day.Seriously, flagships need not be priced above that. Kudos to Motorola and OnePlus. That said, hope these devices are actually available to purchase....
Shadow7037932 - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
You're probably going to have to wait for a One Plus 2 for a while due to the invite system. As for the Moto X, that would depend on if you use Motomaker or not. Amazon and other etailers will likely carry the Moto Xs with stock styles.mrdude - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
And unlike the Oneplus2, you might actually be able to own one while you still want to.The Moto G is available right now online and next week in Best Buy, apparently. The Style will be available in the fall.
I wish that Moto had adopted LG's back buttons for volume up and down, as I've found that to be the most ideal placement for larger phones. It makes larger phones far less unwieldy; quite wieldy, in fact :)
lilmoe - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
"while you still want to"..................................................mrdude - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
By the time OnePlus did away with the invite system for their first phone, I already more than lost will to buy one.It's a marketing tactic to build hype. They're a marketing firm that sells smartphones on the side. If the phone isn't widely available at or soon-after launch, it's not even worth mentioning as far as I'm concerned. Given how quickly we're seeing updates to current models, and how many new models are being introduced, I reckon it's a rather reasonable statement.
FinFETs are just on the horizon. How long are you willing to wait until you can actually get ahold of the OnePlus2? 6-12 months? Suddenly that 'flagship killer' becomes a 'Meh. It's okay for the price.'
menting - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
@mrdudeYeah, I agree with you. By the time OnePlus offered me the chance to buy their first phone without an invite, I was like "It's been almost 10 months, why would I ever want to buy your phone now at the same price it was at launch? Cut the price by $75 and it's a good deal again"
puremind - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
Someone has not followed the unveiling...This year the invitation system will not be used to generate wait until sufficient numbers are produced. They have already produced enough at launch...They are not a marketing company - they are just a start up with low marketing budgets and have used social media and the invitation system as a means to manage cost where other companies ask for a higher per unit price to finance their huge marketing campaigns.
OnePlus 2 has already generated close to 4M hits on GSMarena (20+ for S6 and iP6). By comparison, Motorola who have launched the new Moto X devices the same day have generated less than 700,000 hits.
icrf - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
How do active notifications work with an LCD? I thought that was a driving reason for them to keep AMOLED around. Waking up a few pixels to pulse a notification at your was nothing, but to wake an entire LCD?dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
That's one of the first concerns that came to mind. Active display doesn't make sense on an LCD. Maybe they're doing away with it? Or more likely they'll just turn a blind eye to efficiency and elegance and implement it anyway, offsetting the higher power consumption with brute force (larger battery). That sounds about right.kspirit - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
I hope they aren't doing something so tragic. I expect better from Motorola.erikiksaz - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
I'm thinking they had no choice but to go with LCD. Samsung won't sell the newest AMOLED panels to its competitors, and I'm thinking that Moto wanted a better solution this time around and didn't want year-old panels from Samsung.Impulses - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Possibly, outside of the active notifications (which having a Moto 360, I could care less about), it seems like the better LCD panels out there are still slightly more efficient... Particularly in broad daylight and/or when dealing with tons of white.testbug00 - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Or, hopefully, they realized pentile sucks.testbug00 - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Dunno. Based on Lumia's with glance, my LCD Lumia's use only a few percent more battery On a day (glance triggers whenever motion over sensor OR when leaves place where sensor blocked for a while (pocket, being facedown, etc).dragonsqrrl - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
"Following the trend of larger screen sizes, it seems Motorola has taken this trend to its logical conclusion by cramming a 5.7” display into the phone"Two sentences in, already lost all interest. Motorola either doesn't understand what made the original Moto X so popular, or simply doesn't care and for whatever reason wants to pursue a completely different audience.
Impulses - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
+1 There HAS to be a market for something between this and the G, or for something sized like the G but with better specs. Hell I'd pay $399 for these specs in a package <5.2" even if they went to a mediocre camera.HideOut - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Id like to have it as a 5-5.2ish 1080p, all other specs the same (smaller battery/physical size in accordance with the new size though of course) and would pay $399. It'd be the sweet sizeFwFred - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
I'd be interested if it was a bit smaller/same as my Nexus 5.Impulses - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Argh, that's a heck of a lot of phone for $399, with very attractive specs (808, big battery, removable storage, possibly a decent camera for once)... But 5.7"? Even with minimal bezels it's still huge compared to my Nexus 5, probably a pass for me.golemB - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
There's always the LG G4 at 5.5" and the same SoC and battery capacity, which is only a hair bigger than the Nexus 5.Impulses - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
What kinda hairs do you grow? :p It's 11mm taller and 7mm wider, that's a huge difference in the hand... Basically the difference between having to adjust your grip or use a second hand to reach the notification shade, or not needing to do either (and that's even with large hands, I'm 5'11" and have long fingers).Impulses - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Not that it didn't tempt me, at least mildly (particularly because I could still renew and get it cheaper than it'd be to go contract-less)... Same for this X Pure and even the X Play, size still kills them all. Only phone that has seriously tempted me to upgrade the N5 was the Z3c but it would've required a carrier change.I might be taking a closer look at any/all of them if it weren't for persistent rumors of another N5 this fall. If they do nothing else but bump the battery capacity and bump the SoC I'm in... I'd like weather sealing or a better camera but better battery life is the only thing I crave.
A N5 with better battery life that still has wireless charging would allow me to stop carrying the USB battery pack so often, seems like low hanging fruit but every single Android OEM seems intent on forsaking the mid size flagship space to Apple.
Ziich - Saturday, August 1, 2015 - link
The g4 and the style are practically the same sizementing - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
probably not confirmed yet, but according to dpreview, it's the sony IMX230 sensorhttp://connect.dpreview.com/post/6329651553/motoro...
pepone1234 - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
5.7"? Oh please no...jhh - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
One of the reasons the Verizon versions are late to get upgrades is the special software. In particular, the HD voice is part of a Verizon-specific dialer interface. Does this get lost in a "Pure Edition"?leoblaze9 - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
at first i was like "yay the moto x is back" and then i read the screen size and was quickly disappointed.BMNify - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Ridiculous screen size, Motorola has lost the plot, the original Moto X had the best form factor and handling, the second gen. made it bad, the 3rd gen makes it a dinner plate phablet.Impulses - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
They're just chasing numbers and sales figures, if I had to guess. Anyone have any figures for sales of the two different sized iPhones? Would love to have that handy...FwFred - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Yes, would love to see that. Apple has a bunch of customers used to 3.5/4" screens, so maybe it wouldn't be the best data point though.Impulses - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
They also had a bunch of people clamoring for larger tho, as well as the entire Android market holding up larger phones as a trump card... Plus Most Android phones were smaller to begin with, even after the OG EVO launched at 4.3" it took a few years before we went completely over the edge...It's really been the last two years that every flagship suddenly went 5.5", and they haven't even always done so with the goal of building in larger batteries... Maybe the OG Moto X sold really badly and it scared off the other OEM, who knows...
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Why does that girl have a 9 candle birthday cake?babadudu - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
because shes ninexnay - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Motorola is missing one very important camera feature: optical image stabilization. You can do tricks and gimmicks but it's just needed and crucial in a mobile camera sensor if you want to call it high-end.varad - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
So the iPhone 6 isn't high-end according to you?Impulses - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
The value of OIS can be very relative, depending on what you're actually shooting. If you're shooting people in general it might not help much unless they're all posed shots of very still people, if you slow the shutter speed enough to take advantage of OIS you're just gonna suffer from motion blur... Shooting static scenes at night (two big qualifiers) it will definitely help a lot.Impulses - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Balancing auto mode so that it doesn't rely on OIS and too-slow shutter speeds is also a fine balance phone makers often get wrong.gg555 - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
I think there is nothing "relative" at all about the value of OIS. It provides huge improvements for low light shots and stability of imaging in video. All the electronic image stablization solutions that claim to be almost as good always turn out to suck in actual practice and just be hype.Does OIS improve every type of shot? No. But no specific camera technology does. It however vastly improves certain types of shots and the handful of truly good phone cameras have had OIS. You just can't claim these days to be focusing on the camera and being flagship quality, without OIS. As opposed to more megapixels and "ultra"pixels, which are just gimmicks, OIS is a real technology with real value.
The only truly great phone camera ever made without OIS was the Nokia 808. But that had a massive 1/1.2 sensors that still eclipses every other phone out there in size (being a good four times larger).
The best thing about the Moto X Style is the 1/2.4 sensors that is more respectable than the lame 1/3 sensors that have been standard for so long (even though that's nine year old technology). But still, it's kind of a joke not to have OIS and claim to be focusing on the camera. Even Samsung is finally using OIS.
Impulses - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
I never said OIS wasn't of any value, but it's still relative to the kinda shot you're taking. Simply put, low light shots of people that aren't staying still won't benefit from it, posed shots will to an extent, static shots benefit greatly.Impulses - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
And if that isn't clear enough, if you're shooting people in their element you need a shutter speed fast enough that OIS won't even engage at all (way beyond 1/focal length)... Or shouldn't, if it does and the camera relies on it via a slow shutter speed you'll see motion blur, cause people like to move unfortunately. ;)Just saying, it's not the end all solution great low light shots, but i wouldn't expect great low light shots out of a phone one way or the other, relatively speaking!
Laxaa - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Both this and the new OnePlus 2 are very interesting phones and candidates for my next device. I´m eagerly awaiting reviews.dark4181 - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
Think the SX Pure will be compatible with Project Fi?dark4181 - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
*XS PureGigaplex - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
No USB Type-C connector?xilience - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
Regarding the price, I still don't understand why any manufacturer is charging more than this for a phone. When the iPhone first came out, it was $600, then it quickly dropped to $400. $400!! I think we can safely assume that LESS engineering work is needed on a year over year basis, and they find MORE ways to save money through economy purchasing of parts and better manufacturing processes. So why did phones jump HIGHER in price? There's a reason why all the 'cheap flagships' hover in the same pricepoint, and it's because that the real value of the product. I just hope that more people vote with their dollars so Samsung/Apple/HTC/LG/etc can wake up and charge a reasonable price for their phones.gg555 - Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - link
If they're focusing on the camera, then why no OIS? Given that the phone is a very beefy 11 mm in the center hump, there's plenty of room for it. I am not impressed.Motorola also really needs to make a version that works with wifi calling on T-Mobile. It makes no sense to buy a phone for T-Mobile these days that does not have wifi calling, so if Pure Edition is Motorola's answer for T-Mobile customers, then they are pretty much writing them off.