Motorola Moto X (second generation)

The leather-backed phone you can control hands-free

With most smartphones there’s little you can do to customise their appearance, aside from adding a case of your choice. The new Moto X breaks the mould in this respect. When bought directly online from Motorola, each phone is made to order so you can customise the colours (front and back). For £20 extra you can even go for a leather or wooden rear (see image). This sounds tacky but actually looks very classy in the flesh, though you can’t choose to have a photo on the rear casing, which is a disappointing omission.

The Moto X's build is so slender that it can’t accommodate a microSD slot, but it is exceptionally robust. Even after we accidentally dropped it a couple of times (including a drop on to concrete from a height of around four feet), there was no damage to either the metal band around the edge of the phone or the plastic rear.

There’s more to the Moto X than just its customisable appearance. You can control a number of its functions without even touching it, simply by saying ‘Hello Moto X’ (or a phrase of your choice) followed by a command. While this is a boon for people with dexterity problems, it’s not a unique feature. Most of the commands are actually handled by Google Now, the voice-activated personal assistant present on all new Android phones. But on the Moto X you can issue commands from anywhere on your phone, not just the home screen as is the case with most other Android phones.

There are also a couple of basic motion controls. For example, you can wave your hand to silence an alarm, although we found this feature very fussy. We had to move our arm in a specific arc at just the right speed. In the end. we found it easier to just tap the screen. Some of the other features Motorola has added to Android 4.4 KitKat are genuinely useful however, such as a Do Not Disturb mode for silencing notifications. If you’re not interested in these features then you can easily avoid them because they don't clutter up the Android interface.

Software aside, the Moto X is generally a good phone. Compared with the cheaper Moto G, the Android interface felt smoother and was consistently responsive. Although it’s not the fastest smartphone to go through our benchmark tests, its 2.5GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of memory were more than fast enough for running demanding apps. Its 5in 1080p screen is sharp and bright, with great image quality.

Call quality on O2’s network in central London was excellent. Voices sounded loud and clear, while the noise of trucks and jackhammers from a nearby building site was almost completely kept at bay. Battery life was in line with what we’d expect. When connected to O2’s 3G network, it lasted 24 hours when calling, taking photos, using GPS and browsing the web.

The Moto X’s biggest letdown, in line with previous Motorola smartphones, is its camera. While it coped reasonably well in daylight, capturing the finer details within landscapes and people’s faces, it was useless in dim lighting, producing dark, blurry shots.

The Moto X is a good phone with a lot going for it, but unless you like Motorola’s customisation options it doesn’t do quite enough to justify its high price. If you have this kind of budget and want an Android phone, then choose the Samsung Galaxy S5. While it has a lot of surplus software, its waterproof casing, better camera and longer battery life make it a better buy.

VERDICT

A good Android phone but with some annoying flaws

SPECIFICATIONS

5.2in 1920x1080-pixel touchscreen • 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor • 578MHz Adreno 330 graphics chip • 2CB memory • 16GB storage • 4G • Nano SIM • Android 4.4 KitKat • 144g • 141x73x10mm (HxWxD) • One-year warranty