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Moto X4 - Review

Date : 2018-05-04
Author : Amar Prem

Remember the Moto X? The same phone which was at one point in time the flagship phone of Motorola. The X was replaced by the Z at the top of the Motorola food chain sometime in 2015 and was taken down to the midrange segment. Some would say the Moto X feels at home in the midrange segment and we would probably agree.

The X series is now in its fourth generation. Now before we get any further, the mid-tier part of Motorola is rather packed. With the Moto G series at the lower end of the tier and the Z2 play at the upper end of the line. The Moto x slots in seamlessly in the middle of the mid-tier. This being said, The Moto X4 has the best chipset in the tier.

 Let’s get into the proper specification details of the Moto X4. The X4 comes with a 5.20-inch touchscreen LCD with the resolution of 1080 pixels x 1920 pixels and a PPI of 424 pixels/inch. The Screen is an LCD screen, so if you’re into AMOLED you can look elsewhere, but we can see how and why this display would appeal to a lot of users. The X4 is powered by a 2.2GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor.

This makes it more powerful than both of the other two Motorola mid-tier phones. This is a factor one should keep in mind while looking at the X4. The phone packs in 64GB of internal storage that can be expanded to 256GB via a microSD card. The X4 comes with a dual camera at the back which is its claim to fame. One of the cameras is the standard camera, and the other camera is an ultra-wide lens.

Now, LG has been doing the ultra full camera for a while, but the advantage that the X4 has over LG is that it can do blurred portraits. LG hasn’t delivered on the fuzzy pictures yet, so in our eyes, the X4 has the upper hand. The primary shooter is a 12 megapixel unit with dual pixel autofocus. The secondary camera covers an ultra full field of view and is an 8-megapixel unit. The X4 is vast on selfies, so the front camera is a 16-megapixel shooter with an LED flash. The X4 is powered by a 3000mAh nonremovable battery.

The battery could have been more, and it does fall short of expectations. The X4 comes running Android Nougat and should get the Android Oreo update shortly. It is a single SIM (GSM) phone that accepts a nano SIM. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, NFC, USB, Headphones, 3G and 4G.  It comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Onboard sensors include the compass magnetometer, proximity sensor, accelerometer, ambient light sensor and the gyroscope.

The Moto X4 excels in its class thanks to the Snapdragon 630 processor and punches above its weight when it comes to the 3D graphics. But there are a few shortcomings. The most glaring one? Where is Android Oreo?  Given the timing of the launch the X4 should have been running Oreo out of the box, but we still get Android Nougat running on the X4. Not that it is a bad thing, but we were expecting the update along with the phone. Second major letdown when it comes to the X4 is that there is no OIS in the camera.

And the last one that we want to complain about is that there is no MotoMods support. We were hoping that the Moto X4 like the Z2 would get MotoMods as well, but sadly it doesn’t. But despite the missing features, the X4 is an excellent phone. It is a great performer in the mid-tier of phones thanks to the Snapdragon 630 processor. The build quality is excellent, The display on the X4 is fantastic, and it is water resistant. If you ask us, The Motorola X4 is probably the only phone you should look at in the mid-tier range of phones, budget permitting. Because at this price point no other phone comes close to the X4. The mid-tier is the new stomping ground for the former flagship model.