Gadgetory

hey how's it going guys this is Dave TD and this is my review of the Moto X pure also known as the Moto X style so last year in 2014 my favorite phone was the 2014 Moto X it didn't have amazing specs and had a pretty poor camera but I really liked the design I liked the ergonomics I liked the software but I really really liked Moto maker like the ability to get a white and blue foam from the factory was like right up my alley so I was really looking forward to the 2015 edition it's got a bigger screen better specs here's my review the unboxing experience is a little more engaging on this phone than other Motorola phones this year it's a bigger box with more premium packaging when you open it up phone is sitting on the left and on the right you get a clear bumper and a turbo charger underneath the phone you get a sim tool and some pamphlets and this phone starts at $400 for the 16 gigabyte version now the design of the phone is distinctly motorola so the back has that same textured rubber that motor will has been using this year and like you can see from my Moto G video the grip on this material is amazing I really think that more companies should consider using rubber materials like this for their phones now the downside to rubber like this is that it doesn't feel particularly premium it's well made but rubber and plastic tend to feel more like practical and durable instead of the more elegant finish that metal and glass give you so if you're looking for a device that's really practical to hold this is a great option so here we have that Motorola dimple that I've grown to love it's smaller this year but still kind of feels the same when you put your finger in there and up top you can see that there's a new camera and flash the entire phone has that curved back it's like very Motorola and it feels great so let's go around this metal frame on the bottom of the phone we have a micro USB charging port on the right side we have the volume rocker and a textured power button and up on the top we have a microphone jack beside the combo SIM card and SD card slot and on the left side we have nothing ok two years ago this thing would have been considered way too big but people want bigger phones these days and Motorola is just paying attention to that trend so it is big I don't have big hands but because of the curved back and there relatively narrow bezels on the side I can actually hold it pretty comfortably in one hand I can't use it in one hand comfortably but I can hold it it's smaller than the iPhone six-plus and it feels similar in size to the note 5 so it's kind of weird that the iPhone 6 plus and 6s plus have a smaller screen and yet they have a bigger footprint I'm not going to go into details but Motorola lets you customize the phone pretty extensively on their website at least in the US so I did mine in like a Dave 2d theme and it came up pretty nice the anodizing feels like it's good quality and if it's anything like last year the a no job will hold up over time SIM card slot has a micro SD on the bottom up to 128 gigs and the nano SIM goes up top there's clearly space for a second sim up here but they've covered it up with a piece of plastic so I didn't bother to explore on the front of the phone everything's covered in Gorilla Glass 3 and unlike the 2014 Moto X both the top and bottom pieces here cranked out sound these speakers sound great they're forward-facing they're loud they're clear and they're one of the best speakers right now it's not as clear as the HTC m9 speakers I mean those are still the king of sound but I think the Moto X pure is like the next best thing here's what they sound like the screen is a 5.7 inch quad HD IPS screen so it's an LCD panel I was a little surprised that they went with LCD because last year's Moto X was an AMOLED but it's still a really nice screen it's bright colors are good but the viewing angles aren't amazing I mean they're okay they're just not amazing now in comparison to the oneplus 2 screen which also has an IPS panel the Moto X pure is obviously higher res but it's much brighter and colors are much more vibrant now it's not as good as the screen on the note 5 or like the iPhone 6 plus but for a sub $400 phone I think this is one of the best screens out there the camera is a 21 megapixel shooter and it can record 4k videos it's a really awesome camera for the price it's better than the oneplus 2 camera even with oxygen 2.1 it's better than moto G rather than the zenfone 2 better than the idol 3 I think it's one of the best cameras you can get on a smartphone for under 400 bucks now it's not as good as some of the flagships out there like the Samsung phones or the gg4 or even the iPhones but the camera is really good for the price colors are really accurate the images are like super sharp maybe a little too sharp from processing but it takes the shot instantly when you tap it which is really cool the autofocus can be a little slow at times like it'll hunt around and not pick up what you're looking for right away there's no optical image stabilization and the low-light performance isn't amazing it's still better than like basically every other phone at this price point but it can't compete with the flagships the front-facing camera has a flash it's surprisingly bright and it takes photos with that like yucky flash look but if you need it it's there right okay performance it's running a Snapdragon 808 so that's six core and anything I do on this phone is basically as fast as the eight core Snapdragon 810 so browsing load times watching videos system UI like everything just feels really snappy on the 808 but for some really demanding games like asphalt 8 you can see there's an occasional stutter and obviously for benchmarks the 810 is going to perform better than the 808 if you're into that kind of thing but I'm really happy with the performance of the 808 it's running android 5.1.1 with a handful of useful tweaks it's no bloatware there's no like intrusive overlays or anything now it has your usual Motorola like sprinkling on it it's got the double chop Lite twist camera moto notifications custom voice commands like all good stuff and Motorola is actually really fast with software updates so you can probably expect marshmallow pretty soon the Nexus 6 came with a two piece turbocharger so you can plug in your USB cable separately the Moto X pure has a one piece turbocharger which I thought was kind of weird at first because I mean one piece is never cool but this thing puts out over 25 watts and the cables a little bit thicker so they probably made it one piece for safety and battery life is ok I could get like a full day with regular use but with heavy use I need to plug it in when I got back from work now the turbo charging is fast like 0 to 100% in 70 maybe 80 minutes it's really useful I still wish there was wireless charging but oh well ok quick recap it's got a 5.7 inch IPS quad HD screen pretty good screen I just wish the viewing angles were a little better it's got stereo speakers that are surprisingly good not as good as HTC's boomsound but pretty close it's got a 5 megapixel front facing camera with a flash if you're into like 9 selfies and all of this is covered in Gorilla Glass 3 on the back we have a super grippy cover that comes in a ton of colors and options a 21 megapixel camera that takes really sharp but mildly over-processed shots really good one there's lots of light reasonably good when there's less light on the inside we have a 3000 milliamp hour battery that doesn't have wireless charging but it supports turbo charging and as long as you don't go ham on the phone it'll usually last the day it's running a Snapdragon 808 with three gigs of RAM which is plenty fast for basically anything other than really demanding games or benchmarks and it's got 16 to 64 gigs of upgradable storage it does have NFC but there's no fingerprint sensor ok closing thoughts here I really like the Moto X from last year and I like the Moto X pure from 2015 even more everything across the board has been improved I mean almost everything it still doesn't have wireless charging it still doesn't have amazing build quality it still doesn't have great battery life we're aside from a few small quirks so this is a really fantastic phone especially for its price and the cherry on top is seriously moto maker because no other company does it especially with like anodizing metals and stuff I mean you can essentially take a phone that you really like because of its specs into a phone that you love because of the way that it looks and its colors that's really cool now if there's two phones I'd recommend right now for the sub $400 price it would be the oneplus 2 and this one the Moto X pure now if you want a phone that's got like a really fantastic performance and a really good build quality I'd go for the oneplus 2 but if you want like a better camera better screen better speakers or just like a better overall multimedia experience I'd go for this one the Moto X pure that's the end of this review hope you guys liked it give me some thumbs if you loved it and also give me some subs if you loved it it's nice and I'll see you guys next time you