NEW YORK: Although both Motorola smartphones are sleekly designed and pack some clever software tricks, they couldn’t be more diffeent in some areas. The Moto X is a mid-size, mid-priced device with the “good enough” hardware to match, but it’s wonderful to hold and touts features even its bigger sibling lacks. The Nexus 6, meanwhile, is an all-out flagship for those who refuse to compromise on specs or software updates, even if it means carrying a massive beast of a handset.
In a few ways, they draw even. Both have enough battery life (if not much more than that) to get users through a day of frequent Instagram and Twitter use, with a dash of Spotify streaming thrown in a slightly impressive feat for the Nexus 6, since previous Google-blessed phones tended to peter out quickly when subjected to users habits. The audio quality is top notch, too, whether users are making a phone call or watching a movie. And in terms of real-world performance, they’re neck-and-neck. The Nexus 6 is technically quicker, but not so much so that users will notice when running games or other intensive apps.
Nexus 6 the larger, sharper Quad HD screen is impressive. And while the camera won’t blow away the high-quality imagers on Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 or Sony’s Xperia Z3, this is still the first Nexus. The Moto X’s camera is often adequate, but it falls noticeably short in darker situations thanks to poor focusing and lots of noise. Both the Nexus on Rogers and the Moto X on Telus were quick in my travels around Ottawa, at about 60Mbps downstream, but the Nexus supports Rogers’ faster LTE-Advanced network in those precious few places where it’s available.
The Nexus’ lock screen notifications (which appear in Ambient Display mode when users lift the phone up) are easier to check than the X’s Moto Display, which requires a finger press to see more than some icons. Users can change that if their Moto X runs Lollipop, but that’s still a minor hassle and the larger screen is arguably better suited to Ambient Display in the first place. Moreover, “OK Google” voice commands on the Nexus are much more responsive than their Moto X equivalents.
This isn’t to say the Moto X is a bad phone far from it. Outside of the camera and that voice recognition lag, it’s superb. There’s no denying that the Moto X is much easier to use one-handed, for that matter.
