Motorola Announces Four New Products, All Of Them Flawed

[Guest]

Motorola announced the new Moto X, Moto G, Moto 360 and Moto Hint headset at IFA. Unfortunately, all of them seem to suffer from some flaws that could be a deal-breaker for many.

Motorola Announces Four New Products, All Of Them Flawed : Read more

 

[jkhoward]

Lol @ Motorolla

 

[burkhartmj]

This article is kind of pitifully slanted against the products. Firstly, the Moto X improved in just about every way. The notable screen size increase only required a tiny device size increase, as they considerably decreased the bezel. And there is still very little reason to force 64-bit. It is inevitable, but largely useless right now in phones. Also, the last gen Moto X performed well above what most reviewers expected from the processor it had, so there's no telling what the actual EXPERIENCE will be for people who aren't obsessed with numbers on a spec sheet.

Next, the $179 Moto G. This device was perfectly smooth with the old specs, and since the purpose is to be solid at a low price point, the increase in cameras and screens is a pretty big boon. the kind of upgrade that'll actually help the market this phone targets rather than make a gadget freak feel superior.

I'm on the fence about the Moto 360. It looks great, but battery life estimates have varied wildly, going as high as 36 hours and as low as 10-12. If it veers toward the latter, I'll be waiting for the next gen, but if it legitimately lasts 24 hours then yes, you'll have to charge it every night, but so what? It's a smartwatch, not a watch or a Pebble [which in comparison can barely hold onto its smart designation].

Lastly, the Hint is expensive, but not flawed. It's an astounding piece of tech that serves an utterly different purpose than the Moto 360, so comparing the price is kind of useless.

 

[jasonelmore]

who in the hell wrote this junk. A Cynic much?

 

[deftonian]

"The battery has barely improved, too; Motorola raised the capacity from 2,200 mAh to 2,300 mAh, while the competition is now more in the 3,000 mAh range."

"the device retains the small storage options of 16 GB and 32 GB despite the plummeting costs of flash storage over the past few years. To make matters worse, it still doesn't offer a microSD slot, which would be handy for the higher-resolution pictures."

"but $500 doesn't feel like it's low enough to compensate for the Moto X's flaws this year"




Wow, you guys are really ripping into Motorola about not having enough improvement between their device generations and cost... yet you always praise Apple when they release a new generation?

I'd like to see your next Apple article to be titled "Apple Announces Product Refresh, All Of Them Flawed". Then you can go on about how little they have updgraded their hardware yet the price seems high.

 

[zelog]

First you complain that the X gets a bigger screen at 5.2 "which is too large." Then you call the G's increase to 5.0 "barely improved at all," as if you were expecting even more. Wow that made sense...

 

[Vorador2]

What the hell toms. What the hell.

This is it. I'm done.

 

[Onus]

A smartwatch that can't last at least a month on a charge is a dumbwatch. Create a two-tier device. As a watch, it will last a year (or more) on its standard 3V lithium battery. Add a single other function, such as glucose, heart rate, or other monitoring, that needs a charge perhaps every two weeks; you now have device that can remain useful, even if certain functions become unavailable with a dead battery.

 

[bavarians6]

What the hell toms. What the hell.

This is it. I'm done.

This. Horrible slant against the Moto X, which by all accounts is FAR closer to a flagship than last year's model. I disagree with whomever wrote this. I can't believe they complain that there's no 64-bit processor in it. No one makes one for flagship Android phones right now. Sure, they're starting to come out, but damn. Also note: this is not a flagship. $499 unlocked is not flagship pricing.

 

[mouse24]

I can just taste the anger from the author.

 

[-Fran-]

Hahaha, For real the complaint for a phone that did not increase in price and packs a whole new features is worthy of a rant this big? (Moto G).

Either someone pissed on your cereals today morning or you're a raging fanboy of another company.

Cheers!

 

[WithoutWeakness]

WOW. I can't believe Tom's has this guy publishing articles for them. This is some of the worst journalism I've seen on this site (if you can even call it that).

The author, who has not had any hands-on time with any of these devices and likely pulled the info here from other sites' reviews and press releases, feels like he is informed enough to not only write a "news" story about it but is also confident enough in his conclusions that he claims that they all "have some deal-breaking flaws".

Time to start turning AdBlock on for Tom's if they're going to start posting trash articles like these. This isn't a news article. This is a biased blog piece from a self-proclaimed "tech enthusiast".

 

[dragonsqrrl]

This is an absolutely bizarre piece of reporting, and I think it's indicative of the slow but steady creep towards mediocrity and yellow journalism the Tom's news team has been experiencing for years now. The willingness to so easily and openly condemn these new products having spent little if any time with the devices or conduct any sort of proper review is shocking, but sadly unsurprising, and I think it just displays a lack of technical insight, professionalism, and respect for your readership.

Just compare this article with the one published on Anandtech:
http://anandtech.com/show/8491/the-new-moto-x-intial-impressions-and-hands-on

I hate to say it, but there is no comparison. The Anandtech article is informative and balanced, the author knowledgeable and restrained. This just sounds like an angry rant by some random uninformed kid on a tech forum.

 

[Dannemand]

Wow! This shows how wrong you can get as a tech author (and how low you can sink), when your only purpose is to protect your personal darling (whose identity is kind of obvious here), and you don't bother to do even the least bit of fact checking.

For a very different perspective from a reputable site, check this: http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/5/6108473/the-new-moto-x-could-be-the-best-android-phone-ever-made

In addition to being based on actual hands-on experience, they also bothered to collect facts instead of just guessing.

 

[TeKEffect]

Well Toms it looks like I'm the only one who agrees with you. I was very disappointed with the specs. I was hoping for much more also

 

[Dannemand]

Well Toms it looks like I'm the only one who agrees with you. I was very disappointed with the specs. I was hoping for much more also

I understand. But Motorola have proven before that specs don't always tell the full picture. And in the case of this story, even the specs are incorrectly described. Check some of the hands-on reviews, you'll get a very different story.

Oh, and I'm not a Motorola user, I'm Nexus 5.

 

[Onus]

Once again, people are expecting too much. If it's a phone its primary purpose is to take and place calls. If you need a laptop, buy a laptop. Other things like checking the weather or taking pictures are convenient and useful (the latter especially if you find yourself in a wreck), but I'd like to see more emphasis on the clarity of calls. Can you understand a toddler's voice over it? Does it have a speakerphone? Does it get uncomfortably hot?
Same with the watch. The purpose of a watch is to tell time. Anything else it might do is secondary. So, how accurate is it? Does it sync to a time server periodically? What type of battery does it take? As I mentioned before, the primary function, that of time-teller, must not be dependent on a rechargeable battery that can't make it through a two-week vacation, six weeks of a remote training class, or even a six-month deployment.

 

[SignedUpJustToPostThis]

Pathetic article, absolute rubbish!

 

[dragonsqrrl]

Well Toms it looks like I'm the only one who agrees with you. I was very disappointed with the specs. I was hoping for much more also

I don't think that's the point, at least it's definitely not the point I was making.

I don't think there's any information in this article I couldn't have simply read off a spec sheet. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if that's pretty much all the author did, followed by reactions (2300 mAh battery?! Snapdragon 801?! no 64-bit?!) Even if he only regurgitated that information (like Tom's news articles usually do) I probably wouldn't have had a problem with it. But then there's the rant and rush to judgement based off this limited information... On top of this there just seems to be a general lack of insight and knowledge about the market and industry. I think the author's expectation of 64-bit SOC's in the MotoX and MotoG are a great example of this.

I do agree there are things in the announcement and spec sheets that seem like strange decisions, the battery capacity in the MotoX and SOC in the MotoG are two that popped out at me. But I would hardly call that cause for immediate condemnation without further review and analysis.

 

[Guest]

looks the motorola-fans are slightly irritated...

guys, this isn't a definitive review of all four products, this just stated that those new devices - as most devices - aren't quite flawless. granted, the article and headline aren't a stroke of genius, but just looking at the statements, i tend to agree with most of them.

the moto x is surprisingly big, which is seems contrary to the "compact flagship" from last year, the battery is the smallest in its class and not going with the faster and more efficient sd805 can only be argued with the slightly lower price, compared to the competition.
and it still lacks a micro sd slot, when even on the g it comes standard now.

those are all valid points, but that doesn't mean the moto x will be a bad phone. as we all know, motorola's ace is its software and its practical features, so while for some there might be deal breakers (for me it would be the omission of an sd slot), for others it may be the best smartphone ever built.

same with the g: it got bigger, but without increasing the resolution, the price stayed the same, but we don't get better specs either, so year over year, now it seems like a worse deal than when it was originally introduced. i'm not grying for a faster soc, or 64bit or whatever, but they could at least have upped the ram to 1,5gb, no?
but at least now it comes with an sd slot standard and the front speakers are nice too, even if they don't look too great.

i'm not gonna talk about the moto 360, but further, yes, i can understand the author if he's not too happy with an earpiece costing as much as a nice pair of headphones.

and now let's put away the pitchforks again, shall we?

 

[Dannemand]

looks the motorola-fans are slightly irritated...

and now let's put away the pitchforks again, shall we?

Well, for my part, I never owned a Motorola product in my life. I read about the original Moto X last year, and know ONE person who owns it (whom I haven't seen in six months). That's all. I am just an averagely informed Android user.

Yet, when reading this article, I was offended by its lack of insight and guesswork's approach to reporting. After reading reviews from others sources with actual hands-on, which contradicted even the raw "facts" reported here, I felt compelled to register and post my reaction.

So pitchforking? Yes maybe. But with publishing comes a responsibility, which in this case is severely lacking, for whatever reason. I haven't spent time on Tom's Hardware in years, so I cannot speak to whether that is common. I guess it worked from a clickbait point of view...

 

[Murissokah]

Is this a new form of advertising? Reverse-psychology the target audience into becoming defensive of your products? Kudos if it is, it's certainly working.

 

[Crass Spektakel]

I have been using, administrating and programming 64Bit Systems since the very first 64Bit Alpha CPUs some 20 years ago. And I can safely say: 64Bit on mobile is bullshit right now. First Memory on mobile is slow and power hungry so 64Bit does hurt a lot. Then I have not seen one single useful mobile app even using 1GB of memory. Most do not even use 100MB. And ARM can adress up to several Terabytes WITHOUT 64Bit, it just can not handle more than 1-3GB per Application. Well, it could but you need to compile it with extended memory and might be less portable.

All in All I prefer a mobile device which runs fast and durable and cheap instead of one which is none of these.

 

[016ive]

I've never seen such a worthless article on such a respected site. This is outrageous! So now Tom is doing Idiotic opinions as articles and news?!

 

[sumludus]

Even if all of the author's comments are true (which they're not), and even if I agree with the author's opinion (which I do for the most part) it is not the job of a journalist to impart their opinion on their audience. They are suppose to present the facts and let their audience draw their own conclusions. This is the kind of crap "reporting" that you see on 24 hour news networks that need to fill an hour block, so they tell you the facts for 2 minutes and have people yell at each other about the facts for 8 minutes. Only difference here is that the author has no one to yell at, so it comes off as a hugely biased rant against Motorola's 2014 product stack.

I'm willing to bet that Lucian Armasu never went to Chicago for the press event to do any actual journalism, Instead he has instead written a roundup review for devices he's never seen in person, and passes judgement based on a spec sheet rather than after having the devices in hand. This is the poorest written article I've seen on the site since the Kindle Paperwhite review, and even then I think this classless "review" might top it simply for being written with such baseless spite and contempt.