Motorola Moto X4 Review

The Motorola Moto X4 comes to India for a price of Rs 20999 for the 3GB RAM variant and Rs 22999 for the 4GB RAM variant , after an unexpectedly long wait. Is the new Moto X series phone the right sequel to the popular Moto X Play and Moto X Style?

Build Quality and Design

The design of the Moto X4 is pretty impressive, with a glass front and 3D curved glass back, the phone has a rigid aluminium frame and is protected by Gorilla Glass 3 with Native Damage Resistance. The Moto X4 is also IP68 water resistant, making it a really interesting proposition in the present price bracket.

The matte-finish frame feels excellent in the hand and the curved back fits comfortably in your palm. The cameras are placed in the notorious Moto round camera bump, however is well protected by a metal lip around the glass. The phone is offered up in two colors the Super Black and the Sterling Blue, both are interesting shades of their respective base colors and make the device look premium. Motorola has also placed all markings on the bottom of the phone next to the USB – C connector, making the device look clean.

The displays do have a top and lower bezel, but they are put to use with the large forward fitting speaker and front flash, along with the Fingerprint sensor which sits below the screen.

Watch our unboxing video here-

Hardware

The Moto X4 has a 5.2 inch screen and while Motorola has used OLED displays in their phones frequently, the Moto X4 continues to use a 1920 x 1080 px LTPS IPS LCD display. Inside the Moto X4 has the Snapdragon 630 chipset with the Adreno 508 GPU. The 2.2 GHz oct core chipset manages to deliver impressive daily performance. Options of 3 / 4 GB of RAM and 32/ 64 GB of Storage (respectively) along with a 3000 mAh battery with Moto TurboPower charging.

The chipset does have FM radio capabilities and DUAL SIM support along with VoLTE for Indian networks.

Display and Multimedia

The forward firing speaker is loud and clear, we would have liked the dual stereo speakers Moto has used in the past, but this single one works well. The dimply is vibrant and bright with excellent color accuracy and viewing angles. The display is easily readable indoors and out and offers a 10 point multi touch just as most smartphones nowadays.

Consumption of content will be a plenty with the loud speaker and good looking display the responsiveness of the device also enhances the multimedia experience. A few customisations for the display are available, a color mode and adaptive brightness come standard. Also standard is a display size modifier to allow for larger or smaller fits and icons.

The sound output from the 3.5mm jack and the included earphones are impressive, adding a pair of high quality headphones will also offer better results.

Performance and Gaming

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 chipset ( mid-high range chipset) works well on the Moto X4, paired up with the 4 GB RAM variant that we tested the phone offers impressive perforce for gaming and day to day usage. Multi tasking and peak task management along with RAM management is good with the stock Android and despite using the phone for over 4 weeks we found no slow down from the UI.

Games run well, including graphic intensive games manage to run at full graphics with impressive frame rates and no lag from the gaming experience. The forward firing speaker also helps the gaming experience, and whether you play arcade or intense games, the experience is pretty satisfactory.

Android and Moto Experience

The Moto X4 runs a pure Android 7.1 ROM, with minor customisations from MOTO and a custom Camera APP. The user experience is lag free and pretty much as good as a pixel device. The Moto app has some interesting additions including the Moto Key which almost ever user for Moto X4 will learn to love. Much like Touch ID and Face ID the Moto Key on the Moto X4 will allow users to store passwords and sensitive information on the secure part of the Snapdragon 630 chip encrypted with the users fingerprints. This also will allow access into a windows computer, acting as a portable fingerprint reader for your laptop or desktop. The app available to download for Windows allows several more customisations.

The single button navigation also opens up more display real-estate and its gesture based experience is truly something that one can get used to .

The Moto X4 will be updated to Android Oreo soon claims the company, this will also enable Bluetooth 5.0 which is an OS dependant update, and the phone presently offers Bluetooth 4.1. But you do get the muti speaker connectivity because Bluetooth 5.0 hardware exists in the device, You can pair upto 4 different bluetooth speakers sync them up and have your own little party.

Cameras

The Moto X4 is made up of dual cameras at the rear, with one 12 MP sensor with an f/2.0 aperture and Dual Pixel AF while the other an 8 MP wide lens camera with an f/2.2 aperture.A huge improvement in the dual camera experience of the Moto X4 from previous Moto devices. With one Wide sensor the camera is able to do a lot more in the same space.

The HDR on the camera is really impressive offering up good levels of contrast on both the highs and mids. The dynamic range is pretty flexible and can be left in automatic for some interesting image results from the camera.

The depth mode is a lot more accurate and fine tuned as well. Selecting out elements from the depth shot and editing them on the in built app allows for background replacement/blur or monochrome effects which can reproduce a lifelike shot.

Video capture from the phone with a resolution of 4k at 30 fps is good as well, we do miss stabilisation on the video capture which makes video caught by shaky hands, well “shaky!”

Both in video and images you get precise color saturation and sharp images, also assisted with the dual AF offered by the 12 MP primary camera.  Additionally the manual mode assists in delivering more precise controls for the Photo Nerds in us.

Phone and Battery

With support for all Indian networks on the 660 chipsets modem, and a robust Antenna on the Moto X4 call performance was top notch, with no call drops in weak network areas. The use of a three mic setup improves noise cancellation on the other end of the call and the earpiece is nice and loud. It is worth noting that the included headset also works with the noise cancellation microphones, and the earphones offer a full and impressive sound stage for music and voice calls.

Battery life will range from 4 hours of screen on time to 11 hours of screen on time depending on what your usage patterns look like. On an average the phone lasts a full day and then some, but in scenarios where you may need extra battery the TurboPower charger can juice you up for a good 5-7 hours of usage in about 15 minutes.

Conclusion

Despite pretty big top and bottom bezels, the Motorola Moto X4 has a premium design and robust build quality a rigid frame and most importantly is the only phone in this price range with IP68 water proofing. The dual cameras are a lot more refined and offer up some interesting picture and video capabilities. Call quality and battery life on the Moto X4 delivers its due and the phone offers up a full experience. The phone is also kept in an interesting price bracket which leaves a good wiggle room for other brands whose flagship chipset based phones are 5-8 thousand in the north.

For the price and for IP68 alone the Moto X4 may just be the right phone in this price bracket, and with a lack of serious competition in this price range, Motorola may just reap the benefits of their pricing strategy. We would have liked to see a larger battery, an OLED display and stereo speakers. But the current arrangement is good at the price and we don’t really have that much to complain about.

In the market for a phone for Around Rs. 20000? give serious thought to the Moto X4.

Buy it here

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