Motorola Moto X (2nd Gen) 16GB

Last year’s Moto X was hailed as one of the best Android smartphones ideal for one-handed usage. The major reason for it was its handy 4.7-inch display panel. But this time around, Motorola has chosen to go with a roomier screen size of 5.2-inches for the new Moto X. This simply means that the new device will not be suitable for using with one hands since it's much taller and wider, on paper at least.

While you may dislike that Motorola has the upgraded the screen size to 5.2-inches in the latest-gen Moto X since it affects its one-hand usage, you can’t deny the fact that such a large display is ideal for entertainment on the go. The screen resolution has also been bumped to 1080p resulting in a rich pixel density of 423ppi. With such specs, the device sits along with most Android flagships such as the Samsung Galaxy S5 (review | cheatsheet) and HTC One (M8) (review).

A major complaint with the original Moto X was its camera performance. But Motorola has tried to make sure that’s not the case with its successor. The new Moto X sports a 13-megapixel primary camera with an aperture of f/2.25. To improve low-light photographs, the device get a powerful ring flash with two LEDs on the either side. Just like the first-gen Moto X, you can activate the camera by flicking your wrist twice, which is a really useful addition, since you can access the app quickly without using the other hand.

While all smartphone vendors highlight their custom skins on top of Android, Motorola has chosen to go the other way by offering a pure, undiluted build of Android. In fact, Motorola’s vision for its devices in terms of software is quite similar to Google’s Nexus series and the recently-introduced Android One initiative, since not only its devices offer stock Android, they are also amongst the first to receive updates.

The banner feature of the last year’s Moto X was its Touchless Control capability allowing users to use voice commands to interact with the phone even when it’s locked. But there were several other features that made the original Moto X stand apart from the crowd.

Did you know that the original Moto X was powered by an octa-core processor? Well, it’s a fact, but only two of those cores were meant for application processing (1.7GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro), while the other four were for available for rendering graphics (Adreno 330) and the last two were low-power cores for processing natural language and contextual tasks. While the combination which Motorola developed in-house and termed as X8 Mobile Computing System was an interesting idea, what went against Motorola was the choice of a mid-range dual-core chipset for processing at a time when everyone was highlighting the power of eight cores.

When the original Moto X landed in India in March, it surprised everyone with its sticker price of Rs 23,999 considering it was priced higher at $599 in the US. Combined that with competitive pricing of Motorola’s other offerings, expectations were set that the company’s latest flagship will also carry an attractive price tag. Sadly, that’s not the case as the Moto X (2nd-gen) is sold on Flipkart at Rs 31,999 for the regular variants, while the ones with leather or wooden backs cost Rs 2,000 more.