Now that I’ve had more time to spend with my Moto X, I’ve had a chance to discover a few things that really irk me about it. None of them are really dealbreakers for me, but they’re there, nonetheless.
1. No wireless charging – I knew this going into it, but I wasn’t sure how much I’d miss it. The answer is a lot. I’m very nervous every time I connect and disconnect the power cord – I realize it’s a hardware piece that could fail relatively easily. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I rather liked just setting my phone down to charge. I’ve also remembered how much I hate fumbling with a microUSB connector when I’m half-asleep in the dark. Gah. I wish Motorola had made this an option via MotoMaker – they’re already putting a custom backplate on there, it wouldn’t have been too hard to make Qi an option.
2. Onscreen softkeys – for some reason, the ones on my Moto X aren’t as responsive as my Nexus 5 was. I don’t have any issues with responsiveness on the rest of the screen, it’s only the softkeys section, and only some of the time. Just enough to annoy me.
3. Software – while Moto Assist is great, it’s pretty barebones, especially compared to its predecessor, Motorola Smart Actions. I’m still using Locale for more advanced automation. Also, Moto Alert turned out to be completely useless, which is really unfortunate. I have an hour commute, so I’ve been wanting a way to text my wife when I leave work, to give her an idea of when to start fixing dinner. Moto Alert promises to do this, but it’s completely unreliable – three times, it texted her that I had just left work as I was pulling into the parking garage, and would randomly decide that I had just arrived at work an hour later. I’m glad I had the foresight to warn my wife that I was testing an automated system, otherwise those could have been awkward conversations. Eventually, I turned the whole thing off.
4. Status Bar Spam – Though my Moto X is unlocked and unmolested by carrier apps, the status bar can still get junked up quickly. On the right, the mobile network icon uses two spaces – one for the signal bars and one for the label (HSPA, LTE, etc.). On the left, by default you get a notification for EACH active Moto Assist profile, another one if you use the ‘Trusted Devices’ feature, etc. It can get junky really quickly.
That’s actually it, thus far. Everything else about the phone is great. You can read the things I love here.
Ricky Cadden 