GAGET GIZMO REVIEW - MOTO X STYLE

GAGET GIZMO  REVIEW  - MOTO X STYLE   A lot of people love the Moto X for a lot of good reasons. You get great design,  a fast & near-stock Android interface, high-quality screens and good performance at a palatable price. The latest and third in the flagship Moto X series is simply called Moto X Style. Moto also has the cheaper Moto X Play  -we recently reviewed it and called it “a handsome device with the trademark metal frame and curved back design“. The Style also has the Moto X design language but with a few key upgrades.For starters, it has better hardware (slightly larger screen with quad HD resolution, 3 vs 2GB RAM, a more powerful Snapdragon 808 processor), a better camera (though resolution stays the same) and a real metal frame as opposed to the painted plastic on the Play .These upgrades put it in the same league as some of the other flagships. Also, like the Moto X Play , the Style has a water repellent nano coating. However, this doesn't mean that the device is waterproof -it's rated at IP52. This means that it's dust resistant and more likely to survive an accidental splash or a walk in the rain -just don't submerge it in water. In front, there are a bunch of extra sensors. They're not so apparent in the black version but stick out like sore thumbs on the white. In addition to the usual front camera, light sensor and proximity sensor, there is a front LED flash and three additional proximity sensors (one for each corner of the device). This quartet of sensors enables the glance notifications feature . So the Style is a large phone -holding it up against the Galaxy Note 5, we see that they're roughly the same dimensions. Except that the Style is a lot thicker: 11.2 vs 7.6mm -the curve on the back of the Style is what helps disguise the bulk. Around the back is a soft touch plastic back. Unlike the Play, you can't swap this one out for different colours and textures. You still get the dimpled Moto logo, dual LED flash, textured power button (which we love) and a single tray for two nano SIMs and micro SD expansion. You won't find the word `Motorola' anywhere on this phone -and some users are fans of this discreet design. We're fans of the near-stock interface on the Moto phones ourselves. There's very little by way of bloatware: just the Flipkart app which you can't uninstall (though you can disable it). As for Moto apps, there's Moto Actions (which can do things like wake your phone using voice), Migrate (to help move all your stuff over from another phone) and the extensive Display notification tweaks. To start, you can choose between normal or vivid colours. The `Attentive Display' can stay on while you look at it or dim quickly when you look away .Moto Display shows you quick, actionable on-screen notifications -the sensors ensure that the screen won't light up when the phone is face down or in a pocket handbag. Reach for the phone Reach for the phone and it lights up instead -all of this can be customised. Moto uses a 21 Megapixel Sony sensor on the Style which performs rather well in most conditions. It always gives nicely detailed results with good light Autofocus is fast and the camera app has a couple of neat tricks. For instance, you can give the phone a quick twist to launch the camera. You can swipe up to zoom, swipe right for settings, swipe left for gallery and just tap to take a photo. You can adjust exposure updown but besides that, the camera doesn't offer much by way of control. Battery is a 3,000mAh unit -the Moto X Play has a much larger 3,630mAh battery. This means tha battery life is a hit and miss -heavy users will not see it last through the day. Thankfully, it uses Moto's TurboPower technology that can fully charge the phone from zero in less than 60 minutes (when using the sup plied charger). It can also give you several hours of use in just 15 minutes The charger intelligently switches between 5, 9 and 12Volts @ 2.85Amps to deliver this impressive performance. You should know that the charg er comes with a permanently attached micro USB cable -this also means that a USB cable for computer transfers is not included in the box -not a very big deal. The question is, if you like the de sign and feel of the Moto X, would you more likely spend `20k on a 5.5-inch Moto X Play or `30k on a 5.7-inch Moto X Style? Pricing both these similar phones so far apart might be a mistake. Then comes the matter of the competition. The Style is priced well when it comes to competition like the Galaxy S6 series and iPhones but consider that the OnePlus 2 with a better camera (with OIS), better performance (Snapdragon 810 with 4GB RAM), double the storage (64GB standard) and fingerprint sensor is available at `24,999. hitesh bhagat ET28OCT15