Motorola’s X Force awakens a seemingly ‘shatterproof’ future

Re: Broken iphone screens...

"I never understood why they don't make the screens out of some kind of tough plastic [or 'polycarbonate' as they seem to call it these days]."

Because you can't charge an arm and a leg for a phone with a plastic screen or case. High end phones come encased in glass and aluminium because it makes the phone look expensive and therefore justifies the premium. Even if the materials probably only add $10 to the cost of production and both impair the function and ruggedness of the phone in obvious ways.

The irony is most owners are paranoid about breaking their phone that they immediately shove their glass phone into a bump case. So it may as well be made of plastic for all the difference it would make to its appearance.

Re: Broken iphone screens...

plastic screens scratch very easily, making the screen difficult to read in sunlight.

best current solution is probably to use an aftermarket - and user replaceable - mineral glass screen protector instead of the common plastic film protectors.

Re: too good to be true?

The only things I've seen Motorola add to their modern Android phones is a camera app, Motorola Assist, and a process for OTA updates. So yeh, pretty close to stock.

Re: too good to be true?

Jim,

Go and stand in the corner and write out 100 times:

"All mobile devices should have a SD slot as this is beneficial to the customer and not the company who is trying to lock you into their services or charge you overinflated prices for bigger memory"

@JetSetJim et al. - Yes, it DOES have an SD slot

Direct from the horse's mouth, albeit in Portuguese... According to this, you can put up to a 2TB µSD

For those of us who don't read Portuguese, there's this, although they seem to have missed a zero on the µSD spec.

Re: too good to be true?

Specs say it has an SD card.

https://www.motorola.co.uk/products/moto-x-force

Re: Best so far

BUT as mentioned in the review, I need decent, front-facing, stereo speakers.

I didn't use to. I never thought about speakers. Then I got an HTC.

Want.

You *WANT* decent, front-facing, stereo speakers.

You don't *need* them. You won't die, or get fired, or lose your wife/GF/husband/BF/children/dog/whatever if you don't have them. They aren't central to your continuing existence. You won't vanish in a puff of logic like God when confronted with the idea that proof begets faith.

While I don't deny the benefits of such speakers - my Moto X Style has them and it makes the device far more media-consumption friendly than the bottom / side mounted single speaker on my previous Z1 - the whole "want / need" conflation is starting to get right on my bloody nerves.

Re: Best so far

You're one of those people sitting on public transport playing crap music through your phones speakers aren't you.....

The Z3 is a good phone but the official Sony case is rubbish and expensive - it doesnt protect one whole edge of the screen if you drop it when open.

About OLED/AMOLED durability

I had a Samsung Wave for four years now. The display broke off in a corner, and the glass broke apart in two streaks. It didn't shatter, though, so that's okay.

The display is still crisp, and I still have it at the lowest brightness, which is more than plenty. At maximum brightness, it's reasonably good in the sun and way too bright for indoors.

However, I have three qualms with the display: the black isn't black, evenness isn't even and burn-in happens.

When supposed to display only black, the screen still is lit, if ever so slightly.

Worse still, there are splotches visible (clearly visible when it's pitch-black around).

Third, burn-in happens. Around the top and bottom of the display (status bar and basic icons), the burn-in is clearly visible even at mid-brightness (it's obvious when completely white).

--

That said, the phone is still usable after four years (to an arbitrary definition of 'usable').

Re: 6.0 "soon"... riiight.

That isn't the point JSJ, yes, that is what I did with my Galaxy S3, but we shouldn't have to faff around with DIY builds to premium priced products. They should get updates for at least the theoretical 2 year life span - although most people I know seem to replace their smartphones every 3 - 5 years, I replaced my last phone after 2.5 years and I am getting "yet another new phone," comments.

Re: 6.0 "soon"... riiight.

You have a Moto G.

G2 has a Moto E.

Those are two different phones. One of them is still receiving updates, and one is not.

Re: 6.0 "soon"... riiight.

In some countries Motorola/Lenovo seem to have released Android 5.1 for Moto E 2nd Gen and not in others. In UK my Moto E 2nd Gen is stuck on 5.0, and I have a sim-free phone (unlocked at purchase, bought from Tesco). My network is 3 but updates appear to come from and be controlled by Motorola. So why are they not letting us have 5.1...?

Re: 6.0 "soon"... riiight.

quote

Sure that's Moto and not the operator?

/quote

i bought it full price retail, unlocked... not tied to any operator. it's Moto pure.

Re: 6.0 "soon"... riiight.

quote

Strangely enough, Moto yesterday announced that the 4g Moto E 2015 is getting Marshmallow!

/quote

*puzzled*.... so instead of making a new blog post / announcement sequel for additional devices that will get v6 in the near future, Moto decides to quietly update the old one without telling anyone or even marking in the blog text WHICH items in that list are the newly updated ones... they just tossed them in the list there hoping nobody remembers the original item list ... probably just to cover their legal butts? They only mention at the top of the post that it was updated. All that being said, if they ever bother launching v6 i hope they launch directly to v6.0.1+ as 6.0.1 has been released already.

They should know how a blog post notification system works. Blogspot's RSS feeds can be used to notify you of new posts but the usual RSS reader apps won't notify you of edits to posts that way back (Motorola's blog is quite active), so i'd take their announcement with a large pinch of salt.. make it a large truck of salt.

Re: 6.0 "soon"... riiight.

what do you think 6 gives you over 5?

For one thing, the app permissions model is quite different in 6, giving the user more granular control over what an app can do.

That's a big advantage (for the user) and well worth upgrading for (if it works).

Re: 6.0 "soon"... riiight.

Since when was any manufacturer responsible for updates?

You bought the phone with version x.yy.z

This expectation of ongoing updates and patches is typical of the selfish whining monkeys that have become so prevalent in recent years.

It is not unreasonable to expect updates in any computerised equipmenT (be it bugfixes, security fixes or functional enhancements). Most manufacturers offer updated firmware for their kit (not talking about phones here).

Also some manufacturers already advertise on release of the product that it will get x.y.z update, in which case it seems perfectly reasonable to me to expect that update to be provided as it quite likely influenced your original purchasing decision.

That reminds me. I'm off to the garage to demand that the manufacturer drops the latest, more powerful and more efficient engine into my car.

They're not replacing the phone's CPU over the air are they. More like you're off to the garage to get your ECU firmware sorted for dodgy emissions controls.