The New Motorola Moto X (2nd Gen) Review
by Joshua Ho on September 17, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola
- Android
- Mobile
CPU and General Performance
By now, the choice of SoC has become a major focus in every smartphone. While it may not be clear how to use more compute with every generation, it’s generally accepted that stronger CPU and GPU performance is better, especially if it means that there is a power advantage in race to sleep tasks. In the case of the new Moto X we see a Snapdragon 801 SoC with CPU clocked at 2.5 GHz and a GPU clocked at 578 MHz. At this point, there's really not too much to talk about in this SoC as we've reviewed multiple devices with the same exact part.
Currently, our test suite relies upon a combination of browser and gaming benchmarks to get a good idea of total performance. However, it’s important to note that the Android results are only comparable to other Android phones as the stock browser will have specific optimizations that aren’t found in Chrome. We’ll start with the browser benchmarks first.
In the browser benchmarks, we see that the new Moto X falls right where we expect it to for the Snapdragon 801. It's plenty fast, and I don't expect any differences in CPU performance between Snapdragon 801 and 805 devices. This is unlikely to be a point of differentiation until Snapdragon 810 and beyond come into play. We'll take a look at Basemark OS II next, which is a general system performance benchmark.
Here, we once again see that there's not much different in terms of performance. We'll turn to the gaming benchmarks next to get a good idea of what to expect from the GPU.
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masimilianzo - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
so basically we have to wait for the Note 4 gen display and a new stacked battery in order to have a truly compelling Moto X (hardware wise)olivaw - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
I am wondering why the CPU and GPU benchmarks don't show the original Moto X, specially since its dual core was exhaustively analysed in the original review.ithehappy - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
As an owner of the original X I was really looking forward to this one, just wished two things, a much improved camera and a great display, that's it. But both of them are below par and par with the competition.Looking elsewhere.......
Krysto - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
> While this would be risky in terms of engineering, RCBC seems to give the benefits of clear pixels without the drawbacks that come with RGBC, although it's hard to tell whether this is really true without a shipping implementation.I knew this from last year when reading about Aptina's previous-gen RCBC sensor. It was obviously better than Omnision's RGBC. Motorola should've gone with Aptina for the rear camera, too, and market ClearPixel more heavily.
Alexvrb - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Interesting, I didn't realize Motorola made their own version of Glance. Anyway, seems like a good phone overall. Not exceptional in any one area maybe, but seems all-around solid and it's quite a bit cheaper than the big boy flagships.The only thing that really sucks is the lack of an SD card slot.
drew80 - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Was the test model perhaps a dud? Reviews on other sites have been much more favorable to screen properties, performance, and battery life. In addition, the glitches a rebooting were not mentioned in any other review. Just curious about that.2disbetter - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
As someone who genuinely finds the moto x to be an absolutely amazing software and hardware integrated phone, I'm very happy with this newest generation x. I'm not crazy about a phone with amazing ergonomics getting bigger but I suppose it's inevitable now these days. If the Samsung didn't have a push button home button I think I'd get that. But as it is this is probably my next after my moto x now.soccerballtux - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
me tooerikiksaz - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
I wonder if the capacitive controller could also be for the Moto logo on the back. I have a 2014 X with me here, and the M button is substantial, it really feels like there's supposed to be another function to it.JoshHo - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
The Moto logo on the back has nothing electronic in it, judging by teardowns.