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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Harry_Wild - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
I will wait to see the new Moto X 2014 in person before deciding them. Thanks for the reply! Since the Moto X seems to be the same shape as the upcoming Nexus X; then I glad that it close the old 4.7" Moto X. A shopping we will go! LOL!gg555 - Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - link
I don't know, to me the original Moto X had a cheap plastic feel to it despite the nice sculptured back. It was a far cry for the higher quality feel of the polycarbonate material in some of the Nokia phones. I think the new design has a much higher quality feel to it, though the large size does affect how it fits in one's hand a bit.grant3 - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
Does this phone support 3-button android headsets? (like samsung + HTC do)Monish - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
Guys, is MOTO X 2nd gen OTG compatible ? I asked MOTO customer care agent, he said It is not compatible. So when i questioned him that MOTO X 1st gen had it (saw XDA forums) he further added that Motorola cannot guarantee it!OTG compatibility is the only thing stopping me from buying this phone as in INDIA you get only 16GB version.
JoshHo - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
USB-OTG is fully functional.Monish - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
Did u test it Josh ? Sorry was asking but just double checking since customer care agent said otherwise.erikiksaz - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
It works, at least for USB audio. Haven't tested it with storage.raghwendra123 - Saturday, September 20, 2014 - link
A little off topic... but how come galaxy s5 top most performance benchmarks by quite a margin when it has snapdragon 801 too? And why does its T-mobile version doesn't?raghwendra123 - Sunday, September 21, 2014 - link
I mean the the Basemark ones.EdCraft - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
The new moto X seems very good, much better than the ever-so-lagging-behind new iPhone. The question is though, can Motorola match up to HTC in consumer satisfaction? Motorola hasn't quite managed to do it so far (source: http://www.consumertop.com/best-phone-guide/), but this one seems very promising!