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
GPU Performance
As said in the previous section, we'll look at game-based benchmarks to get a better idea of how the Snapdragon 801's Adreno 330 GPU performs.
Once again, there are really no results that stand out. I suspect that the metal frame helps to prevent thermal throttling in short benchmarks, but in most scenarios this doesn't really play out and there's no real way to establish long term performance as the GFXBench rundown test doesn't complete properly.
NAND Performance
NAND performance has been an ongoing issue since we first illustrated how poor NAND could easily become a massive detriment to user experience. While sequential reads and writes are generally at a good level these days, it’s the random read and write tests that can be incredibly poor, and these are often a good indicator of overall UI performance as something like installing applications can make a device unusable if storage performance isn’t good enough. In order to test this, we turn to Androbench with a few custom settings to best represent performance.
While the new Moto X doesn't quite top the previous Moto X in random write speeds, it's unlikely that the storage solution is worse. I found that the data and system partitions now use ext4, which means that the performance gains we saw with f2fs are gone. I'm not sure why Motorola decided to change back to ext4 given the performance gains that come with f2fs, but possible reasons include unforeseen conditions where f2fs could result in data loss compared to ext4 or difficulties in integrating f2fs support on Android. At any rate, the new Moto X is one of the best performers in this category, which should keep performance high after a year or two of use.
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Endda - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
and the Sony Xperia Z3 CompactNBMTX - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
The Z1f outsold the iPhone in Japan and it's seemingly only getting more premium AND more durable at the same time with the Z3c... though I like the Z1f/c's sides a bit more than the Z3c's.piroroadkill - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Alpha is a PoS compared with Z3 Compact.NBMTX - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
+1,000,000I would have really liked Moto to have gone head to head with the new iPhone staying at [a more compact] 4.7" with a much better sRGB calibrated display, a tested and quality 8mp camera with ois, a decent headphone amp (more important than stereo speakers, imo) with at least decent headphones, an included turbo charger, and something amazing like shell cordovan leather (vs delicate current options) that would [theoretically] only get better with the level of use our phones get...I think with small changes like that, it could have easily unseated the iP6 as a "premium device with attention to detail"...
wffurr - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
I was pretty disappointed to see the new Moto X go to the larger screen size. I think Apple nailed it with different devices at 4.7" and 5.5". I wish Moto had kept the X at 4.7" and just upgraded the internals, maybe done the metal band thing, and introduced a new larger phone as a separate model.Maybe they don't have the internal resources to do two models, so they had to compromise and release a phone that's too big for one hand but not big enough to compete with the Note or iPhone 6+. That seems like a really poor choice to me, if so.
NBMTX - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
I'm with you but my guess is they simply settled on making it directly in between both sides of the argument... which makes sense. I guess.Also, Apple's 4.7" is fairly different than Moto's 4.7", if it's Nexus 5 like dimensions (but thin, with rounded edges) are anything to go by. Moto's was perfect, IMO. I'm glad the curvature is seemingly here to stay.
fokka - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
wonderfully put. also, if they wanted to be part of the 5-inch crowd so bad, why not just make it 5 inches? why go for 5.2?they should just have stayed at 4.7", that was a big part of what made the x stand out in the first place. a more efficient SoC, bigger battery, better camera and maybe, just maybe, even an sd slot and they would've been good for another year.
but as nice as the new x looks, now we have yet another phablet sized phone with mediocre runtime and mediocre camera.
soccerballtux - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
having the Nexus 5, I think it's just a bit too small, but every 5.2" phone I use, I feel is perfect. 5.5" too big, but not 5.2.kasakka - Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - link
Agreed. It's not a coincidence that Apple went with 4.7" for the iPhone 6. It's probably the perfect display size for a smartphone at the moment, provided the bezels are very slim. As an owner of the Galaxy S4, I feel it is just a tiny bit too big to hold and use comfortably with one hand.I truly hope the trend swings around soon and manufacturers realise that there is a good market for slightly smaller, high performance phones. In Japan I had the pleasure of trying the Sharp Aquos XX Mini (4.5") and it was pretty amazing (battery life at such a small size w/ 1080p screen is questionable though) and would've bought it if it had had support for 3G/LTE in my country.
soccerballtux - Thursday, September 18, 2014 - link
I am not the only one that thinks 5.2" is the sweet spot and wishes my Nexus 5 had a 5.2" screen.