Motorola Moto X4 Review - Review 2022

The Moto X4 is Motorola'due south fusion telephone. Priced at $399.99 unlocked or $329.99 subsidized by Amazon ads, it combines aspects from both ends of its lineup, like dual rear photographic camera sensors and a waterproof design from the high-terminate Z2 Force, with the midrange specs of the more affordable G5 Plus. It doesn't support Moto Mods, but has the virtually-stock Android software Motorola is known for, besides as integration with Amazon's Alexa phonation assistant. Its status is bolstered by a strong bombardment and solid dual-camera system. Shoppers after premium features on a more than small-scale budget volition appreciate the X4, our Editors' Option in the midrange price bracket.

Design, Features, And Brandish

The Moto X4 catches the eye. Its back panel is designed to reverberate light in unlike patterns based on bending and lighting conditions. Information technology's quite fetching in both Super Black and Sterling Blue options, though I noticed information technology picks upward fingerprints and smudges rather easily and it's very, very slippery.

The phone measures a hand-friendly 5.8 by 2.9 by 0.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.7 ounces. It's like in size to the G5 Plus (5.nine by 2.9 by 0.3 inches, 5.5 ounces), merely its mirror-similar blueprint looks and feels far more premium. This comes at the cost of weight though, every bit the X4 is about an ounce heavier than the HTC U11 Life (5.9 by 2.9 by 0.three inches, 5 ounces).

There's a SIM/microSD card slot on top, the latter of which supports cards up to 2TB. And there'southward a headphone jack on the bottom, next to a USB-C charging port. Book and ability buttons tin can be constitute on the right. At that place'southward a fingerprint sensor on the lesser bezel and when you lot activate One Button Navigation yous tin can use a series of swipe gestures in place of the standard software navigation keys. It'due south a bully feature to save some screen infinite.

Like the Z2 Force, the Moto X4 is IP68 waterproof, meaning it tin can withstand submersion in six anxiety of water for up to xxx minutes.

The Moto X4 has a 5.two-inch, one,920-by-1,080 IPS display. It's crisp, 424 pixels per inch, matching the resolution of the U11 Life. Colors are bright and accurate, and viewing angles are swell. Brightness ramps up pretty well, and I was able to use the phone outdoors without also much difficulty. You as well get all the standard Motorola features similar Active Display, which lights up the screen with time, engagement, notifications, and media controls when y'all option the phone upward. And there are gesture controls; twisting the phone launches the camera and shaking information technology turns on the flashlight.

Network Performance and Audio

The unlocked Moto X4 supports GSM (2/iii/5/8), CDMA (0/i/10), WCDMA (1/2/4/5/eight), and LTE bands (1/2/3/four/5/vii/8/12/13/17/xx/25/26/28/66), for comprehensive network connectivity. Information technology allows the X4 to work on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. I tested it on T-Mobile in midtown Manhattan, where the phone registered pinnacle speeds of 27.51Mbps downwards and 18.73Mbps up. That's pretty good for a highly congested surface area.

Telephone call quality is decent, merely aught spectacular. Transmissions came beyond as muddy, with a bit of garbling. Racket cancellation is fine, especially when combined with the loud earpiece that doubles as a speaker, but some horns and background conversation bankrupt through. Yous also go Wi-Fi calling with uniform carriers.

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The phone supports dual-ring (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Wi-Fi, Bluetooth five.0, and NFC. You tin connect up to four Bluetooth and Wi-Fi audio devices at the same time using Motorola's congenital-in wireless sound organization. I connected it to a pair of speakers and Bluetooth headphones and streamed music most flawlessly, aside from some skipping and stuttering caused past a congested Wi-Fi network. Playback can exist individual or in a stereo setup. At that place are some limitations though. Only one speaker can be connected over 2.4GHz, and phone telephone call routing isn't currently supported.

Processor and Battery

The telephone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor clocked at ii.2GHz with 3GB of RAM. It scored 70,353 in the AnTuTu benchmark, which measures overall system performance, meliorate than the Snapdragon 625-powered G5 Plus (63,845) and roughly matching the HTC U11 Life (71,786). In regular usage, this translates into fast, reliable performance with smooth multitasking. It tin also handle demanding games like GTA: San Andreas, though you may see the occasional stutter.

Battery life is corking. The phone clocked vii hours, 25 minutes when we set screen effulgence to maximum and streamed full-screen video over LTE. That's a lot longer than the U11 Life (5 hours), and similar to the G5 Plus (7 hours, 35 minutes). The phone also supports fast charging, letting you lot juice upwardly to 6 hours of usage in only fifteen minutes when using the included 15W power adapter. The 3,000mAh battery should be more than sufficient for a day of average employ.

Camera

The Moto X4 is the latest phone to join the trend of dual-sensor cameras. On the back, you get ane 12-megapixel principal sensor and a second 8-megapixel wide-angle camera. The 2 sensors give it a notable advantage over single-sensor devices when it comes to focusing speed and low-light performance, and support a full prepare of manual controls to let you adjust things like white residuum and ISO.

Outdoors and in good lighting, the X4 takes well-baked pictures with minimal racket. Color reproduction is accurate, though it tends to be on the warmer side with yellows and greens. The real advantage of the 2d sensor comes through in depression-light shooting, where the X4 consistently outperformed the U11 Life in capturing calorie-free and minimizing blur in testing, as y'all tin can meet in the photos below.

The second photographic camera as well allows for some absurd furnishings. You can shoot in a broad-angle setup, similar to the LG V30, letting you capture more of your surroundings, though often with some barrel distortion around the edges of the shot. It's a feature we've enjoyed on other phones for capturing broad views of scenery. The X4 can add to that with its Landmark/Object recognition feature. When y'all indicate the phone at a notable landmark or object, it can generate information about it, ordinarily cartoon from Wikipedia.

It tin can be handy when it works, but I institute it was often unreliable, either taking likewise long to recognize things or not recognizing anything at all. The data generated also isn't particularly useful. For instance, it was capable of identifying a gaming mouse, but not the brand, resulting in a link to generic mice rather than a link to where the particular Logitech mouse could be purchased.

More functional features include bokeh, which lets you lot focus on a foreground object and blur out the background. Selective Black and White is another interesting feature that makes nigh of the scene black and white, merely lets yous pick ane color and single it out to remain in the shot for a hit upshot, as you tin can run across here.

For video, the telephone supports stable 4K recording at 30fps, 1080p at 60fps, and tedious-move capture. And there's a xvi-megapixel selfie camera that takes clear pictures in virtually settings.

Software

In terms of software, the phone runs a fairly stock version of Android 7.i.i Nougat with Motorola'due south useful add-ons enabled through the Moto app. An update to Android 8.0 Oreo should roll out in the future. Aside from the aforementioned gestures, y'all tin can enable Moto Fundamental, a way to securely unlock Windows devices and log into websites using the telephone'due south fingerprint sensor as authentication. Setup is unproblematic, though it requires you to download and install Moto Key software onto your laptop or desktop and the X4 must exist connected via Bluetooth.

Moto Alexa is a new app you'll observe on the X4. It's basically just Amazon'southward Alexa, giving you yet another AI voice assistant to help wait up information and control smart home devices. Only like the Repeat speaker, you lot tin ready the phone to always be listening, so it'll automatically wake when yous say "Alexa." I matter to note is that Alexa tin't send text letters or make telephone calls exterior of the Alexa app, and so for that y'all'll need to rely on Google Banana. It's also only available in a limited number of countries.

The unlocked Moto X4 doesn't have much in preloaded content aside from the previously mentioned Motorola and Alexa apps. An Android 1 version (with pure Android software0 works on Google's Project Fi network, while Amazon's ad-subsidized version gets you a full suite of the retailer's apps.

On our unlocked review unit, out of 32GB of total storage, we had 14.36GB bachelor for employ. That's a piddling on the low side if you program to have lots of photos and video, and then you lot may desire to use a microSD card . Adoptable storage, a feature that merges internal storage and a retentivity card into a unmarried volume, isn't available.

Conclusions

The Moto X4 is close in toll to the U11 Life, but gives you more than for the money. While both phones have similar levels of overall operation and solid features, the X4 pulls ahead due to its superior camera capabilities, broader carrier compatibility, and longer-lasting battery. That makes it our Editors' Pick amongst midrange phones. If you're looking for something even more affordable, the Moto G5 Plus packs in solid specs for $100 less, though it lacks the bells and whistles that make the X4 stand up out.

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/old-cell-phones/17266/motorola-moto-x4-review

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