Motorola has finally brought back its beloved X series to India. Two months after the smartphone was unveiled at IFA 2017 in Berlin, the company has launched the Moto X4 in India at a starting price of Rs 20,999.
The Moto X4 has had a rather bumpy journey to India. First set to arrive on October 3, Motorola mysteriously cancelled the launch event disappointing many ardent fans and loyalists. A month later, the phone has finally made its way to Indian shores. Unlike the previous X series smartphones which were high-end devices, the Moto X4 is a mid-range device that slots in below the Moto Z2 Play in India.
The Moto X4 comes with a metal and glass design, a dual camera setup at the back, Bluetooth 5.0, mid-range specifications and stock Android with Motorola's nifty gestures on board. What is lacks though the level of customisability found in old Moto X smartphones such as the ability to buy the phone in exotic finishes such as wood or leather or Moto's popular Moto Maker service.
Let us take a look at the Moto X4 in detail:
Premium glass design
Unlike previous X series smartphones which were constructed out of plastic or rubber, the Moto X4 has glass on the front and back sandwiched between a metal frame. The metal frame not only makes the smartphone more rigid but adds to the premium factor.
The front fascia is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection against nicks and scratches and houses the recessed fingerprint sensor, the 5.2-inch display, front camera, sensors and capacitive buttons for back, home and multi-tasking.
The Motorola dimple is absent on the Moto X4 - a move which might disappoint ardent X series fans. The round camera unit juts out quite a fair bit from the body of the smartphone and is surrounded by a ribbed texture - which Motorola claims is inspired by high-end watches - which looks sleek and classy.?
Mid-range specifications
As mentioned above, the fourth iteration in Motorola's X series of smartphones has shed any flagship ambitions it had for more grounded middle of the road goals. That is not to say it is a disappointment when it comes to specifications. Far from it. For a mid-range smartphone, the Moto X4 comes with impressive firepower under the hood.?
The spec sheet of the Moto X4 is quite similar to the Motorola's existing mid-range smartphone, the Z2 Play save for a new processor. The X4 is powered by the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 chipset clocked at 2.2GHz. The 14nm Snapdragon 630 processor consists of 4 high-performance ARM Cortex A53 cores clocked at 2.2GHz paired with 4 ARM Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz for low-intensity workloads.
The chipset is paired with 3 or 4GB of RAM depending on the variant, the Adreno 508 GPU and a 3,000mAh battery with TurboCharge support. Motorola claims that a 15 minute charge can power the X4 for up to 6 hours. There is 32/64GB of storage on board which can be expanded via a microSD card (of up to 2TB - which doesn't even exist yet).
Display, near stock Android
Just like the rest of Motorola's Android smartphone line-up, the Moto X4 runs on a near stock build of Android 7.1.1 Nougat with an update to Android 8.0 Oreo along the way( Motorola claims that Oreo will arrive on the smartphone by early 2018). There is no bloat on board and no unnecessary gimmicks or overlays.
The few additions Motorola has made to Android only add to the experience and do not take away from the soul of stock Android in any way. Some of the additions include gestures such as twist for opening the camera, double karate chop for turning on the torch, an always on display and a blue light filter.
There is also a new feature called Moto Key which basically acts as as a password manager. What makes this feature so special is the fact that your fingerprint can be used to authenticate passwords on your Windows laptop/PC as well - via a special Motorola application for Windows. The Moto X4 comes with a 5.2-inch FullHD display on the front with a pixel density of 424ppi which is covered by Corning Gorilla Glass for protection against scratches
Dual cameras
The Moto X4 is the second Motorola smartphone in India after the Moto G5S Plus to come with a dual camera setup at the back. However, unlike the G5S Plus, which comes with a regular sensor and secondary sensor solely dedicated to capturing depth data, the Moto X4 comes with a primary 12MP sensor (f/2.0) and a secondary 8MP 120 degree ultra-wide angle sensor (f/2.2).
The two sensors work together to offer features such as selective black and white colouring and background replacement. Additionally, the secondary sensor allows you to take images with depth of field effects (bokeh) and shoot ultra-wide angle shots.
The rear camera also comes with a dual-LED flash for extreme low-light situations and can shoot videos in 4K. There is a 16MP sensor on the front with an aperture of f/2.0 and a dedicated LED flash, which should make the X4 a good choice for selfie junkies. The front camera also comes with a a low light mode which trades resolution for more light.
Special features
Bluetooth wizardry
The Moto X4 is one of the few smartphone to support Bluetooth 5.0 - the addition of which along with a few nifty tricks from Motorola's side allows the phone to stream music wirelessly to up to 4 Bluetooth headphones or speakers. Four distinct Bluetooth devices can be paired to the smartphone and you can sync a single stream of music to all of them at the same time.
Amazon Alexa support?
Moto X4 users have the option to use Alexa instead of Google assistant if they wish - the smartphone comes pre-loaded with Amazon's voice assistant. Alexa can take commands even when the smartphone is locked and can be used to easily order goods from Amazon, set alarms, answer questions and so on. This feature is only available in the US, UK and Germany as of now. However, Motorola claims that it will make it to India eventually.
IP68 dust and water resistance
The Moto X4 is one of the few mid-range smartphones that comes with IP68 dust and water resistance. Which basically means that you can dunk the smartphone in up to 1.5 metres of water for up to 30 minutes without breaking a sweat.
Price and availability
The Moto X4 has been launched in India in two variants - one with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage for Rs 20,999 and one with 64GB of internal storage and 4GB of RAM for Rs 22,999. It is set to go on sale via Flipkart from 11:59PM today. It will also be available from Motorola's offline MotoHub retail stores.
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