Moto X4 has just been launched at IFA 2017 packing dual rear cameras and Amazon's Alexa AI. Rumors had been circulating around the smartphone for some months now, and it's time to see which ones have panned out. Starting out, the Moto X4 has been priced at €399 and will be going on sale in Europe later this month. It will be sold in the US along with other international markets.
On the build front, the Moto X4 has curved gorilla glass in the back and 2.5D gorilla glass on the front as well. The metal frame is sandwiched between the two glass layers and gives the phone some much-needed rigidity. You get a 5.2-inch 1080p full-HD LTPS IPS display up front along with a fingerprint scanner just below it.
Under the hood, you find the new Snapdragon 630 octa-core processor clocked at 2.2GHz and the Adreno 508 GPU to handle gaming. It is paired with 3GB/4GB of RAM depending on the variant you get and 32GB/64GB of internal storage. There is a microSD card slot inside as well, to expand the internal storage up to 256GB. The Moto X4 runs Android 7.1.2 Nougat out of the box and will be first in line to get Android 8.0 Oreo update. Just like all other Moto smartphones, the Moto X4 too runs on stock Android which would make updates faster.
Coming to the rear of the X4, you will find two cameras there. A 12MP main camera along with an 8MP wide-angle camera to capture landscape, buildings and more. Motorola has also added Landmark Detection here which gives information about a place when you point your camera to it. Given the dual camera setup, you have a portrait mode as well to add DSLR like bokeh effect to images. Coming back to the 12MP main camera, it is the same sensor used on the Galaxy S7 and also packs dual-pixel autofocus for faster focusing on your subject.
For selfies, there's a 16MP front camera with f/2.0 aperture and an LED flash for those pesky low-light shots. All this is powered by a 3000 mAh battery which is non-removable given the glass back but does support fast charging. You can get six hours of use with just a 15-minute charge using the in-box Turbo Charger.
The Moto X4 is one of the first phones from a tier-1 manufacturer which packs in Amazon's Alexa personal assistant. Till now we have seen Alexa jump from speakers to smartwatches and now to a phone as well. With Alexa integration, the Moto X4 instantly gets support for thousands of skills that have been developed for the platform. Whether it works better than the Google Assistant, is a question I would reserve the answer for.
Another neat feature with the Moto X is its super Bluetooth connectivity. It can connect and broadcast music up to four Bluetooth speakers at any given time. Meaning you can add two Bluetooth speakers and make them work as separate audio channels for a stereo system. Moreover, you can also control the volume level for each of the connected devices separately.
This is enabled with the help of a French company, Tempow. The software comes embedded within the OS and uses a proprietary system driver called the Tempow Audio Profile. It can virtually connect with any Bluetooth audio device available in the market today as long as it supports the A2DP audio profile. GIven that this is a partnership between the two companies for the Moto X4 and now an in-house product, we may see Tempow making its way to other smartphones soon.
Keeping with connectivity options, the X4 also supports dual-band WiFi and while using Tempow you have to switch to the 5GHz band. Then there's 4G LTE support, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, NFC, a 3.5mm headphone jack and USB Type-C port for charging/syncing data. When it arrives in mid-September, you will be able to get the Moto X4 in either Super Black or Sterling Blue colo options.
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