iFixit Tears Down the New Moto X, So You Don't Have To 52
iFixit's been breaking devices and voiding warranties for years now; latest on their chopping block is the new Moto X from Motorola, a phone hawked as much for its customizability and place of manufacture (the U.S.) as for anything else. You might expect a highly hyped, ultra-customizable phone to be made of high-end components and ultra-repairable as well. iFixit's teardown commentary has both some good and only-middlin' things to say about the innards, but very little bad. They call out the highly modular headphone jack, and say "a considerable amount of effort went in to the internal design of this device; the number of clips and contacts we've found so far is a great testament to that."
Re:Dice. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes Yes and Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
...at least if Google/Motorola have done their Market research right. They have clearly created a phone that is easily put together, so you as a consumer can have a phone that matches your lifestyle (football team, car, personality or simply favourite colours), and Google still manages to assemble in America, with a JIT inventory and a 4 day turnaround.
That and the the fact that everyone from large companies to small individuals often don't throw things away when they do break. This may be against Apple/Microsoft disposable electronics, but many here would prefer to fix something than throw it away...Its fun and rewarding. I just took my current phone apart to swap colours from black to white.
The bottom line is this is a great phone; this is simply another feature.
Gay for Google (Score:5, Informative)
Will you ever stop sucking Googles cock? It's a remarkably average phone
To put the Moto X some kind of perspective
The iPhone 5
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1.3Ghx dual-core CPU
GPU (three cores) @325 MHz
1GB LPDDR2-1066 RAM
4 in (100 mm) diagonal 640 × 1,136 pixels (326 ppi)
The Moto X
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1.7Ghz dual-core
GPU (quad-core) @400 MHz
2 GB LP-DDR2
4.7 in (120 mm) diagonal 1280x720 (316 ppi)
To put it in some kind of perspective it destroys Apples Flagship Phone. You are right though its not the fastest or has the most cores or is the largest *Android* Phone, but then it made the choice to focus on customising the phone and desirable features such as active notifications , focusing on what was important, and making an elegant phone...if they got their research right.
You are not wrong, I have seen many features things on for example Nokia phones before they became another "Designed in" company, but then I like the old features like hardware keyboard(back on the droid), waterproofing(On the latest Sony Z), IR (on the HTC One)....now where are those Internal FM transmitters.
Jobs Hates Flash (Score:3)
Only a fanboy will overlook at the fact that the specs are more of a requirement of the OS than actually something useful
Hold on there. A smart phone is more than an OS that is the point. The reason why Apple phones couldn't run Flash while Android phones could...is the something useful. The something useful is your first party...and your third party applications. Those specifications define how and what games can do. Apple already is missing out on whole countries worth of Applications...already fallen 100,000 applications behind Google, but it looks to be finding itself unable to run the latest games.
Re:Jobs Hates Flash (Score:4, Informative)
Except Adobe abandoned Flash on mobile devices - the latest you can get is 11.1 for Android 4.0.x. You can probably install it on Jelly Bean, but it isn't supported and given the way the default browser is Chrome...
And they abandoned it because of the iPhone.
The real question is - how does this phone compare to the Androids sold today. As in what Androids are currently selling. Is it going to move as many as the SGS3 (60M - best selling Android phone model) out of 900M Androids? It seems the vast majority of them aren't the flagship devices that we keep seeing, but all the various free ones (including the SGS*2* derived ones).
Then there's the whole screen thing - if you want any Android phone with a screen smaller than 4.5", you're SOL. Poor processors, poor screens, poor memory... seems like no one wants a flagship phone with a smaller screen for those of us who prefer to use phones single-handedly.
Re: (Score:2)
You think getting a small screen his hard? try finding a high end phone with a good slide out physical keyboard these days.
The Samsung Relay is the only one I could find on t-mobile that was even remotely usable, and its keyboard is worse than the old Samsung Epic I had before switching providers.
Re: (Score:2)
Not running flash? ... I am going slowly the way, that my browsers don't have flash installed in them. I have one with flash on my laptop. The rest is better without. If in 2013 a site doesn't offer me a html/js version of its content, then I don't want the content it offers.
I picked this attitude up when started to use IOS, then slowly spread onto my Linux and OSX boxes and oh.. it feels good to be flash fess...
Re: (Score:3)
To put it in some kind of perspective it destroys Apples Flagship Phone.
In what way exactly? Do you have performance numbers or are you just jacking off to the specs?
Well that didn't help (Score:5, Insightful)
Having twice the RAM and a somewhat faster processor does little for you if you need 4X the RAM and 2X the CPU to operate with the same level of performance.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed. That's why I still run DOS on my 386 PC. Same level of performance than the fastest Core i7 out there running Windows. Having more RAM and a faster CPU would allow me to write this message in a non-text browser but who cares, as long as I get the same level of performance.
Re: (Score:2)
Nexus 4
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1.5Ghx quad-core CPU
GPU (quad-core) @400 MHz
2GB RAM
4.7 in (120 mm) diagonal 1280x768 (316 ppi)
Re: (Score:2)
It is like saying, that a nascar stock car is better than a luxury BMW or a Mercedes. For me, personally, that Android OS is not usable. For this, I still use an iPhone 4, and will not even upgrade to the iphone 5, because I find the screen unnecessarily big for what I want.
Some people want a sleek working fast OS and don't care how many ponies the phone has under the hood. I personally don't. So they can put an i7 with 16G memory and a TB in my pocket, as far as it is running android: I am absolutely not i
Re: (Score:2)
When is there going to be an Iphone with a slide out full qwerty keyboard? I want to be able to type out a text/email/forum post on my pocket computer without worrying about auto-correct talking about penis's on accident.
Battery Replaceable (Score:3)
That is a step backwards as far as i'm concerned.
The fact that it is easily replaced is the point of this article. You do lost the ability to "carry" a spare battery, but hopefully Motorola having a focus on battery life by using two separate processors to help improve battery life.
Re:Battery Replaceable (Score:4, Insightful)
So your definition of "easily replaced" == Get out plastic prying tools, and a tiny little Torx screwdriver, take apart a bunch of stuff that is glued together, replace battery, and then hope it gets back together properly?
In my book, that level of pain is better described as "not user-serviceable."
The best battery-operated pocket computer in terms of serviceability and durability I've ever had was a Handspring Visor.
To change the batteries, you just opened the door on the back, and replaced the two AA batteries inside. This was only required once a month or so: I was never worried that I'd run out of battery while using it, but if I were, I could get a fresh set of batteries at even the most backwoods gas station/general store in a jiffy. To keep it in a pocket or a bag with lots of stuff, the included cover (which covered the whole front of the device) worked great, and stowed neatly on the back when the device was in use. To open the it up and expose the guts in the event that it needs fixing, you just unscrew the end of the included metal stylus to reveal a Philips screwdriver of just the right size, remove a few screws, and basic disassembly was complete. (Not that mine ever needed fixing, even after years of bouncing around in my cargo pocket with a pocket knife and/or various hand tools. I did note that after a year or two of being abused in ways that would make a modern pocket computer shatter, one of the screws did fall out. It didn't seem to mind.)
Even backups on the Visor were easy: Drop it into the cradle, push sync the button, wait a short time, and done. The entire device could then be lost or destroyed, and total recovery (with a replacement in-hand) was just another sync away. Just try getting this level of functionality from an Android device. Seriously, go ahead and try. (I'll wait.)
The included OS, while not "open" per se, was easily extensible by third-parties but also worked just fine without any extra help.
Now, yes: It wasn't fast. But it handled text, calculations, passwords, and contacts very well. And it was actually useful for a quick sketch, since it was stylus-based. Which is most of what I actually need a pocket computer for, aside from Just Working.
So are we moving backwards? In many ways that I think are important: Yes.
Re: Battery Replaceable (Score:2)
Somewhere around here I have a Palm V, another similar device from the same era as your Visor. It's powered by a non-removable lithium ion battery held within the device's glued-together outer shell. It's easy to make it seem like technology is moving backwards in terms of repairability if you cherry pick examples, but really this isn't new at all.
Re: (Score:2)
That is a step backwards as far as i'm concerned.
The fact that it is easily replaced is the point of this article. You do lost the ability to "carry" a spare battery, but hopefully Motorola having a focus on battery life by using two separate processors to help improve battery life.
Quote the article: "The taped-in battery is less accessible than we'd like, but at least it's near the top of the stack once you get the rear cover off (as opposed to the HTC One)." (coded yellow)
From their iPhone 5 teardown [ifixit.com]: "The battery comes out with a bit of prying once the front panel is removed." (coded green)
Both have the same repairability score 7 out of 10 (and the iPhone gets the better color rating for the battery). Does that mean you will stop claiming that the iPhone is not user repairable? An
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
So I guess you will never own a phone then, or anything....
iFixit it most useless website ever (Score:1)
Nobody "fixes" their devices anymore so all these teardowns are more like device pornography then serving any real benefit.
Nobody keeps a device for more than a year, and even if they do most people "secretly" want their 2 year old device to break down so they can find an excuse to replace it.
All the BS about repairability is stupid. The reason why these things are sealed these days is so people don't go out an buy 3rd party "enhanced" batteries to usage time that turn the phone or tablet into a bomb.
Also
Re: (Score:2)
Samsung manages removable batteries quite well.
Also, while most batteries can last for more than two years, they gradually decrease in capacity. Interestingly, people often blame software updates for the resulting decrease in battery life. By providing user replaceable batteries, it is possible to get back to full capacity and use the old battery as a spare. I did this for my last two phones.
As for Li-ion batteries that actually wore out and got replaced, it happened on 3 devices : an MP3 player, a laptop a