My new Moto X :)

[stanleywinthrop]

Picked up my new sprint black moto x two days ago, and I am overwhelmingly impressed with the phone. FWIW, here are my thoughts:

Goods:

1. I came from a GS3. To get the experience I wanted with the GS3 I put CM10 on the phone and bounced back between 10.1 and 10.2. Flashing ROMs for me got old after a point and the CM software was always a little buggy necessitating re flashes, etc. It's nice to be on a stock android experience and not have to deal with rooting, flashing etc.

2. Size: the moto x is the perfect sized phone for me. The GS3 was just slightly too big. Other phones I've held (but havent owned) like the HTC One and the GS4 are way too big for my tastes. Additionally, like many have commented, the moto x has a perfectly balanced feel in the hand.

3. Active Notifications: with a couple of exceptions below, ANs are simply awesome. What a useful piece of software, really adds to the experience and ease of this phone.

4. Ok Google Now. Another great piece of software. Works much better than expected. If I'm in the car, I usually have to raise my voice a little for it to respond, I guess because of the ambient noise.

Others:

5. Haptic Feedback and Vibration, particuarly when waking from the active notification lockscreen. Like others have noticed for some reason haptic feedback is unusually harsh on this phone. Out of the box it was harsh all around, but for some reason when the phone got the most recent OTA, the haptic feedback on the google keyboard is much more tolerable and I've left it on because I like haptic typing. I deselected feedback on the main menu, so it's not an issue when navigating the phone, with the exception for the active notification lockscreen, which doesn't look like it can be disabled. I don't know if the harsh feedback is intended or not, and i'm considering taking the phone back to get exchanged within the 14 day window to see if another phone has the same issue.

6. One change I would make to active notification: the system works perfectly when taking the phone out of a pocket or picking it up from a table, etc. When I drive, the phone is in a mount, and I can't pick it up to see what the active notification is. Perhaps they could incorporate a G2 style tap to wake the active notification screen.

7. Minor gripe: when the phone is in my car mount it is in landscape due to a space limitation. I would like the phone homescreen to auto rotate to landscape instead of staying permanently on portrait. Most apps do it fine (gmail, etc.) but not the homescreen. Anyways minor gripe.


Overall, the Moto x is a great piece of gear, and I highly recommend it.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Picked up my new sprint black moto x two days ago, and I am overwhelmingly impressed with the phone. FWIW, here are my thoughts:

Goods:

1. I came from a GS3. To get the experience I wanted with the GS3 I put CM10 on the phone and bounced back between 10.1 and 10.2. Flashing ROMs for me got old after a point and the CM software was always a little buggy necessitating re flashes, etc. It's nice to be on a stock android experience and not have to deal with rooting, flashing etc.

2. Size: the moto x is the perfect sized phone for me. The GS3 was just slightly too big. Other phones I've held (but havent owned) like the HTC One and the GS4 are way too big for my tastes. Additionally, like many have commented, the moto x has a perfectly balanced feel in the hand.

3. Active Notifications: with a couple of exceptions below, ANs are simply awesome. What a useful piece of software, really adds to the experience and ease of this phone.

4. Ok Google Now. Another great piece of software. Works much better than expected. If I'm in the car, I usually have to raise my voice a little for it to respond, I guess because of the ambient noise.

Others:

5. Haptic Feedback and Vibration, particuarly when waking from the active notification lockscreen. Like others have noticed for some reason haptic feedback is unusually harsh on this phone. Out of the box it was harsh all around, but for some reason when the phone got the most recent OTA, the haptic feedback on the google keyboard is much more tolerable and I've left it on because I like haptic typing. I deselected feedback on the main menu, so it's not an issue when navigating the phone, with the exception for the active notification lockscreen, which doesn't look like it can be disabled. I don't know if the harsh feedback is intended or not, and i'm considering taking the phone back to get exchanged within the 14 day window to see if another phone has the same issue.

6. One change I would make to active notification: the system works perfectly when taking the phone out of a pocket or picking it up from a table, etc. When I drive, the phone is in a mount, and I can't pick it up to see what the active notification is. Perhaps they could incorporate a G2 style tap to wake the active notification screen.

7. Minor gripe: when the phone is in my car mount it is in landscape due to a space limitation. I would like the phone homescreen to auto rotate to landscape instead of staying permanently on portrait. Most apps do it fine (gmail, etc.) but not the homescreen. Anyways minor gripe.


Overall, the Moto x is a great piece of gear, and I highly recommend it.

If I didn't know any better, I would swear I wrote this post!!!
I just switched from the Sprint S3 to the Moto on Tuesday. I agree on every point made except 7. Not disagreeing, I don't have a car mount. I keep the phone in my lap.

 

[Rocketsaucev2]

Nova launcher has a setting to rotate the desktop screen

Sent from my XT1060

 

[stanleywinthrop]

I can't seem to find this setting in the Nova Settings menu.

Nova launcher has a setting to rotate the desktop screen

Sent from my XT1060

 

[Rocketsaucev2]

Look and feel, screen orientation

Sent from my XT1060

 

[davidnc]

Picked up my new sprint black moto x two days ago, and I am overwhelmingly impressed with the phone. FWIW, here are my thoughts:

Goods:

1. I came from a GS3. To get the experience I wanted with the GS3 I put CM10 on the phone and bounced back between 10.1 and 10.2. Flashing ROMs for me got old after a point and the CM software was always a little buggy necessitating re flashes, etc. It's nice to be on a stock android experience and not have to deal with rooting, flashing etc.

2. Size: the moto x is the perfect sized phone for me. The GS3 was just slightly too big. Other phones I've held (but havent owned) like the HTC One and the GS4 are way too big for my tastes. Additionally, like many have commented, the moto x has a perfectly balanced feel in the hand.

3. Active Notifications: with a couple of exceptions below, ANs are simply awesome. What a useful piece of software, really adds to the experience and ease of this phone.

4. Ok Google Now. Another great piece of software. Works much better than expected. If I'm in the car, I usually have to raise my voice a little for it to respond, I guess because of the ambient noise.

Others:

5. Haptic Feedback and Vibration, particuarly when waking from the active notification lockscreen. Like others have noticed for some reason haptic feedback is unusually harsh on this phone. Out of the box it was harsh all around, but for some reason when the phone got the most recent OTA, the haptic feedback on the google keyboard is much more tolerable and I've left it on because I like haptic typing. I deselected feedback on the main menu, so it's not an issue when navigating the phone, with the exception for the active notification lockscreen, which doesn't look like it can be disabled. I don't know if the harsh feedback is intended or not, and i'm considering taking the phone back to get exchanged within the 14 day window to see if another phone has the same issue.

6. One change I would make to active notification: the system works perfectly when taking the phone out of a pocket or picking it up from a table, etc. When I drive, the phone is in a mount, and I can't pick it up to see what the active notification is. Perhaps they could incorporate a G2 style tap to wake the active notification screen.

7. Minor gripe: when the phone is in my car mount it is in landscape due to a space limitation. I would like the phone homescreen to auto rotate to landscape instead of staying permanently on portrait. Most apps do it fine (gmail, etc.) but not the homescreen. Anyways minor gripe.


Overall, the Moto x is a great piece of gear, and I highly recommend it.

Glad you like you new phone. I too was using an S3 Rooted/Romed when I decided on the Moto X. I didnt want a phone any bigger then the S3 either.
I also agree with your list 1-4.
On number #5 i didnt really think it was harsh tho lol ( im on vzw)
I cant comment on #6 or #7 since I dont use a car mount.

 

[svenEDGE]

I can't seem to find this setting in the Nova Settings menu.

Nova did this automatically for me when I put it in my dock. Do you have a dock that puts the phone in car mode?

 

[teufel_hunden_]

You can adjust how hard (in essence) the haptic feedback is. Go to settings -> language and input -> hit the settings icon to the right of google keyboard -> advanced settings (towards bottom) -> keypress vibration duration (change that shorter for less severe)

 

[stanleywinthrop]

You can adjust how hard (in essence) the haptic feedback is. Go to settings -> language and input -> hit the settings icon to the right of google keyboard -> advanced settings (towards bottom) -> keypress vibration duration (change that shorter for less severe)

Correct. As I pointed out in my OP, the extent the feedback bothered me in text typing has been resolved. This setting does not, however, seem to affect the active notification lock screen vibrations.

Sent from my XT1056 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[stanleywinthrop]

Nova did this automatically for me when I put it in my dock. Do you have a dock that puts the phone in car mode?

Rocketsauce above nailed it.

Sent from my XT1056 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[tomatosouplabs]

For the active notification lock screen, it vibrates all the time even when phone not in vibrate mode? So there's no way to turn it off completely? I don't have the phone to play with so I was wondering how this part works. You have a notification and then what do you do to acknowledge it, you swipe in some way and it vibrates doing this and then where does it take you? If you have a pin/password/pattern lock, it goes to the normal lock screen to unlock and if not, you go right to home screen? How do you dismiss the activate notification in those few seconds when screen is off, same way? Or you can only swipe when display is on? I feel I need to read the manual now.

Interesting that the update fixed the keyboard haptic feedback and not other haptic feedback. It's also interesting that it changed it at all when it wasn't in the published change log (or was it)? I wonder what else they snuck into the update we don't know about. The two moto x's I had and returned had the harsh haptic feedback (vzw).

 

[anon(847090)]

Picked up my new sprint black moto x two days ago, and I am overwhelmingly impressed with the phone. FWIW, here are my thoughts:

Goods:

1. I came from a GS3. To get the experience I wanted with the GS3 I put CM10 on the phone and bounced back between 10.1 and 10.2. Flashing ROMs for me got old after a point and the CM software was always a little buggy necessitating re flashes, etc.

same here.. got bored of flashing after a while.

Congrats on your new phone

 

[stanleywinthrop]

For the active notification lock screen, it vibrates all the time even when phone not in vibrate mode? So there's no way to turn it off completely? I don't have the phone to play with so I was wondering how this part works. You have a notification and then what do you do to acknowledge it, you swipe in some way and it vibrates doing this and then where does it take you? If you have a pin/password/pattern lock, it goes to the normal lock screen to unlock and if not, you go right to home screen? How do you dismiss the activate notification in those few seconds when screen is off, same way? Or you can only swipe when display is on? I feel I need to read the manual now.

Interesting that the update fixed the keyboard haptic feedback and not other haptic feedback. It's also interesting that it changed it at all when it wasn't in the published change log (or was it)? I wonder what else they snuck into the update we don't know about. The two moto x's I had and returned had the harsh haptic feedback (vzw).

Tomato, here's how I'd explain it.

Basically, active notification is a lock screen. So leaving the notifications out for a bit, whenever the phone wakes from, say, being picked up, you see the time and a lock symbol. The trick is that only the pixels necessary are lighted. The rest of the screen is blank thus this uses little battery. To wake the phone at this point you slide your finger on the lock symbol (much like other lock screens). The problem I've had is that swiping to wake the phone vibrates the phone and in my opinion this vibration is much too harsh--almost even rattling. And no, there seems to be no way to turn this vibration off.

Now to put the notifications back into the picture, if you've gotten an email for example and then you pick up the phone the lock screen will now display the same time and lock symbol plus an email icon. You now have three options. If you swipe up along the email symbol you get a preview of the email--the sender and the first couple of lines of text. If you follow through with the upward swipe the phone will wake into the email app. If you swipe horizontally the active notification will go away and the phone will go back to sleep. If you swipe down the phone will wake into the normal home screen. All these actions will be accompanied by the same annoying vibration.

Finally if you have a pin lock on your phone this changes it a bit. I have to have a pin for my work email, but to minimize the annoyance i set the lock time all the way out at the max android allows--30 min. In find that it really isn't a big deal at that point as I rarely let 30 min go by without checking my phone. (Is that sad?) But if the phone is locked the active notifications work the same, except you have to input your pin whenever you do something described above to wake your phone. You can still see previews without having to input your pin. Hope that helps.

Sent from my XT1056 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[tomatosouplabs]

Finally if you have a pin lock on your phone this changes it a bit. I have to have a pin for my work email, but to minimize the annoyance i set the lock time all the way out at the max android allows--30 min. In find that it really isn't a big deal at that point as I rarely let 30 min go by without checking my phone. (Is that sad?) But if the phone is locked the active notifications work the same, except you have to input your pin whenever you do something described above to wake your phone. You can still see previews without having to input your pin. Hope that helps.

Yes it helps and makes sense, thank you. So when you input your pin, do you get the harsh haptic feedback from the PIN keyboard also?

Also, what happens when you press the power button with active notification displayed? Can that be used to take you to home screen without a swipe and vibrate?

 

[stanleywinthrop]

Yes it helps and makes sense, thank you. So when you input your pin, do you get the harsh haptic feedback from the PIN keyboard also?

Also, what happens when you press the power button with active notification displayed? Can that be used to take you to home screen without a swipe and vibrate?

Turning off the main haptic (as opposed to the keyboard feedback) to the keyboard feedback turns off the pin lock feedback.

Yes pressing the power button bypasses the active notification screen and goes straight to home screen or pin lock if applicable.

Sent from my XT1056 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[srkmagnus]

I want a Moto X that much more now.

Sent from my GT-P7510 using AC Forums mobile app