anyone move from Moto X to Nexus 5?

Adranalyne

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Nov 6, 2013
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If you did do you or do you not regret your decision?

You really can't go wrong with either phone. If you're in love with Active Notifications and use the Touchless Controls a lot, it can be a little irritating to not have that on the Nexus 5. Other than that, there's not a whole lot of difference between the two now that the Moto X is on 4.4. To answer your question, no, I don't regret it. I use the Moto X as my work phone and the Nexus 5 as my daily driver. If I couldn't have the Moto X at all as a work phone, I'd still keep the Nexus 5 out of personal preference. Overall, though, I'd say the Moto X is the better phone.
 

deesugar

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I originally I bought the Moto X from Amazon. The very next day it was announced that Moto Maker was going to be available to Sprint (my carrier). I didn't care about getting a customized phone but for some reason you can only get the 32GB model from the Moto Maker and that was something I did care about.

I decided buy a Nexus 5 to kill some time while I returned the Moto X and re-ordered it from Motorola, you can't expect me to go back to my Galaxy S2 after that kind of upgrade :) I purposely spent about 4 days with the Moto X to gain some experience for comparison in case I ended up liking the Nexus 5, so I came into this journey with an open mind. I'm an agnostic person when it comes to devices and tech.


What I Learned...

Software
You don't know what you really like till you've tried it. I thought the voice actions was going to more of a gimmicky thing for me but I couldn't have been more wrong. It's not a 100% perfect yet and you have to dedicate some time to learn how to use it but after a day or two I mastered it and something surprising started to happen, I began to use it more and more. First I just used it to to "Call Dad mobile" while I was driving, then I began to text and email people while driving, something I would do before the Moto X (Yes I know it's dangerous and I'm a bad person who's going to hell) and I really began to appreciate these hands free voice actions. Things like checking traffic and starting Navigation without having to input the destination's address were a breeze with voice actions and so much faster using your voice. Of course you can do the same exact things with the Nexus 5 but it looses it's charm and convenience factor when you have to wake up the phone and go to the home screen every time. The Moto X is essentially pure Android with some really cool and useful additions from Motorola unlike Samsung Galaxy S4 you won't see anything gimmicky here.

You can't really put into words how the addition of waking up the phone going to home screen makes such a big difference but it does once you're used to the Moto way. It's like people who have DVR's can't stand watching commercials once they get used to fast forwarding through them.

Design & Feel
The Moto X feels and looks better then the Nexus. I don't want to say the Nexus 5 feels and looks cheap compared to the Moto X but part of me want's to say it. I do wish the Moto X had a slightly bigger screen mostly because I was used to the larger usable screen of my Galaxy S2. But the Moto's higher resolution and brighter screen made it easy to get used to. I did like the soft touch feel of the Nexus 5 back which made it easier to grip then the Moto but it's sharp boxy design makes it feel like your phone is an oversized match box. The Nexus had brighter whites and the Moto had darker blacks, I liked the Moto screen better (maybe due to the fact I'm used to AMLOED screens). Amazingly the larger Nexus 5 is lighter then the smaller Moto and I don't necessarily mean that in a good way. The Nexus feels a little empty like when you buy one of those electronic gadgets that didn't include batteries. I liked the solid heft of the Moto better, call me crazy.

Miscellaneous Things
  • Performance wise they both are fast and there is no difference I couldn't tell you if one was faster then the other
  • I liked that my phone was personalized to my voice when initiating an "Ok Google now" on the Moto X
  • Nexus 5 got a much faster GPS lock
  • Motorola Migrate transfers photos, videos, call and text history as well as you MMS pics from any phone
  • Nexus 5 shuts down almost instantaneously when compared to the Moto X
  • The backwards (or flipped) micro USB port on the Nexus bothered me
  • My apps always have problems triggering a notification light on Android phones, Moto Active Notifications just works!
  • I was worried about the battery life of the Nexus 5 after coming from the Moto X, but it did just fine for me and I was relieved.


One Last Thing
Frustrated dealing with your carrier when you have a technical issue or question? Moto Care is a pretty good alternative. I didn't know how to set the phone to not bother me while I was sleeping (a Moto only feature) and I called Moto Care. I got through to a person immediately without having to go through a bunch of automated questions and personal information to enter. They were really quick, knowledgeable and helpful.

It's no shock that this site rated the Moto X the best Android phone out there. There's nothing wrong with the Nexus 5, it's just that the Moto had more of what I liked and wanted.
 
Last edited:

Adranalyne

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Nov 6, 2013
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I originally I bought the Moto X from Amazon. The very next day it was announced that Moto Maker was going to be available to Sprint (my carrier). I didn't care about getting a customized phone but for some reason you can only get the 32GB model from the Moto Maker and that was something I did care about.

I decided buy a Nexus 5 to kill some time while I returned the Moto X and re-ordered it from Motorola, you can't expect me to go back to my Galaxy S2 after that kind of upgrade :) I purposely spent about 4 days with the Moto X to gain some experience for comparison in case I ended up liking the Nexus 5, so I came into this journey with an open mind. I'm an agnostic person when it comes to devices and tech.


What I Learned...

Software
You don't know what you like till you've tried it. I thought the voice actions was going to more of a gimmicky thing for me but I couldn't have been more wrong. It's not a 100% perfect yet and you have to dedicate some time to learn how to use it but after a day or two I mastered it and something surprising started to happen, I began to use it more and more. First I just used it to to "Call Dad mobile" while I was driving, then I began to text and email people while driving, something I would do anyways before the Moto X (Yes I know it's dangerous and I'm a bad person) and I really began to appreciate these hands free voice actions. Things like checking traffic and starting Navigation without having to input the destination's address were a breeze with voice actions and so much faster using your voice. Of course you can do the same exact things with the Nexus 5 but it looses it's charm and convenience factor when you have to wake up the phone and go to the home screen every time. The Moto X is essentially pure Android with some really cool and useful additions from Motorola unlike Samsung Galaxy S4 you won't see anything gimmicky here.

You can't really put into words how the addition of waking up the phone going to home screen makes such a big difference but it does once you're used to the Moto way. It's like people who have DVR's can't stand watching commercials once they get used to fast forwarding through them.

Design & Feel
The Moto X feels and looks better then the Nexus. I don't want to say the Nexus 5 feels and looks cheap compared to the Moto X but part of me want's to say it. I do wish the Moto X had a slightly bigger screen mostly because I was use to the larger usable screen of my Galaxy S2. But the Moto's higher resolution and brighter screen made it easy to get used to. I did like the soft touch feel of the Nexus 5 back which made it easier to grip then the Moto but it's sharp boxy design makes it feel like your phone is an oversized match box. The Nexus had brighter whites and the Moto had darker blacks, I liked the Moto screen better (maybe due to the fact I'm used to AMLOED screens). Amazingly the larger Nexus 5 is lighter then the smaller Moto and I don't necessarily mean that in a good way. The Nexus feels a little empty like when you buy one of those electronic gadgets that didn't include batteries. I liked the solid heft of the Moto better.

Miscellaneous Things
  • Performance wise they both are fast and there is no difference I couldn't tell you if one was faster then the other
  • I liked that my phone was personalized to my voice when initiating an "Ok Google now" on the Moto X
  • Nexus 5 got a much faster GPS lock
  • Motorola Migrate transfers photos, videos, call and text history as well as you MMS pics from any phone
  • Nexus 5 shuts down almost instantaneously when compared to the Moto X
  • The backwards (or flipped) micro USB port on the Nexus bothered me
  • My apps always have problems triggering a notification light on Android phones, Moto Active Notifications just works!


One Last Thing
Frustrated dealing with your carrier when you have a technical issue or question? Moto Care is pretty good. I didn't know how to set the phone to not bother me while I was sleeping (a Moto only feature) and I called Moto Care. I got through to a person immediately without having to go through a bunch of automated questions and personal information to enter. They were really quick, knowledgeable and helpful.

It's no shock that this site rated the Moto X the best Android phone out there. There's nothing wrong with the Nexus 5, it's just that the Moto had more of what I liked and wanted.

This pretty much sums up why the Moto X is widely regarded as one of, if not the, best Android phones available. Your experience with the Touchless Controls more or less mirrors my own. Being able to have my phone in my pocket while I'm walking and asking what the weather is like gets quite the reaction from people you're with. In fact, it's what caused my girlfriend to switch from the iPhone 5 to the Moto X; she absolutely loves Touchless Controls. Active Notifications is also right up there considering you can unlock your phone with a quick swipe instead of ever having to reach for the lock button. I found that to be more intuitive than the double tap feature on the G2.

When it comes to the Nexus 5, however, there's just something I can't my finger on that keeps me using this device. My brother asked me earlier this year what I thought the Nexus 5 was going to be, and honestly, I guessed this phone almost to the T. They used a smaller battery and small MP count on the camera (I guessed 2500 mah and 13MP), but I made the comment to him that if they shrunk a Nexus 7 and made it into a phone that I'd buy it immediately. That's almost exactly what they did and for better or worse, I'm hooked. There's something about this device that keeps me using it over the Moto X and I literally couldn't explain why.