The Moto X pre-August 1 release rumor roundup

The Moto X became official right at the beginning of this month, and since then the rumors have been flying almost every day. Obviously, we don’t yet know for sure what Motorola has in store for the release, but we do have quite a bit of rumored information that gives us a very good idea of what Motorola will likely release. So, without further delay let’s go over what we know about the X Phone so far.

First, let’s take a look at the Moto X’s likely design, in the form of the press renders above and to the left. Through various sources, we now have press renders of the front, back, and side of the device in black, and front and back in white. The Moto X seems to have been designed with simplicity in mind, as both front and back covers are nearly devoid of extras.

In the side profile, the taper actually reminds me quite a bit of the Galaxy Nexus, only in reverse. I’m impressed by the nearly edge to edge display and quite like the simplicity of the design, although I’m not sure about what may be a mic cutout oddly placed on the lower front of the smartphone.

Sadly, we now know that the Moto X’s hardware won’t quite be as customizable as we were expecting, as you won’t be able to choose a processor. Just as we had already suspected, images obtained by Android Police suggest that every Moto X will be equipped with a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 2GB of RAM, 4.7-inch 720p display, and 10.5MP camera. In addition, the device pictured was running just Android 4.2.2, included 16GB of memory, NFC, and a 2,200mAh non-removable battery.

While these are certainly not the most powerful internals that could be shipped in a smartphone, leaked benchmark tests have shown that the Moto X performs quite well, especially for a device with its hardware specifications. It seems likely that Motorola has developed the Moto X with the mindset that raw specifications don’t equal a good user experience, and the company is probably trying to keep the device’s price down as well.

Although the Moto X so far hasn’t been shown to include a microSD card slot (and it isn’t likely, given Google’s stance on the subject), rumors suggest that users will be able to choose from several different storage configurations. Customization will also be available in the sense that the black and white devices are different, but with the non-removable battery it sounds like interchangable face and back plates are out of the question.

With that in mind, there is an interesting question to be answered. The Moto X was being hyped from the beginning as having “wow-factor” features, and for a while was thought to be poised to shake up the smartphone market with truly customizable hardware.

Now, we know almost for certain that the Moto X’s hardware can’t be customized, and that the hardware specifications are merely good, not revolutionary. Since the cosmetics of the phone apparently can’t even be customized, that leaves the software responsible for almost all of the Moto X’s wow factor. So far, we expect always on voice commands, the use of the display as the notification light, and better gestures. While certainly good features, these can all most likely be ported to other devices.

As such, I’m not too sure that the Moto X will be a huge sales hit, but Google and Motorola may still have a surprise in store for us. I’m not selling the Nexus 4 just yet, but will certainly be paying attention to the August 1 announcement.

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