With the first quarter releases out in the market, XPRESS takes a look at some new gadgets that promise a big bang for your buck

Moto X combines the best of Motorola and Google in a slim, 4.7” display mobile that’s priced at SR.1,599.

The price point is important here because you are getting a 4G LTE phone with the Motorola X8 mobile computing system comprising eight processor cores that individually only run when there’s work to be done. It’s more a collection of technologies that is definitely interesting.

Speaking to XPRESS Marcus Frost, senior marketing director, EMEA and APAC, Motorola Mobility said: “We wanted to create a brand new architecture within the device comprising eight processors – a dual core Qualcomm CPU (1.7GHz); a Quad-Core Adreno 320 GPU for graphics, We’ve also got a natural language processor, so it can understand people’s voice and languages and then we have a contextual computer system in there as well,”

Contextual computing is the future of computing. The technology can be called situational awareness – systems that understand you and your interests, anticipate your behavior and emotions and interpret your intentions, Moto X brings this home to you.

The natural language processor is another great feature. “Your voice is the most natural way to interact with the phone There’s times we cannot use our hands like when driving, having dinner, when working etc, Just use the trigger phase ‘OK Google Now’ and the phone is ready to do pretty much anything – set the alarm, play a specific song, call a friend, ask a question get your team score, bring up the weather forecast etc. You can do anything in the Google Cloud. There are hundreds of things you can do with the power of your voice and it keeps getting better as it keeps learning different languages, accents etc. Because it knows your voice, Moto X can do things other phones can’t.

But will not the eight cores slam the battery?. Not at all says Marcus. “That’s why we needed an architecture to integrate the eight cores. The last two are low energy processors.

“Also its a 2,200 milliamp battery (curved to allow for phone slimness at edges).
Another interesting aspect is the active notification. In most phones you have a light blinking or a sound to indicate a notification, but there’s no way of knowing if it’s a message, an email or a missed call. You have to turn on the phone to find out and when you do that the full display lights up, the CPU kicks in and it all means a drain on battery.

“In Moto X, notifications pop up on screen is like a silent breathing – a whatsapp message, a missed call, an email. Its just the pixels needed that kick in without opening the CPU, which means more efficiency..

Another interesting feature is camera activation. “In today’s world there’s so much happening around you and many a time we may miss out on capturing images due to delay in opening the phone, finding the camera button, finding the snap button etc.
With Moto X just a couple of flicks of the wrist will do the trick and wait, you don’t have to bother finding the click button – click anywhere on the screen and the camera captures the image. Also you can take a astounding 200 images in one burst by holding down your finger.

Switching phones is also a breeze as you can easily transfer contents of your old phone1 onto Moto X. Just pair your phone to your Moto X through WiFi direct and your photos, texts, SIM contacts and even your call history and some settings will be transferred.