Moto X Announcement

Moto X announcement

I’m quite disappointed by the Moto X announcement. It’s a well designed phone, battery life should be spectacular, and they got rid of some of the terrible themed junk that they put on their Droids, but it falls down on a few major points.

• Running 4.2.2, not 4.3 - how am I going to use BLE?
• To be priced as a high-end phone, even though it’s not really
• Sold on contract, as opposed to unlocked, sold outright
• Launching with a dated version of Android, and updates will need to be approved by carriers
• Google Play Edition missing at launch

I really don’t want to buy another phone that ties me to a particular carrier (and phone) for another two years, when it’s likely that the phone won’t provide me with a good experience for more than one year. It seems unlikely that the Google Play Edition, when launched, will support Verizon. I don’t care as much about the Google Play Edition as I do about the fact that the carriers have to approve updates. Verizon is just plain awful at that; it’s a big reason why I’m running CyanogenMod on my Verizon Galaxy Nexus.

The customizations and optimizations look cool, but I’ll be holding out for the next Nexus phone.