Moto X4 with 6GB RAM, Android Oreo – How good is this upgrade?

The Moto X4 that was launched earlier had a breath of fresh air as it didn’t follow the previous phones and came with the excellent body supported by a killer performance. The compact body, the glass back, the Moto experience, the dual-lens camera setup on the back, and the fast charging battery, each of them added up to make the phone a perfect phone for its price, if it wasn’t for the little compromise with the quality of portrait captures.

But now, the new Moto X4 with 6GB RAM is here, with those internal specs improved not being the only factors to talk about. The phone now runs Android 8.0 Oreo and brings in some important features to the so-good Moto app. How much does all this matter? In fact, do these suffice to give the phone a value for the price of Rs. 24999? Let’s check the review.

Note: For some of the parts like design, display, and the camera, you may refer to our original Moto X4 Review as the thoughts about them don’t change. We are adding only some parts, but for further reading, head to that review.

The phone is still compact. I’m using the word “still” because Motorola has maintained that size for years now, and is not ready to change the size of the phone, and that is what is good about the device, to begin with. Almost every mid-range phone these days have a 5.5-inch display and that results in a large body making it unusable with one hand. The X4 has a 5.2-inch display and the body is compact enough to be easily held and used with one hand.

Not many phones in this price range have an excellent build quality, a great design, and still retain the resistance to water and dust ingress. The Moto X4 has IP68 certification, which means one can dip it into water with depth up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes and the phone will still stay good.

The upgrade is all about 6GB of RAM, 64GB storage, and the Moto features. While you know that the addition of RAM helps in multitasking, the addition to the storage is never a problem. These are the major Moto app features that you would be experiencing on the Moto X4, some of which are newly introduced thanks to Android Oreo.

Moto Display

This feature is like the Ambient Display feature found on the Pixel devices and it gives you a simple preview of the notification and the updates so that you don’t have to unlock the phone to see the entire notification. This feature can be activated by either waving your hand or by nudging it. This would create a sneak peek of the notification and then you can go straight to the app to handle it.

It even allows you to play or pause the music from the Moto Display without having to unlock your phone. You can also interact with the notifications and with the update, even replies to text messages are made possible. You can reply using your keyboard or your voice without having to wake the phone.

Attentive Display

The attentive display is a feature that was previously seen in Samsung phones, it either increases or decreases the screen timeout length. This feature uses the face to know if you are seeing the phone or not and then decides whether to dim the screen or keep it active. This is achieved using the IR sensor in the phone that detects the face in front of the screen and then uses the Front camera to confirm the same.

Night Display

Night display is a feature aimed at protecting the eyes and it filters out the blue light and adjusts the screen colors for warmer tones at night to prevent strain on the eyes. This, on the whole, helps the user get a better sleep during the sleep hours that you can adjust. Night display mode automatically gets activated after sunset and remains on till sunrise

Moto Actions

Moto Actions are few pre-configured gestures that simplify the user interface of the device. This adds to the ease of use and helps make the user experience better by simplifying things. Some of the best moto actions are as follows

3 Finger Screenshot

This is a quick way of taking screenshots, to take a screenshot simply place three fingers on the screen and the screenshot will be captured. This screenshot will automatically be saved in the screenshot folder and you can share it later.

One Button Nav

This is one of the unique features of Motorola phones and the capacitive fingerprint sensor in the phone can be used a navigation bar by enabling the One Button Nav mode. You can swipe on the Capacitive fingerprint sensor based on the preconfigured options to navigate through the apps and the OS. This helps you get rid of the on-screen navigation bar on the device and you get more real estate space on the device for other functions

Quick Capture

This is one of the quickest ways of opening the camera and comes very handy when you need to capture those unique moments. All you need to do is twist your wrist twice and the camera open, you can also switch to the front camera by twisting your wrist twice again once the camera opens.

Gesture Flashlight

This is yet another gesture in the device to quickly toggle the flashlight in case of an emergency. You can swing the phone twice and the flashlight will be toggled on or off based on the current state.

Do not Disturb

This can be a very useful feature for when you are in the middle of a meeting or in the class, you can quickly toggle the do not disturb mode by turning the phone around and facing it downwards. When the phone rings you can pick it up to switch it to the vibrate mode.

Moto Key

This is the new password manager by Motorola and helps you remember your password by giving access to them across various apps and websites. This can be accessed on your phone or your laptop. The passwords stored in this app are strongly encrypted and your data is secure at all times. You can easily access all your passwords by using the fingerprint registered on the device to decrypt the passwords, this works both on the phone as well as your laptop and 5 levels of strong encryptions lets you be assured of your privacy and keeps your data protected. You can also use the fingerprint sensor on the Moto X4 to unlock your computer, this is what we saw on the Pixel Book and can be useful in certain use cases.

Final Verdict – Android Oreo, more RAM and space, justify the price?

As we had said in the review earlier, the Moto X4 has a killer design that itself should make you like it before you gaze in to learn about what is offered by the company separately despite the phone running stock Android OS. The improved Moto X4 certainly gets better with the new included features, and Android Oreo features like split-screen add to the experience.

Some of the features that flagships fail to include are the water and dust resistance and the additional functions to the given buttons, taking advantage of what is offered and taking up some space. That’s where the Moto X4 is able to do it well. We’d have never minded seeing a taller 18:9 display in here, but the absence of that is understandable because these are subtle changes to make a good phone better, and we might see something on that display upgrade in the coming newer generations.