The Pocketnow Holiday Shopping Guide 2015

Posted on by Jules Wang

Step back from the food court, I repeat, step back from the food court. Move away from the deals. Seriously, though, you might be on a sales safari come this weekend or a cyber chase on Monday. If you’re the type of person to give away phones and smartwatches for the holidays, though, it helps to actually consider what you’re getting and how it fits the person you’re getting it for.Like a sommelier does with wine, we’re given you our suggestions on what phones to look for when you’re talking about your dorky cousin Jane or your stylish uncle Jebidiah. Well, at ...

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Moto X Pure Edition picks up limited collection of three designer Moto Maker looks

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

With a smartphone like the Moto X Pure Edition, one that already offers users dozens (upon dozens) of ways to customize their handsets, how do you go about giving them an extra-special design? After all, you already have a ton of freedom in either crafting a look that’s all your own, or recreating an attractive color scheme you’ve seen elsewhere. Motorola’s tapped designer Jonathan Adler for help in offering users something to give their smartphones a little extra pizazz, and ...

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Nexus 6P vs Moto X Pure Edition (Video)

Posted on by Michael Fisher

Let’s not mess around. If you’ve been following Android at all this season, you know about Motorola’s Moto X Pure Edition and you certainly know about Google’s Nexus 6P. The former is one of the best values in Android right now, a blend of incredibly customizable hardware and very intelligent software, while the latter is a sleek metallic showcase for the very best that Google’s mobile platform has to offer. Each has its place in the landscape and each is a solid deal at its respective price point … but if you’re shopping for a phone to grace ...

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Motorola Moto X Pure Edition review: big deal

Posted on by Michael Fisher

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood.”–Daniel BurnhamBack in 2013, the original Moto X came as a breath of fresh air to a smartphone community already growing fatigued of phablet overload. It was a smaller, humbler handheld that focused on usability rather than the latest features or supercharged specs. It was a product that we said

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Pick me up a six-pack of tablets, willya? | Pocketnow Weekly 166

Posted on by Michael Fisher

Update: Now with more silicon than ever.Hey, do me a favor? Next time you go on down to the Piggly Wiggly, see if they’ve got them there tablet six packs? I won’t have ’em all, I promise; I just want a couple for the road.Yep, things got a little craaaaaazy in mobile technology this week. In the midst of our comprehensive Moto X Pure Edition review and a boatload of hands-ons from CTIA in Las Vegas, we’ve seen Nextbit announce a cloud-based smartphone, Apple allow an ad blocker into the App Store, and Amazon release, yes, tablet six-packs. And on top of all ...

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Verizon finally gets Moto X Pure Edition activations working right

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

The Moto X Pure Edition was supposed to be this great example of a carrier-agnostic phone, which the US smartphone market sees far too little of. Pick up a custom-designed Moto X Pure Edition from Motorola, and you’re free to go with the carrier of your choice, popping in the appropriate SIM and activating the handset on your preferred network. At least, that’s the way things are supposed to work, but as we shared with you just the other day, things haven’t been going so smoothly everywhere, and

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Moto X Pure Edition is hiding a notification LED under its earpiece

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

What’s the only thing better than bringing home a new smartphone that’s simply jam-packed with features? Finding out that it’s capable of even more than you expected, that’s what, especially if that means stumbling across some hidden hardware. We’ve been putting the new Moto X Pure Edition through its paces since getting our hands on the phone last week, and wouldn’t you know it, but it turns out this Motorola handset is hiding a little notification LED under its ...

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Moto X Pure Edition vs Nexus 6 (Video)

Posted on by Michael Fisher

They’re both oversized Android smartphones with Motorola logos, but don’t let the superficial similarity fool you. The newest Moto X is an entirely different beast than the aging Google flagship, and while we recently deemed the Nexus 6 still worth a buy when considered in a vacuum, Motorola’s newest contender might signify a sea change. The Moto X Pure Edition brings a brighter display, a better camera, higher-end hardware and more customizability than any other Android ...

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Good luck getting your Verizon Moto X Pure Edition activated

Posted on by Jules Wang

Perhaps that check mark needs to become a full-blown crosshatch. Verizon is one of the major US cell service providers using the CDMA standard instead of the more open and cross-compatible GSM standard. In short, it means that taking a non-Verizon phone to Verizon is more difficult than a similar case for AT&T or T-Mobile. Verizon had this problem when activating SIMs for the iPhone 6 and Nexus 6, both phones containing antennas for all four major US networks. It’s the same case for the Moto ...

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Moto X Pure Edition sounds like it may have some speaker problems

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

The Moto X Pure Edition is rolling off the Moto Maker assembly line and into the hands of new owners now – we’ve already gotten our hands on ours, and have brought you both an unboxing video and a preview of its camera capabilities, in advance of our full review. But as more users are getting a chance to really start interacting with the phone, a growing number of reports points to potential trouble with ...

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Here’s what the Moto X Pure Edition camera can do

Posted on by Michael Fisher

For all the aspects of smartphone design Motorola excels at, it’s never really nailed the camera experience. Despite making big promises on the first-generation Moto X and its 2014 followup, each fell flat in the photos department: the pathfinder phone produced terrible low-light results despite its vaunted “ClearPixel” technology, and last year’s sequel didn’t fare much ...

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The new Moto X Pure Edition appears to work with Project Fi

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

Google’s Project Fi is still in its infancy, and so far the only official way to access the MVNO service is with the Motorola-made Nexus 6. While Google will presumably open Fi’s doors to additional hardware at some point down the road, for these early days of Fi, the company’s been clear that it only intends to support the Nexus 6. That’s why it’s so interesting to see a report arrive this afternoon that shows a new Moto X Pure Edition functioning without any glaring issues with ...

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Unboxing the new Moto X: Pure/Style (Video)

Posted on by Michael Fisher

“Beautiful inside and out.” That’s Motorola’s predictably effusive take on its 2015 flagship smartphone, and our early hands-on coverage at the company’s New York City launch event backed that up. But how does the new Moto X really look and feel when it comes to your door, emblazoned with your custom color scheme and inscription? We’ve gotta get inside the box the find out and, whaddya know, that’s just what ...

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Hangin’ with Dr. Cooper: an interview with “the father of the cellphone”

Posted on by Jules Wang

We’ve given him our reverence more than once around here. But it’s another thing to sit down and talk with the man who made the smartphone possible. The man who –with the help of some very talented teams– made the cellular phone possible. The man who essentially made this site, our work and your thoughts on all of it possible. And our own Michael Fisher had the privilege of doing just that.Dr. Martin Cooper, born in Chicago in 1928, graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1950. He left his first job out of school at Teletype Corporation (which would soon get ...

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Motorola briefly shares date for Moto X Pure Edition (Style) availability

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

When Motorola announced the new Moto X Pure Edition (the Moto X Style outside the US) late last month, it didn’t get very specific about when sales might start. While it noted that the “Moto X Style will be available in countries across Europe, Latin America and North America starting in September,” that still left a window of several weeks, and for as anxious as Motorola fans have been to get their hands on the phone, that’s more uncertainty that we’d like. Today Motorola finally ...

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