Motorola Motoluxe Android smartphone
Talked up?
Review Don’t be confused by the name: it may be seem classy and good-looking but this is a mid-range handset, not a deluxe one. It’s also quite distinctive, which is good at a time when Android handsets are numerous and often me-too copies or unimaginative derivatives.
A comfortable compromise: Motorola's Motoluxe
Although this is a plain black rectangle, it’s different thanks to the lanyard slot at the bottom left, balanced design-wise by the Motorola logo on the right. The back has the chrome mesh detail earlier Moto handsets have featured and which matches the earpiece speaker on the front.
It’s a well-sized phone that fits the hand comfortably, squeezing a decent 4in screen into a case that doesn’t feel oversized. The display is bright and high-resolution. It doesn’t match the iPhone’s Retina Display or the Motorola Razr screen, which gleams in its eye-popping colours, but at around 245ppi, it’s sharp and detailed.
8Mp stills snapper but no HD video capture
The lanyard slot won’t be everyone’s choice as a must-have feature, but it has more functions than just being a place to attach a flat cord. A light hidden under the slot notifies you when there’s an email waiting, say. It glows with a green pulse which is even visible when the phone is lying face down, thanks to the angled slot. Remember this if you keep the phone next to the bed.
To find out what’s waiting, activate the phone. There’s no front button to wake the screen, but a tap on the power button on the top edge reveals a strikingly different lock screen. A multi-function screen is common enough: HTC pioneered the capability to unlock the phone and go straight to a specific app.
Custom contacts
Here, though, there are six apps offered by default: phone, browser, text messages, email and calendar together with a button to toggle between ringer and vibrate. If none of those suits and you just want to launch the home screen, touching the key at the centre sets the icons spinning fetchingly. What’s more, you can swap the apps for others. It’s a neat piece of customisation.
Next page: Core considerations
COMMENTS
Re: Re: Scores
Rather than % give it a score between 1 and 5.
1. Dire don't buy
2. Buy only if you have no other choice
3. Average It's ok.
4. Good but there are better top end phones available.
5. Dogs boll**ks.
Duh
It's spelled 'despair'.
Best to make sure you can spell properly before you start commenting on whether people are clever, thick etc.
Re: I'm confused, maybe you can help me out..
Maybe it's called having a range of products? not everyone can justify £400-500 for a phone. There's a world economic crisis taking place still.
Re: Review scores
If something "truly dire" scores 60-70%, what do you call something that scores 10%?
Are you saying that 10% isn't a valid score? Why not? If a phone is average, shouldn't it score 50%?
If no phone ever scores 100%, then doesn't that make "100%" completely meaningless?
More to the point, if so many phones score 70-80%, how in heck is a consumer supposed to work out which is the one for them. Isn't the point of a score to provide differentiation?
If in a maths exam, the worst possible score was 60% and the best possible was 90%, then you are basically cramming the whole of humanity into a tiny 30% bracket, which seems completely daft.
Why does every phone El Reg reviews score 70-80%?
Surely the very best should get 100% and the worst should get 0%? I'd love to see a chart of the distribution of El Reg review scores. Instead of a nice bell-shaped curve peaking at 50%, I expect we'll see just a huge spike on 70-80% and the rest just blank.
Just sayin'
