The Motorola MOTOLUXE is now available for £234, a price that sits it nicely between the high-end and budget Android smartphones. It is a price that many people will consider reasonable to pay for a smartphone. It is, however, a smartphone that may surprise those who believe they are getting a cheap phone.
The MOTOLUXE does not feel constrained by budget decisions or the pricing in any way and from the very first moment feels like a high-end device. The large 4″ LCD screen is likely the perfect size for most and despite some reflections in bright conditions, it works very well the majority of the time. The 800MHz processor does not sound particularly impressive in times when the ‘GHz’ term is commonplace in the smartphone world, but this is an area which I come back to time and time again. Raw power is great, but not at the expense of lower battery performance and I for one believe 800MHz to be the sweet spot for most users. I have still been able to push this phone quite hard and noticed no slowdowns, to the point that ten apps running caused no problems so why would I worry about the ‘MHz’ line on the specs sheet?
The 8 Megapixel rear camera is impressive in use and I found it capable of taking quick snaps when the time arose most of the time. It can be slightly too bright when the flash is on and slow down when too many apps are running, but this is not uncommon. Curiously, you have to insert an SD card to use the camera and the settings are somewhat buried which makes quick changes difficult to undertake. The inclusion of a 0.3 front-facing camera is good to see now that we are all realising that Skype does a good job of allowing video conversations anywhere.
