We now know that the X Phone will officially be called the Moto X and we also know that it will have some very sophisticated sensors and software that will make it "contextually aware" of its surroundings and automatically adjust. However, it'll need a large battery to do that.
Motorola's CEO Dennis Woodside disclosed the name of the smartphone and some examples of how the Moto X would be different from current smartphones in the market and he called it the "hero phone" of 2013.
"Hero phone" or not, the Moto X is going to have some tough competition from flagship smartphones that are currently available, like the Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, and iPhone 5. The Moto X will also be competing with the upcoming iPhone 5S, which is expected to be announced sometime this fall. Motorola knows it has some big competition and it's going to differentiate itself from its rivals with the Moto X by keeping its accelerometer, gyroscope, and other sensors on at all times so the smartphone can be "contextually aware." Woodside gave some examples of how the Moto X would be able to do certain things by using all of its sensors.
The Moto X will know when a user takes the smartphone out of a pocket to do certain functions like knowing you'll want to take a picture and will automatically open up the camera application. In a car, the Moto X will know if the car is on or off, or that it's traveling at 60 miles per hour and will act differently to those situations because it is "contextually aware," something very different from other smartphones.
However, the Moto X will need a large battery or improved battery technology if it is going to keep the sensors on all the time and still have comparable battery life to other smartphones on the market as pointed out by MIT's Technology Review. The report points out that the sensors will be processing data at all times, which requires a significant amount of power.
While we don't know the size of the battery or what kind of improved battery technology Motorola might be using in the Moto X, Woodside told AllThingsD that Motorola does have experience with low-power sensors and the company knows a thing or two about battery life, since its DROD RAZR MAXX HD packs in a whopping 3,300 mAh battery, giving the device a record 32 hours of performance on a single charge. The smartphone is still very thin and light even with that massive battery inside.
