[Moto Maxx General] Galaxo60:
I wrote this to all the people who want to know about user experience and features on the Moto Maxx as well as the experience with Motorola and FedEx.

Order and Delivery

I live in Mexico, I ordered my phone the very first day it came out; the phone was released to public on November 13, and I bought the phone that day around 3:00AM, I didn't want to wait until I wake up to get one, because maybe it would be late.

The cost of the phone was $7,999.00 (around $585 USD) because of the discount it had for the "El Buen Fin", or in short words, the mexican Black Friday. I bought one, and the ordered was cancelled after 10 minutes, because there was a problem with the credit card. I call to the bank at that hour and fixed it, banks usually block suspicious purchases, and then made the order again. One thing to notice here is that my bank (Santander) made an extra charge to buy this, because the purchase was made to Motorola Mobility and it counted as international charge. Some people didn't get that extra charge, so be aware that it can happen or not. The charge was around $10 USD.

Two days later, I receive the confirmation from Motorola that the phone was already sent (Nov 15), as well as my tracking number. The estimated delivery time was on Nov 25. The phone comes from China, so it is a long way, but it took to the phone around 3 days arrive from China to Mexico, and here is where details started to happen.

The phone arrived to Mexico, and then it was delayed for clearance in customs; I contacted both Motorola and FedEx because it was marked as "dangerous item", without knowing why (the people on FedEx didn't know either), so every 2 days for around 4 days I was calling and making pressure to get things done. At the end, I don't know if this helped, but at least I got my phone today (Nov 24) and there are people who still doesn't get their phones with the same estimated date for delivery.

I didn't know many things before this, in fact, I have never bought anything from internet that involved an international shipping, but it seems that all the things with batteries are marked as "dangerous items", so it is a normal process and nothing to worry about; the tricky part is that it seems that Motorola doesn't send the complete documentation with the phone, and that's why it gets delayed 4-5 days in customs until the documentation is available. Screen of "phone travel" attached if you want to know the normal flow of the phone. It seems that Motorola takes in mind the 4-5 days of delay in customs as part of their estimation for the delivery.

View attachment 3033049

Unboxing

So let's move on and open and configure the whole phone. I opened the box, hoping for a pair of headphones, but only charger and usb; unfortunately for mexican people, we are not getting the headphones which comes with brazilian version.

I turned on the phone, a beautiful animation from Motorola and started the whole process of configuring every setting in every app and in settings menu; it took me almost 2 hours to download all the apps while I configured the general settings, and then open each app for a fine tuning. I'm not a guy who runs a lot in his phone, so it's not so hard, I usually have around 50-60 apps in total (the ones who shows me Play Store and including the Google App that you can remove).

Hardware and Software

I'm coming from a Nexus 5, and before it, I had a Nexus 4. I have to say that the display is good, but I felt that it was burning my eyes; I'm not used to AMOLED screens and the saturation and colors they have. As expected, there is no lag, and moreover, although the Nexus 5 is a powerful phone, the Maxx is a total beast, and I could noticed it when I was playing Asphalt 8, the transitions, animations and load of the game in general was far better than the player experience in the Nexus 5. You would notice the difference in a second in terms of performance and graphics in games.

Everything on the phone is sweet, but the Moto Voice is really screwed; it seems that Moto Voice in spanish needs a real fine tuning to get things get done properly. I said every command from the commands page and half of them were not working or were half working, for example, the Youtube command just open YouTube but don't play anything; the WhatsApp command just opens WhatsApp (sometimes it says it was not installed) and then when it asks you about the contact, Moto Voice just crashes and exit to the homescreen. The commands that needs some kind of interaction doesn't work, like if you want to send a message, the phone should ask you to which contact. Stuff like that.

Battery

After all this, it was time to charge the phone. It was amazing, I turned on the phone with around 35%, and 2 hours later of being configuring everything and even playing for at least 15 mins, the phone still has round 8% of battery left. Screens attached for this.

View attachment 3033050View attachment 3033051View attachment 3033052

It took around 1:30hr to fully charge, but the phone gets so damn hot when is charging, and I mean, really hot; not even playing like 4-5 games in a row made the phone so hot like when charing it. Phone was warm while playing, but not really hot as the Nexus 5 or any other phone; maybe is the material, but I like this, been able to play with not burning my fingers.

Conclusion

Overall, I would say that I'm pretty happy with the phone for the first couple of hours playing with it, but again, Moto Voice is a mess in spanish, and it is a shame because I bought this phone because of this and all the Moto Suite. I have seen videos of the Moto Voice working in english, and spanish is really far away from it, so it is a real shame for us the non english speakers.

About the battery and camera, I would have to test them better, because I took some shots that look nice, but I'm not a fan of photography, just a casual user. Even with Nexus 5's camera I was happy, so I hope this won't disappoint me.

Altgouht Motorola doesn't put an interface over Android (generally speaking), I can feel the difference betweenI the Maxx 4.4.4 and the Nexus 5 5.0; it seems that the Android4.4.4 on the Maxx still need some optimizations or something, I wouldn't say the Maxx lags or any other thing, because it doesn't, but still feels different from the Android on my Nexus 5, it still lacks of that magic I feel every time I put my finger and my eyes on the Nexus. I hope Motorola fix many of this flaws in next updates.

I hope this would be useful to someone evaluating to boy this phone, because Turbo and Maxx and basically the same phone, but I think there are some few things that could make the experience different from one to another (Verizon bloatware, no simultaneous voice and data, no WiFi tethering, etc) and there are almost none reviews out there about the Maxx.

If you have any question, feel free to write it and I would try to answer if possible.

:cowboy:

Update Nov 25 - Moto Voice

It seems that the voice commands are getting better with the updates from the Play Store. Unfortunately, I had to look for them and then update manually, because they are not part of the apps that Play Store shows to you in first place.

Update Nov 26 - Charging Time

These are the values from using the Turbo Charger with the phone off.

9:00AM - 4%

9:15AM - 21%

9:30AM - 37%

9:45AM - 53%

10:00AM - 69%

10:30AM - 94%

10:45AM - 97%

11:00AM - 100%

So it takes around 2 hours to fully charge from almost dead to 100%.

Update Nov 27 - Video and Sound Quality

For all of you wanted to know how is the quality of sound and video in loud environments, I made a video test:

[Q] Mic Test (Loud Environment) (Solved with video inside)

Update March 30 - Lollipop

So finally it's here, the expected Lollipop update. It was kind of a long wait, but there are some improvements over KitKat.

I won't be explaining all the Lollipop features, that is something you could find easily on the web, but I will try to focus on some specific points.

The version of Lollipop is the 5.0.2, but we can expect 5.1 soon because of the started soak tests with the Moto X that are already appearing in some devices. The Moto suite is still the same, although the blue color on the app is kind of different for me, I have noticed some other different things about the 4 apps I will try to explain on the next lines.

Assist

I think the biggest change here is that Assist now uses the settings from the Interruptions menu in Sound Settings. With the new changes in the Lollipop API and the introduction of the Priority Mode, the phone doesn't enter in a Silence Mode like before (because it's gone in Lollipop and probably will be back until 5.1), but enters on Priority Mode. So you have to set the settings in Settings > Sound > Interruptions to properly have the phone configured as you need. I have to say it was a surprise for me that if I have the Messages option enabled for the Priority Mode, WhatsApp messages also work with this somehow.

Actions

As far as I noticed, there are no changes here.

Voice

The voice commands are greatly improved, they are more responsive and quick. The only different thing I noticed is that volume of the responses of Moto Voice are now linked to the multimedia volume.

Display

The only big difference I noticed here is the unlock action flow, before when you got a notification, you could swipe up and then unlock the device for the configured method. Now, when I swipe up and have the face unlock, it get me to the pattern screen instead of the unlock face screen. It seems that the only way I can unlock the device with my face is by pressing the power button. It's kind of uncomfortable, but maybe it's a matter to get used to.

Besides this, battery is pretty solid, the stand by time was a huge improvement over KitKat; before Lollipop I used to have 10% battery drain overnight, but now I'm having around 1%, so it's a nice upgrade. Just one thing about the battery stats: it seems that Google Services displays itself like one of the top battery consumers, but actually I have found that is not having a real impact on battery life.

Performance it's about the same, but it lags sometimes when opening Google search (swipe up from the home button).

Overall the update is pretty positive, and the impact on battery life it's great; about the options and settings, it's matter of read across the internet how the things changed and put the proper values.

I will try to use the Android options instead of the Moto options, it seems that most of the stuff you do with Moto Suite, can be done now natively from Android settings. Would be interesting also to know the impact on life also.

Update March 31 - Lower Charging Time

I have to say that charging time is also reduced from 2 hours to 1:30 hour, a nearly 25% decreased charging time.

Update April 2 - Ambient Display and Google Voice

I tried the default Google features (Ambient display, Google Voice, etc) and it seems that they are partially working. I could make Ambient Display once, and then it never happened again. Google Voice is kind of limited because it needs to have the screen on, so no way to interact with the phone while the screen is off.

About battery, it seems that the Google Voice commands uses double of battery than Moto Voice, I had a battery drain overnight about 5% with Google Voice and with Moto Voic I had barely 2%, so I guess it's better to stick with Motorola software.

Update April 3 - Moto Actions

I gave a chance to the updated Moto Actions app, because they said it was improved, but as far as I see, the application is the same and it comes also with high battery drain. From having a 1%-2% of battery drain overnight, I passed to 6%-7% on the same amount of time.

I noticed somehow the signal it's worst whit this features enabled, still I don't find a reason, the battery graph showed red signal over the night when I leave my phone on the same spot every night, so it's wind of weird.

I will keep continuing also the features and try to give it a new chance this night and let the phone trying to be on a different spot for better signal, maybe the battery drain it's not due the Moto Actions, but instead for the bad signal.

Update April 4 - Moto Assist

It seems that there is one issue with the compatibility with Lollipop Interrupt native function and the Moto Assist function about quiet hours. Before we have the "Screen Off" and "Silence" option under Sleeping, and now we have the same option about screen but different option about silence; instead we get the configuration from the Quiet Hours from the Sound menu.

This change brought with it some bugs, for example, the Sleeping mode doesn't respect the days of the week configured on the Interruptions menu, and it will toggle an "interruptions only" and total "silence mode" depending the order in which you activate the settings, so it's really messy if you try to use them together.

Update April 7 - Camera2 API

It seems that Motorola didn't integrate the new Camera API, which is really sad because it would improved vastly the pictures taken with this phone.

View attachment 3250185

Update April 7 - Moto Actions Battery Drain

I have been using all the Moto Actions lately to test impact on battery, and I have to say that they still have noticeable impact on it. From 1%-2% battery drain overnight, I had 2%-3% with Moto Actions enabled, so those sensors still consume around 50% more energy overall. Besides this, the impact on battery is noticeable also day to day, before I could achieve 2 complete days of battery, but whit them enabled, I barely can make it to day and a half.

I would recommend to turn off all the Moto Actions, except the camera twist, in order to maximize battery life.

Update April 9 - Moto Assist and Interruptions

After several days of testing, it seems that there is a conflict between the Android API and the Moto Assist function about the sleeping time. If you choose to enable the days on the Interruptions menu under Sound settings, it will create a conflict in which the phone won't be on Interruptions Mode, but it will be on total Silence Mode. This is really bad if you have any alarm or favorite contacts calling you.

It seems that the event trigger twice, one from the Moto Assist and one from the Interruptions menu, and somehow it put the phone to Silence mode instead of Interruption mode. Also, the days configuration doesn't work well with Moto Assist; so we are forced to choose one quiet hours approach: between being able to choose about the day of the week with native Android support or to choose have the same configuration all days but being able to have the benefit of having the display off at sleeping hours with Moto Assist, because Android still doesn't have a native function for this.

Update April 10 - WiFi Bug

It seems that Lollipop came with many good things, but also many weird behaviors as described in the last weeks.

In these days I discovered that somehow, a WiFi option resets itself to enabled when it should be disabled. The "Scanning always available" option it's always resetting itself, and is not the first time I have look into this behavior.

So try to check this option once in a while if you note battery drain is not normal, because yesterday I had a battery drain of 10% over night for having this option enabled and the "Google Services" is the top battery consumer.

It seems that after some testing, the option is bugged as well, it shows it's disabled, but still WiFi active and scanning for networks (battery graph), so the best in this case is to reboot the device.

Update April 14 - WhatsApp Voice Command

Fixed with Moto Voice update on May 29

Another day, another bug... it seems that the WhatsApp voice command is also screwed; after the Lollipop update, you could tell the phone to open WhatsApp and then it would ask to who send a message and the message itself. Now it seems that it opens WhatsApp and nothing more.

Update April 15 - Moto Voice and Lockscreen Security

Besides all the bugs that I have been reporting these days, I just noticed that the Moto Voice application now it's properly working with a secure lockscreen. In KitKat it was buggy, but now is perfectly working.

I chose to have the PIN pattern in combination with Trusted Faces, and when I try to unlock the device with my face, it works, and then if I try to open an app through voice command, it would bypass the face detection and will ask directly for the PIN, which you have to say in order to unlock the phone.

Update April 22 - Battery on Lollipop

For all of you wondering the battery life on the new Android update, I will attach some images. I think I could do it better, but the Google Play Services bug is draining the battery fast.

View attachment 3275853View attachment 3275854View attachment 3275855View attachment 3275856

Update May 5 - Saved Networks

It seems that you can't delete some networks under the Wifi settings; I have 2 networks on my home, and every time I reboot my phone, it tries to connect to the wrong one although I have tell the phone many times to forget that network.

Update May 14 - Ballistic Nylon Condition

After 6 months, I can say that the ballistic nylon is in real good conditions. I have used the phone with no case or protection since day 1, and it is always on my left pocket. The only detail I have is some orphan strings on the upper right corner, but not a serious issue for me.

View attachment 3312368View attachment 3312369

Update May 18 - Nokia Lumia 1020 vs Moto Maxx Camera Comparision

Thanks to @Danikin for make this:

http://www.capa9.net/foro/threads/comparativa-camara-lumia-1020-vs-moto-maxx.1113384/

Update July 31 - YouTube Voice Command

It seems that Moto Voice launches YouTube whenever you say "Play" or "Reproduce", no matters if you say the word "YouTube" or not. This happens to me 80% of the times I want to reproduce something with the Google Search instead of Moto Voice/

:highfive: