Motorola’s Moto X Play is set to launch in Australia early next month, with a massive battery on board and great specs, the phone has immediately caught the eye of a number of readers, but there is one spec missing, the Gyroscope and the Chop Chop gesture to turn the flashlight on, is also missing – but may be added later.
Motorola Support has confirmed the missing Gyroscope was missing and that the Chop Chop Flashlight gesture, that was introduced in the Android 5.1 update was missing, in a Twitter exchange with a user:
@claudegohier yes, our portfolio is designed to provide choices. We offer different devices with different features and different prices
— Motorola Support (@Moto_Support) August 25, 2015
A second tweet showed that the Chop Chop gesture is possible, but Motorola just weren’t happy with the reliability of the results they were getting on the Moto X Play:
@michalbuczek We were not satisfied with reliability at launch, we continue to examine if and when we can offer this in a future update
— Motorola Support (@Moto_Support) August 25, 2015
The Moto X Play still will work with the Moto double twist to launch camera function, so not all gesture support has been dropped. Motorola recommends looking at the more fully specced Moto X Style (or Pure as they call it in the US) if you want the full features of the Moto X experience straight out of the box.
The Moto X Play and Style will be available from Vodafone early next month, while Vodafone and Motorola haven’t officially announced exactly when that will happen, we are trying to find out.
Does lack of Gyroscope or Chop Chop Flashlight feature change your mind about the Moto X Play?
what a pitty, i dropped the OP2, because of the lack of NFC, i planned to get the moto x play, but now, i will have to way longer. And it looked to be really a perfect phone, and i mean the dual sim version, almost a dual sim nexus. damn.
Grab the Moto X phones online only at the below mentioned site
moto x play launch date in india ? plzzz tell me
Really moto! Just really…. Who thought the lack of a Gyroscope was a good idea? Way to kill what could have been a great phone!
Eh, gyro uses a lot of battery power (compared to an accelerometer) for not a great deal of benefit to most users .. I can see why they’d drop it; it’s not for cost.
gyro doesn’t need to be running 24×7 for starters, its only turned on when a app needs it, and with that big battery on the play the slight power saving by not having one is a moot point.
no gyro = no Google Cardboard
no gyro = no photospheres (capture and move the phone around for playback)
no gyro = no move phone around for streetview
you start to get the picture……
Cardboard doesn’t work very well, and photospheres don’t either, but move-around streetview works just fine on the X Play.
Well nice to know at least street view works. The no photosphere capture is a bit of a show stopper for me:(
I really don’t understand this strange choice of dropping the gyro. Its not like its a $99 phone! It is a $500+ AUD phone!
Street View works with accelerometer, but I was willing to buy a Moto X Play and I’m not going to anymore, because I want to use Google Cardboard and photosphere! I bought a Cardboard and never used it because my Moto G 2013 does not have gyroscope.
If it was Moto G pricing, I could forgo it, but at the $500+ AUD pricing, its a no deal!
It didn’t work reliably without the gyroscope? Really Moto… go figure! This really has me stumped. Motorola has been differentiating itself by making smarter use of sensors with features like double twist to launch the camera and always listening touchless control. How reliably is the double twist gesture going to work now without the gyro? Will it be affected too? There was also the spotlight feature as well I think it was called – is that now no longer possible as well? There’s been some talk recently on the interwebs about how everyone wants the perfect smartphone and how there… Read more »
What you’ve said about the quest for the perfect phone is spot on; I am on that quest, and I think I’m closer to it now than I’ve been for quite a while, even though there are a number of contenders this year. However, the gyroscope, or lack of it, really isn’t a major issue for me. Without looking it up, I guarantee that most people wouldn’t even know what a gyro was, much less how it’s implemented in a phone, and what it offers to a phone over a standard accelerometer, which (basically) all phones have. In fact, there’s… Read more »
Fair comment about the average Joe not knowing about gyroscopes. I’m one! Even after looking it up online. Something about telling which way is down is about the gist of what I got reading up on it. Good to know double twist still works flawlessly. If chop chop works on the G then maybe the engineers just need some more time to tweak the algorithms discussant for the X Play. And yeah the beauty of Motorola’s approach to software means it would only take a simple update to the camera app via the Play store instead of a firmware update.… Read more »
Moto X Play seems more of a Moto G Pro than anything, and even then the lack of a gyro is inexcusable.
With the suggestion that it will cost $569 in the outright dual SIM version, I see no point in getting this and not the LG G4.
Realistically Motorola need to bring everything down one spot. The Moto X Style takes the Moto X Play price, the Moto X Play becomes the new Moto G and the Moto G becomes the new Moto E.
I believe the Moto X Play should have been named the Moto S, would have made more sense to do so.
I’d take Motorola’s skin over LG’s skin but I guess the price is a factor when you can pick up a G4 pretty cheap now, albeit an online grey import.
Comparing the online greymarket price with Retail store price isn’t really fair.
Yeah, fair point. I prefer to buy in a retail store too in case there are any warranty issues. I bought a new sony camera in store recently, got it home and found a dead pixel in the LCD display. I took it back to the store and they swapped it over for a brand new replacement, no questions asked. I’m 99% sure I’m buying the X Play when it’s available.
The question is what your average punter, looking for a new phone, would pay. The fact that the G4 has been out for a while means the kogan route is open to them, whereas the Moto X Play is only going to be available via vodafone (at least at first). Two months down the line and the Play might drop to a reasonable price via alternative sellers – but then the new N5 enters the picture with roughly the same spec … So, in short it’s behind the curve (particularly lacking gyros, which are required for things like photosphere), overpriced,… Read more »
X Style is the Voda exclusive; X Play will be sold via Vodafone, but not exclusively. Expect to see it elsewhere.
Any idea if and when we might be seeing the X Play sold outright through retailers?
Pretty keen for it but not on a contract.