Review: Lenovo Moto Z

Text and photos By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

On its own, the Moto Z is an inspired flagship device. It’s made of top tier materials, offers the best of Moto’s bespoke software experiences, yet presents users with a pretty pure Android experience with very little in the way of unwanted bloatware (unless you’re getting it from a carrier).

It’s my impression that Motorola, one of the oldest makers of smartphones in the industry, has always seen a future beyond the smartphone. 

Their first Android device, the Droid (sold in Canada as the Motorola Milestone), was the first to have a slide-out keyboard which differentiated it from most candy bar Androids of the time.

The Moto Atrix smartphone, had the ability to be mated to a laptop accessory and even a desktop, it preceded Microsoft’s Continuum feature of extending a smartphone to become a notebook replacement.

With Moto Maker on the Moto X, the company championed customization and personalization, plus they introduced leather, wood, and other materials to the smartphone market. Kicking off a trend that companies like OnePlus, LG, Huawei and others picked up on, but never really pulled off elegantly. Now, with the Moto Z, we're seeing the next phase of evolution.

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SlideShow: Google Pixel and Pixel XL

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Here's a closer look at the two premium-priced Android smartphones Google released today. The 5-inch Google Pixel and the 5.5-inch Pixel XL which are made of Gorilla Glass and aluminum (with a glass panel for the fingerprint sensor and trackpad at the rear). The devices managed to get the highest DXOMark ratings for any smartphone camera quality and are also tightly integrated with the new Google Assistant learning A.I. We hope to get review units soon to test what these devices can offer and see if they really merit the premium price.

Video: Hands on with the Google Pixel

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Here's a quick look at the Google Pixel smartphone released earlier today plus an intro to many of the personal assitant and camera features that this new flagship device will showcase. Google Pixel is available for preorder now and will come to Canada in 2-3 weeks. It will also be available from Rogers, Bell and TELUS as well as other carriers on various plans. 

Specs include a 5 or 5.5-inch AMOLED display, a SnapDragon 821  Quad-Core processor running 2.15 GHz + 1.6 GHz, 4GB of RAM, turbo-charging capability giving 7 hours on a 15 minute charge, 32GB and 128GB storage capacities, a 12 megapixel rear camera, an 8 megapixel front-facing camera and a rear fingerprint sensor which doubles as a trackpad for navigation.

Google enters premium smartphone game with Pixel and Pixel XL

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Google is now a player in the smartphone game. While the company did dabble in creating specific devices with hardware partners during its now defunct Nexus phase, it left the building of the hardware to OEMs. Nexus is all but dead and there are valid reasons for that. Google is looking forward to a future where they make the whole widget in order to ensure the best experience. 

The 5-inch Pixel and the 5.5-inch Pixel XL represent the most cohesive idea of a Google Phone since the first Android device shipped eight years ago. The Pixel devices are flagship phones (they start at $899) that boast top-tier specs, camera performance that Google says will beat any smartphone as well as a bevy of intelligent assistant features powered by Google services. 

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