Last week, two noteworthy smartphones were launched. The first one is the Moto E which gained much accolades for its price and features. At the same time, Nokia made its Nokia XL smartphone available in India for Rs 11,489. Though Moto E gained many accolades and even levelled as the best smartphone in its price segment, there was not much discussion about the new Nokia phablet. Ironically, another Motorola handset – the Moto G – is available for around the same price as the Nokia XL.
Here we thus compared this two noted devices. Also since we had reviewed the Moto G sometime back, we are able to talk in length about its quality and performance but we are only depending on the feature sheet and third party reviews of Nokia XL while making this comparison.
Also note that the Moto G comes in two versions – 8 GB and 16 GB internal storage. The 8 GB is being sold for Rs 12,499 while the later is available for Rs 13,999. So here we have compared the 8 GB Moto G model with the Nokia XL as they are priced quite close to each other.
Design
As I said in the review of Moto G as well, the Motorola handset is one of the thickest handset in the market as of now but that is due to its curved body which infact makes it quite comfortable to use the phone. Moto G has got a rubberised back panel as well that is not slippery or a sweat and finger print magnet. In short, it is classy and is easy to use.
The Nokia XL too has been hailed for its design. It has a unibody polycarbonate plastic design, which is both sturdy and comfortable to hold. It comes in various colours – green, yellow, orange, black and white- while in Moto G you can opt for various changeable back panels including Red, Violet, Royal Blue, Lemon Lime, Turquoise, white etc (of course those are not free and you have to buy them).
So it basically boils down to their sizes – you have to decide whether you want a 5 inch smartphone or a bit smaller 4.5 inch display bearing Moto G. As expected, the Nokia XL is heavier (190 grams) vs 140 grams weighing Moto G.
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Display
Though Nokia XL looks as attractive as Moto G in terms of design, but its the display quality that swings the battle’s outcome towards the Motorola handset. This is because, Moto G’s 4.5 inch display has high definition (1280×720 pixels) Resolution while the Nokia XL has only 480×800 pixels resolution, though it is said to have high brightness and viewing angles. Plus, Moto G’s screen has Corning Gorilla Glass protection.
Software
The Motorola Moto G comes with the latest Android KitKat operating system and going by Motorola’s recent track record expect future Android updates for the Moto G as well. Note that it has the vanilla Android KitKat UI which is quite intuitive.
The Nokia XL comes with Nokia X software platform which is a modified version of the Android operating system. Since it is the costliest handset in Nokia X series, so expect future updates for it as well. It has its own charm as the device combines the best of both Android and Nokia Asha platform like the Fastlane feature. However, Nokia XL users do not have access to Google Play store that has thousand of apps and cannot be compared to Nokia’s App store.
Hardware
Here too the Moto G has a comfortable lead with its Snapdragon 400 quad core processor, 1 GB RAM, and Adreno 305 graphics Processor unit. The Moto G managed to garner appreciable 17224 points on Antutu during our review and it played heavy games like Dead Trigger 2 with ease.
Nokia XL too has got decent initial reactions as far as its performance goes though its specification is not as good as Moto G’s. The Nokia XL comes with 1 GHz dual core Snapdragon S4 processor and 768 MB RAM.
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Camera
The Moto G is armed with a 5 Megapixel rear camera and a front 1.3 megapixel unit. This rear camera is able to capture high definition videos at 30 frames per second. This rear camera is quite quick to focus on subjects. It has also several camera features like HDR, Panorama, and Burst Mode. I would like to point out that it comes with the Slow Motion video recording capability which is not found in most handsets below Rs 20,000. The LED flash light also does a wonderful job in illuminating closer objects. The front camera is also quite good for selfies and video calling.
You can check its camera test here.
Nokia XL too has a 5 megapixel rear camera and an even better 2 megapixel front camera. So hopefully it offers an equal if not a better result than the Moto G.
Battery
Moto G also impresses when it comes to battery life. Its 2070 mAh battery comfortably provides back up for over 24 hours on light to medium usage. Even if you are a heavy user, you would able to get 12 hours of back up. To give you some prospective, at maximum brightness and volume, we watched YouTube videos on Moto G for half an hour during which it lost only 7 per cent charge.
Nokia XL too has a 2000 mAh battery which claims to offer talktime of 13 hours on 3G network and 16 hours on 2G.
Memory and Connectivity
The Moto G comes with two micro SIM slots and both SIM cards offer 3G access. There is WiFi (b/g/n) and Bluetooth 4.0 in the Moto G. It also comes with USB on the go functionality that allows a pen drive to be used with it directly. Using its WiFi Hotspot feature you can also create a hotspot in your surrounding. For navigation, the Moto G has got GPS with A-GPS feature. However, Moto G has no expandable storage slot. So this means in the 8 GB version that we have considered here, you will only get 5.5 GB which is quite on the lower side in this age of graphics heavy games.
The Nokia XL has lower Internal Memory -4 GB. However, it compensates that with a 32 GB micro SD card slot. It too has two SIM slots supporting 3G network, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS with A-GPS.
Conclusion
The Nokia XL and Moto G though are closely priced, they differ quite a lot when it comes to their features and performance. First of all, you have to decide whether you want a bigger device like Nokia XL or want a smaller smartphone like Moto G. Storage is yet another big difference between the two. I would not recommend 8 GB version of Moto G to anyone as if need arises, you cannot alter its storage. So it is better to go for the 16 GB Moto G or else choose Nokia XL.
In other areas like battery output and connectivity, there is perhaps not much of difference between the two. However, camera and performance are two big areas where the Nokia XL has not been tested so far. So keep checking The Mobile Indian, we may soon come out with Nokia XL review which will ultimately rest all your assumptions.