Motorola Moto X Force review: Handle without care

Display

Motorola Moto X Force comes with a 1440p display with the unusual 5.4 inches in diagonal and visually, it's about as good as it gets. The matrix is an AMOLED one based on the Diamond PenTile pattern while the AMOLED itself guarantees sharp and punchy colors and deep blacks. With a pixel density of 540 ppi, it is very sharp too and offers great clarity.

The shatter-proof glass above the display is the key feature, of course, and it comes with a 4-year warranty. This means if your display glass shatters or cracks, Motorola will replace it for free. There are some limitations of course - Motorola doesn't cover scratches, or damages on the phone itself. Nor will it replace your glass if you broke it intentionally (by experimenting).

We have come to associate AMOLED panels with absolute blacks and infinite levels of contrast and that fits with the nature of the technology itself. Still, with the Moto X Force, we didn't actually manage to get an absolute black reading - our colorimeter kept picking up some light. Perhaps it is some intentional software trick or a controller bug, but the blackest of blacks still clocked 0.04nits of brightness.

In reality, you would need to be in a pitch dark room to even get a chance of noticing this sort of light levels, but it does mean that the contrast is not infinite as on other AMOLED phones, but it rather works out to about 9432:1. As you can see, it's still times better than LCD displays.

The panel on the Moto X Force has an expected maximum brightness level of 349nits at full blast (manual control). It can go up to 486nits though, when exposed to bright light, courtesy of the auto-brightness algorithm.

Motorola did a good job of calibrating the screen on the Moto X Force. We measured an average deltaE of 4.8, which is close to the iPhone 6s and a rather good result.

We found the red channel to be rather off with a DeltaE of 13.2 while all other colors are well below DeltaE of 7.

People use their phones more than they are willing to admit, even in the black of night. This is why the minimum brightness is important too so that you can use the phone without squinting. The Moto X Force managed to do 5.4nits at full white, which is rather low and should do OK for most people.

Sunlight legibility, definitely does not disappoint but is far from impressive. The Moto X Force remains usable even under direct sunlight though we've seen better. Its glass is a bit more reflective than we'd prefer and that's the reason for the average result for this AMOLED panel.

Sunlight contrast ratio

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  4.615
• Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
  4.439
• Samsung Galaxy S7
  4.376
• HTC One A9
  4.274
• Samsung Galaxy A3
  4.241
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
  4.124
• Samsung Galaxy Note5
  4.09
• Huawei Nexus 6P
  4.019
• OnePlus X
  3.983
• Oppo R7s
  3.964
• Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)
  3.918
• Samsung Galaxy A5
  3.895
• Samsung Galaxy J7 outdoor
  3.879
• Samsung Galaxy J2 outdoor
  3.873
• Samsung Galaxy A8
  3.859
• Apple iPhone 6
  3.838
• Microsoft Lumia 950XL
  3.837
• Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016)
  3.817
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  3.816
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  3.789
• Apple iPhone 6s
  3.783
• Meizu Pro 5
  3.781
• Microsoft Lumia 650
  3.772
• Oppo F1 Plus
  3.709
• Vivo X5Pro
  3.706
• Apple iPhone SE
  3.681
• Samsung Galaxy A7
  3.679
• BlackBerry Priv
  3.645
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  3.53
• Acer Jade Primo
  3.521
• Microsoft Lumia 950
  3.512
• Oppo R7 Plus
  3.499
• Samsung Galaxy J7
  3.422
• Meizu MX5
  3.416
• Oppo R7
  3.32
• Samsung Galaxy J2
  3.235
• Motorola Moto X Play
  3.222
• Huawei P9
  3.195
• Lenovo Vibe Shot
  3.113
• Motorola Moto X Force
  3.105
• LG Nexus 5X
  3.092
• Huawei Mate S
  3.073
• Microsoft Lumia 640 XL
  3.065
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  3.023
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  2.97
• Huawei Mate 8
  2.949
• LG G5
  2.905
• HTC One S
  2.901
• Sony Xperia Z5
  2.876
• Microsoft Lumia 550
  2.851
• Sony Xperia Z5 compact
  2.784
• LG V10
  2.744
• Xiaomi Redmi 3
  2.735
• Sony Xperia M5
  2.69
• Xiaomi Mi 4i
  2.641
• Xiaomi Mi 4c
  2.574
• Microsoft Lumia 640
  2.563
• Oppo F1
  2.528
• Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
  2.525
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  2.503
• Motorola Moto G
  2.477
• Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus
  2.473
• Huawei G8
  2.471
• Sony Xperia Z
  2.462
• Huawei Honor 7
  2.406
• ZUK Z1 by Lenovo
  2.382
• HTC One E9+
  2.305
• Alcatel One Touch Hero
  2.272
• Lenovo Vibe K4 Note
  2.254
• Sony Xperia C5 Ultra
  2.253
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (MediaTek)
  2.249
• Sony Xperia C4 Dual
  2.235
• Motorola Moto G (2014)
  2.233
• LG Nexus 5
  2.228
• Huawei P8
  2.196
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 2
  2.166
• OnePlus Two
  2.165
• HTC One X
  2.158
• LG Aka
  2.145
• Archos 50 Diamond
  2.134
• Xiaomi Redmi Note
  2.119
• Huawei P8lite
  2.078
• Moto G 3rd gen max manual
  2.026
• Sony Xperia E4g
  1.972
• OnePlus One
  1.961
• Meizu m2 note
  1.892
• BlackBerry Leap
  1.892
• HTC Butterfly
  1.873
• ZTE Nubia Z9 mini
  1.759
• Sony Xperia U
  1.758
• Asus Zenfone Selfie
  1.68
• Motorola Moto E (2nd Gen)
  1.675
• ZTE Nubia Z9
  1.659
• Motorola Moto E
  1.545
• Sony Xperia M
  1.473
• Xiaomi Redmi 2
  1.311
• Sony Xperia C
  1.283
• Meizu MX
  1.221

Battery life test

Motorola has been very generous in terms of battery capacity. The Moto X Force packs up to 3,760 mAh worth of juice, but the battery itself is not user-replaceable.

The smartphone supports the company's TurboPower fast charging, and most markets will get the charger within the retail package. In case you aren't among the lucky ones, you may want to buy it separately for $35/£25. Note that the Moto X Force coming without the charger in those regions will be sold at a lower price.

The Snapdragon 810 isn't exactly power-sipping, so we didn't expect chart-topping results but we still like what we got.

The phone is good for 23.5 hours of 3G voice calls - an excellent result. In our video playback test, the Moto X Force died after a hair more than 15 hours - another excellent mark, but the Wi-Fi web browsing longevity is 'just' very good at 9 and a half hours. All that works out to a proprietary endurance rating of 78 hours. It could have been better, but the standby endurance turned out just average.

If you opt for the Moto Display, you'll lose 6 hours from the total endurance rating down to 72 hours. In this mode the screen doesn't stay constantly on, but the two infra-red sensors do, and, we guess, that's what's depleting the battery.

The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.

Connectivity

The Motorola Moto X Force has a wide range of connectivity options. It supports quad-band 2G, penta-band 3G and a host of 4G frequencies. Cat. 6 LTE is supported for theoretical speeds of 300Mbps down and 50Mbps up.

The Moto X Force has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrums and hotspot support. There is a GPS receiver, Bluetooth is of the 4.1 iteration, and NFC.

The microUSB 2.0 port supports USB on-the-go to let you attach peripherals. A standard 3.5mm jack completes the wired connectivity package.

There is no FM radio.