I have acquired the moto x dev edition for verizon. My gnex is going to a good home (my father). So here are my thoughts. The main question, is it worth upgrading the gnex? Honestly, if you are buying a phone outright I do NOT think its worth it unless you care about a few new things. The gnex actually performs nearly as good as my new moto x (assuming you have rooted and customized it to). Here is my review:
I currently have 2 verizon phones – the galaxy nexus and the moto x from verizon. Here is what I have done to both phones before I give my review:
Gnex – I have rooted it and installed the latest 4.4 nightly from cyanogenmod. I have installed pacrom, aokp, etc as well and AOKP is definitely my favorite ROM but I am giving this phone to my father and think CM will be easiest for him as it updates itself through an OTA update.
Moto x – I have rooted it, installed Xposed (for gravitybox), deleted bloatware, and got it tether ready.
Reviews:
Speed/lag – I never noticed lag with my motox. Now that I have the moto x I am noticing where there was lag on my gnex. However, I dont think most people would notice it. It is not significant and doesnt make the phone perform any better/worse.
size – both are around the same size. the moto x is a bit smaller and screen appears to be the same size.
camera – i didnt notice a difference here and i dont really use the cams much either.
battery – much better on my motox. I get about 24hrs more. I think i got around 12-15 hours on average on my gnex and am getting 36+ on my moto x. i did have the 2200 size on my gnex too. this could be a breaking point for many people but i was able to go through the day and just charge each night with my gnex.
tethering – tethering was simple on my gnex. i just pushed the button and it works. it worked with a million tethering apps too. the moto x was not easy. it does not work with any of those apps. i had to go in and work in terminal to get tethering to work. i have a feeling i will need to do this with each OS upgrade too. I am not looking forward to it. It was not something a beginner will be able to easily do.
bloatware – none on the gnex. tons on my moto x. i had to delete it all but again this was easy once rooted.
active display – this is awesome. it is on both phones though. on the moto x its just automatically there. on my gnex i need to download dynamicnotifications app. i think each version (the app vs the native moto x app) each have some advantages over one another. this will be a preference thing but both basically function in the exact same way.
moto connect – Now this is new to me and I am really loving it. I can text – send and receive texts from my browser. This is really awesome as I work from home and dont alway have my phone on me. I can also take calls this way too. Very awesome. It could be worth upgrading for just this feature alone.
Dev support – tons of dev support for the gnex. it cant really be beat except for N5. Moto x seems good too just dont think it will ever be as good as a nexus device.
Company support – none for the gnex. phone is past its 18 months. seems like motorola is doing a great job with the moto x and I have a feeling that they will support longer than the standard 18 months given how they are still pushing this phone.
Overall that is my review. I dont think I really needed to upgrade my gnex. It was performing nearly as well as this new phone. I think it has another 1-2 years of life easily. If you do have the money though, it is worth the upgrade but its definitely not necessary.