Gizmag officially has its very own, personalized Moto X, which I was allowed to design via Motorola's Moto Maker site. The Moto X is Motorola's first flagship Android phone to be designed and delivered as a full-fledged Google subsidiary. A big part of the sales pitch for the Moto X is the ability of consumers to personalize the design of their phone by selecting from a variety of backplate colors, accent hues and a personalized message stamped on the back.
Gizmag was given early access to the beta of Moto Maker and I used it to design a simple, elegant white Moto X with orange highlights, just like the site you read these words on itself. (You can see the full Moto Maker walk-through here.) Motorola has said it aims to deliver customized Moto X smartphones from its assembly facility in Fort Worth, Texas to anywhere in the United States in just four days, but beta users were warned that the turn-around time would likely exceed this threshold, and indeed, it took a little over a week to receive our Moto X.
But it showed up in fine, working condition and with nice, subtle metallic orange accents around the rear camera lens and on the side buttons. It might have been a bit more fun to pick a brighter color for the back plate, but I chose to go with the Gizmag theme and take it all the way.
Let's take a look at the results. Here's how our customized Moto X arrived, sporting Gizmag's URL and colors on its back:
And here's how the orange accents on the side buttons came out:
I also chose a road-themed wallpaper for the new Moto X, given how much Gizmag's readers and writers love to follow emerging technologies that can be put to good use on such a surface. At least it seemed more relevant than a bamboo background, or any of the other limited options available on Moto Maker.
To get a better feel for how our Moto X turned out, scroll through the gallery above. The phone also came pre-connected to my Google account – I just had to verify my password to get going.
Additionally I added a startup message, which is seen on the very first screen when the phone is powered on, but only for a few seconds.
For more info on what life with the Moto X is like, see my full review, and follow-up about my first two full weeks using the smartphone.