With a wide backward tapers towards the display and a sloping overhang camera, X1 reminds me a lot of HTC One X. But with hollow-feeling plastic and quirky design choices, it will feel more like a cheap knockoff. It is poorly developed, though, and it is a good size at 5.8 by 2.8 by 0.38 inches (HWD) and 5.15 ounces. The headphone jack and micro USB port is at the top, while the Volume and Power buttons are on the left and right sides, respectively. I personally think that the grilles to face the X1 is pretty ugly, and it does not help that they're not even for the front facing speaker-they keep the earpiece and mic, as far as I can tell .
The 5-inch, 720p LCD IPS looks great, right on par with the Moto G's display. Color expect accurate, if somewhat muted, but the contrast and viewing angles are excellent considering the price. I noticed a few backlighting hotspot, and it's pretty clear that Nuu does not use any oleophobic coating-screen is an absolute magnet fats and oils, which degrades the viewing experience. Below the display are three dated capacitive buttons for Menu, Home, and Back navigation.
Unlocked, GSM support X1 (850/900/1800 / 1900MHz), WCDMA (850 / 1900MHz), and LTE (Band 4 and 7). In the US, that means HSPA + 21 speeds on AT & T, and LTE connectivity on T-Mobile. I tested the phone with both AT & T and T-Mobile SIM card; The X1 5Mbps struggled to break down (down) on AT & T, but quickly eclipsed 10Mbps (down) on T-Mobile. Call quality was mostly positive, with a slightly underpowered earpiece, but pretty clear and natural transmissions through the mic. In some trials mic voicemail added a great deal of static, but things are easy enough to understand anyway. The louder environments, call quality suffered thanks to the effective noise cancellation doing more harm than good-sounding voice shaky and indistinct, and outside noises are distracting anyway.
Rounding out the options the 802.11b / g / n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and NFC. Wi-Fi is limited to the slower, more crowded 2.4GHz band.
Performance and Android
While competitors like Blu and Verykool use off-the-shelf components from Chinese companies such as MediaTek, Nuu sticks with more identifiable and reliable Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC. This is the same setup found in your Moto G, and as expected, the performance is pretty comparable across. Real world performance matches synthetic benchmark results, and we see the same proper performance we've come to expect from 400 Snapdragon-powered devices.
Nuu-load up an almost stock version of Android 4.4, which probably helps performance. There are a few extra tools management sim, but it is an almost vanilla build of Google's OS. In spite of this fact, I saw a few errant behavior and sometimes bugginess. For example, the X1 is random refuse to sync with our usual test Google account. App also installs an unexpected crash or hang indefinitely without explanation. We do not have any previous experience with Nuu products, so we can not talk to an upgraded track record. If you want Android 5.0, Motorola or stay Nexus device.
16GB of internal storage, 12.75GB is available to users outside of the box. That is pretty generous for the price range, and there is also a microSD card slot that worked fine with 64GB card.
On a battery rundown test, in which we streamed a video on YouTube over HSPA with screen brightness set to max, the X1 take a respectable 5 hours, 17 minutes. The latest Moto G only managed 2 hours, 26 minutes in the same test.