I'll admit that I didn't get the excitement about the Moto X when it launched. A so-called "Google phone" was something that people have speculated about since Google's purchase of Motorola closed last year. And yet, much of the breathless pre-release coverage (and several early reviews of the phone) seemed to treat the phone as special because Google was saying it was special, not because it was earth-shattering hardware in and of itself.

We're now about two weeks out from our first hands-on session with the phone. After living with it for a while, I get it—at least a little. There are still things about the phone that I don't understand, but I can see why people would walk into a store and walk out with the Moto X instead of a Galaxy S 4 or an HTC One or even an iPhone 5. It's the rare flagship Android handset that's greater than the sum of its specifications, even if in the end it's still just another Android phone with a couple useful extra features stacked on top.

But the Moto X doesn't need to melt anyone's face or sweep Samsung under the rug. The Moto X doesn't need to redefine the way we think about smartphones or show us Google's grand vision for Android's future. The Moto X just needs to reverse Motorola's decline, stop the bleeding, and show that Motorola and its parent company can put their heads together and put out a desirable smartphone.

Specs at a glance: Google/Motorola Moto X Screen 1280×720 4.7-inch (313 PPI) RGB AMOLED OS Android 4.2.2 CPU "Motorola X8 Computing System" (Dual-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 with co-processors) RAM 2GB GPU Qualcomm Adreno 320 Storage 16 or 32 GB NAND flash Networking 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, LTE (bands are variable depending on carrier) Ports Micro-USB, headphones Camera 10MP rear camera, 2MP front camera Size 5.09" × 2.57" × 0.22-0.41" (129.4 × 65.3 × 5.7-10.4 mm) Weight 4.59 oz. (130 g) Battery 2200 mAh Starting price $199 with two-year Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, or T-Mobile contract

Body and build quality

The short version: Finally, a flagship phone that feels great to hold. Where the Nexus 4, Galaxy S 4, HTC One, and others are all a little uncomfortable for one reason or another, the Moto X gives you a phone you can use one-handed, without ripping out all of the desirable features.

The long version: There are a few phones I've used—the HTC 8X, the BlackBerry Z10—that have earned my esteem specifically because they are really nice to hold. Both Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 are still missing too many things for me to use either of those devices as a primary real-life handset for longer than a week or two (the amount of time I like to spend with review hardware, at a minimum), but in both cases I wished I could get phones exactly like them with stock Android installed instead. The Moto X comes very close to being that phone.

The Moto X's 4.7-inch screen belies its size—the phone is actually very similar in width to the Z10 and the HTC 8X, even though those phones have smaller 4.2 and 4.3-inch displays. Compared to other Android phones with similar screens like the 4.65-inch display of the Galaxy Nexus, the 4.7-inch screens of last year's Droid Razr HD phones, or the 4.8-inch screen on the Galaxy S III, the Moto X is both narrower and shorter. It's still larger than an iPhone 5 by a fair margin, and it's thicker than some of its high-end Android competitors (0.41 inches at its thickest point, compared to 0.36 inches for the S 4 and 0.37 for the HTC One). Still, the phone's width and height combined with the curve of its non-removable back makes it one of the most comfortable-to-hold Android flagships you can buy right now.

Of the competing flagship phones, the One and its 4.7-inch 1080p display come the closest to matching the width of the Moto X (at 2.69 inches, compared to 2.57 inches), but the One's height and its top-mounted power button are less-than-friendly to one-handed users. Some Android phone screens are creeping up above six inches, and frankly it's nice to get something fast that doesn't include a warning about team lifting.

The build quality of the phone's all-plastic body is decent but not exceptional. It feels sturdy in the hand and doesn't creak or flex like Samsung's phones can, but small imperfections keep it from playing in the same league as the HTC One or iPhone 5. The power and volume buttons feel just a bit too loose, the SIM card tray sticks out from the side of the phone just a bit too much, and the phone (at least in white, the color of our review unit) looks cheaper than it feels.

The difference between the Moto X and something like the HTC One is akin to the difference between the old white polycarbonate MacBook and the aluminum unibody MacBook Pros. Both feel like solid, well-made devices, but one is definitely made from superior materials.

The screen: Not all AMOLEDs are created equal

The short version: You'll notice the Moto X's AMOLED display before you'll notice its 720p resolution. At least it isn't PenTile.

The long version: That 4.7-inch screen has a resolution of 1280×720, a spec that was much more common in flagship phones a year ago. The screen has a still-respectable 313 PPI, which pales in comparison to the 469 PPI of the One or the 441 PPI of the Galaxy S 4 but is nevertheless crisp and readable. The difference between a 720p smartphone screen and a 1080p smartphone screen is not the legibility of tiny text, but the crispness of that tiny text. By the time letters are too small to discern on the 720p display, you're going to want to zoom in for a closer look anyway. We'll use some pictures from our look at HTC's Droid DNA, the first 1080p smartphone screen we encountered, to demonstrate.

The display's quality is ultimately more germane to this discussion than its resolution. The Moto X uses an AMOLED display, which suffers and benefits from most of the same things that most other AMOLED displays suffer and benefit from. On the one hand, the screen offers deep blacks and vibrant colors; on the other, those colors are inaccurate and sometimes too harsh. Whites and grays often take on a greenish or purplish cast. Outdoor visibility also suffers, and the Moto X's display looks washed out, even in indirect sunlight.

Where the Moto X differs from phones like the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S III is that its AMOLED screen doesn't use the problematic PenTile subpixel arrangement. The negative effects of PenTile are more visible at lower resolutions (and are basically gone once you move to a 1080p display like the Galaxy S 4's), but even at 720p you may notice slightly jagged text and uneven-looking images (see below).

The non-PenTile screen on the Moto X enables crisper text and more even colors. Note particularly the flat, uninterrupted white of the Google Play icon that looks almost rough on the Galaxy S III's PenTile display. At 306 PPI, the S III's screen is pretty close to the Moto X's in density, but the subpixel arrangement makes for a screen that's a little harder on the eyes after an extended period.

As with the build quality, the Moto X's screen is a little deficient compared to phones from other companies at the same price point. Still, Motorola and Google have chosen a screen that is good enough that Joe Smartphone probably won't be bothered by it. I would like to see more AMOLED displays come with color profiles like those included on the TouchWiz versions of the Galaxy S 4—research has shown that using that phone's display in Samsung's Movie or Photo modes will take the edge off of AMOLED's harsh colors, eliminating one of my biggest gripes about the display tech. Neither stock Android nor the near-stock version of Android on the Moto X includes such profiles, a situation we'd like Google to rectify.