The Motorola Moto X Pure Edition has a long, silly name. But it’s a phone you should take seriously. Starting at $400 off carrier contract, it's one of the year’s best smartphone bargains, packed with high-end features that belie its mid-range price.

It has almost everything I’d want from a smartphone these days: top-notch build quality, a gorgeous display, some of the quickest charging I’ve seen on a phone, gobs of speed and fantastic software in Motorola’s nearly stock take on Android. There are of course some tradeoffs,...