Good Deal on a Good Phone: Moto X Pure 32GB $299

I've chatted up cell phone stuff around here before so I figured I would share this.

My wife came home with water damage to her iPhone5.
I've got it in a bag of rice..we'll see. This started a discussion of "what if" and then "what phone." I was quick to comment to her that if I was buying a phone it would be a Moto X Pure. I knew that the 16GB version had recently gone down from $399 to $349. I pulled up the website to show her. While on the site I saw a link at the bottom for "Limited Time Offers"

Moto's price structure:
16GB $399 now $349
32GB $449 now $399
At these prices you can customize colors and textures (some at additional charge.)

Moto also had a "Designer Series' by Jonathon Adler (whoever he is.) These were 3 "designer" back covers. This series were all 32GB and priced originally at $474 (or $50 more than the non "designer series" with 32GB)
I don't care about fashion and I suspect that most Moto buyers did not either because Moto has now lowered these 3 "designer" handsets to $299 or $50 cheaper than the non-designer versions.

The only thing that makes the designer series different is the rear case color. The humor for me in that is that I will slip the phone into a protective case so I'll never see the "designer" portion anyway.

Front is white/silver:

This is a really big handset. Similar size to Samsung Note and iPhone 6s. Good for easy reading and easier functions but also large in your pocket...so you'll be happy to see people

At $299 this is a direct purchase from Moto so this is an unlocked handset that is designed to work with all carriers and sub-carriers.
I'll be using this with VZ $45 Prepaid but you can use it with all the prepaid companies and all the postpaid offers right out of the box.

Has great specs of:
1.8GB processor
3GB RAM
21MP Camera
4K video
32 GB of storage and Micro SD expandable to another 128GB

Sale Website

Full Website

I bought the blue version for myself and my wife chose the semi-circle version.

What the trades are saying

Good deal! The Moto G is considered a good deal at $220 and this a heck of a lot more phone.

I've had one for a while (typing this on it now, actually) and have been very happy with it. Beware though,the screen is very fragile due to it extending all the way into the corners. I've had to replace mine twice after minor drops shattered the thing to the point of unusability. Fortunately, it's easy to do, and Motorola was kind enough to at least use one screw size throughout, but a case is definitely recommended.

How's the update frequency on these phones? Do you have Marshmallow yet? I'm probably getting a Nexus for my next phone, but I've always liked the Moto X line because they have almost-stock Android, as well, but with some nice features added on, and Moto has top-notch build quality, IMO.

Moto X Pure started receiving Mashmellow 6.0 back in Dec.

Motorola is good about updates. Typing from my moto x pure. Great higher spec phone for mid range cost.

JohnRW1621 wrote: Moto X Pure started receiving Mashmellow 6.0 back in Dec.

Well, my Verizon Galaxy Note 4 still doesn't have it, and my wife's GS6 only got it a few weeks ago, so that sounds pretty good to me.