Across at the XDA Forums, a small development team have successfully ported Android Nougat to the original Motorola Moto X. The new ROM is based on CyanogenMod 14 but at the time of writing is an alpha build, which means it is almost certainly not a suitable daily driver ROM for a device you rely on every day, especially if you make and receive calls using your ‘phone! However, the list of working features is much longer than the list of what still needs works. Currently, the original Moto X will boot and can make calls, SMS messages and use both the modem for cellular data and the Wi-Fi radio. Bluetooth is functional, the camera and flash are working and the developers report that “sensors” are also implemented. Unfortunately, video recording doesn’t work use the official camera application and nor does the microphone: these are still on the list of things to be fixed. Obviously, with a disabled microphone the Moto X is not as fully functional as it should be, but as the developers state: this is an Alpha pre-release version of the software.
As to how well the Moto X runs Android Nougat, the device was originally released in the summer of 2013 and is based around a relatively compact 4.7-inch 720p AMOLED panel. There’s a customized version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro, called the Moto X8, which incorporates a dual core, 1.7 GHz application processor, a quad core GPU and two additional low power context-aware cores designed to enable some of the Moto X’s software features. The Moto X is the first Android device to feature voice control from anywhere in the operating system, including when the device is locked down, thanks to the low power always-listening core. It can also determine if the handset is in a moving vehicle and either mute notifications or ask if the user is driving with a recommendation to stop using it! The Moto X8 is backed up by 2GB of RAM with at least 16GB of local storage and the device comes with a three microphone array, a 10MP rear camera, 4G LTE and a 2,200mAh battery. It was originally released running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean but was subsequently updated to Android 5.1 Lollipop. And according to contributors over at the XDA forum post, the device runs CyanogenMod 14 very well, reporting that it is very smooth running Nougat.