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I'll admit that I was torn about purchasing the MOTOACTV after reading the reviews on Amazon, but I finally decided to purchase this product a few days ago and I'm glad I did. As an alternative to some of the detailed, product-specific reviews, I thought it might be helpful to walk through my purchase decision:
It is clear that Motorola identified an unmet market need with this product: a small, fitness-specific GPS device with a built-in MP3 player. That was exactly the feature set that I had been searching for. The alternatives on the market fell short for different reasons:
iPod Nano, 7th generation: GOOD: small, clip + watch + armband options, music, Nike+ app; BAD: No GPS
Nike+ Sportwatch, Garmin Watches: GOOD: GPS, small; BAD: No music, watch only
Smartphone apps (e.g. Runkeeper, Endomondo, MapMyRun, Nike+): GOOD: GPS, cheap or free, most offer music; BAD: requires bulky smartphone, varying quality software
Despite having a feature set that separated it from these alternatives, the MOTOACTV is a first-generation device supported by first-generation cloud-based fitness tracking software. As a result, the device shipped with key flaws, not the least of which was poor battery life and inaccurate GPS accuracy. These types of issues should have been fixed before this product hit the market, but my guess is these flaws were a result of the product team being pushed to get the product out before the holiday shopping season. The nice thing is that in this day and age, the concept of "rapid prototyping" is all the rage. It's now okay to ship a half-baked product, solicit tons of input from early adopting customers, and offer frequent firmware updates to fix major and minor flaws.
Which brings me to the reason I purchased this product: I knew the MOTOACTV v1 would not be a flawless device but it had the features I wanted at a price (on Amazon) that I thought was reasonable. I debated waiting until v2, but I decided to buy this model because I recognized that most of the flaws could be fixed with firmware updates and Motorola appears committed to listening to users and releasing frequent updates. They have already released multiple firmware updates over the past few months (with a preference for the 8GB model, so be wary of the 16GB), including one just before I bought it that fixed the battery life issues. Since battery life was one of the primary complaints from early users, it was essential that they corrected that issue. In addition, they have a forum manager named Matt who is trolling all of the comments on this site and others and is frequently responding directly to customers. I appreciate that, even if he can't fix every issue.
In sum, this is not a perfect product, but I love the combination of features and the fact that it's getting better with each firmware update. Using the MOTOACTV is SOOO much better than lugging around my bulky mobile phone on long runs! As long as Motorola continues the level of support that they have shown during the first few months of this product's life cycle, I would definitely recommend purchasing this device.
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January 14, 2012 Update
I've been running with the MOTOACTV for over two weeks and have logged ~80 miles with it. Overall, I am extremely satisfied with the device itself. The website that stores workout data and other features, on the other hand, is decent but needs additional focus. For instance, the site does not integrate "planned" and "actual" workouts into the same calendar interface. That's a clear miss that I imagine most customers would want.
As I mentioned in my review above, this is a v1 website and thus I would not expect it to be perfect. Motorola appears committed to listening to customers and rapidly updating the product, so I trust that they are working behind the scenes to improve the online experience. At this point, I'd give the entire MOTOACTV ecosystem (device + website) 4.5 stars. Because I care more about the device than the website, however, I left my rating at 5 stars.
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August 25, 2013 Update
Downgraded to three stars since Motorola discontinued the product and is no longer committed to improvement as they were when I wrote the initial review. Unfortunate because this could have been a great product.
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