Exploring the New Moto Hello UI: Features, Changes, and What It Means for Older Motorola Phones

Exploring the New Moto Hello UI: Features, Changes, and What It Means for Older Motorola Phones

So, I recently reviewed the new Moto H50 Fusion, and that was my first experience with the new Moto Hello UI. To my surprise, this is actually a big update with a lot of good changes, and it definitely sounds better than my ex, My UX. But along with the big changes in the new Hello UI, there are some big misses as well. If you are wondering if you’ll get this Hello UI on your older Motorola phone, Motorola has answered. So, without any further ado, let’s start with the big changes.

Startup Screen & Setup

Hello Moto! So, the first big change I noticed when I turned on the H50 Fusion is this new startup screen with better-looking animations. No more “Hello Moto.” Hey, that was personal; come on! Anyway, it’s not just this—the new startup screen. The whole setup process is different here as well. Hello UI brings the new Android phone transfer tool, which I did not see in the H4 Neo with My UX. Apart from that, I noticed newer animations everywhere—be it the loading screens, the page which lets you set up the fingerprints, or even when you’re adding the fingerprint. The page is way more modern-looking now. Now, Hello UI, just like My UX, recommends some apps like Adobe Scan, LinkedIn, and MotoHub, which is basically an ADW recommendations app. There’s no option to untick these, so not very Hello. The whole setup process is part of the new control center.

New Control Center

The hype around the Moto Hello UI has been centered around the new MIAG control center, which is like the iOS control center. But surprisingly, by default, the H50 Fusion has the usual notification center with quick settings on the same page. And this too is different. It has this translucent vibe to it, and I think it looks cool—better than the stock Android with its all-black shade. Now, as for the new control center, you get this option to enable it, and this basically brings the quick settings to the right side and notifications to the left. Yeah, it’s very similar to the MIUI and iOS train. Now, I like a few things about it, like the media controls here, the auto brightness toggle here, which I missed like crazy in the usual quick settings. I just wish Google brings this to stock Android. Also, by default, this only shows icons, which is kind of confusing, but you can enable labels for better clarity. And yeah, you get these animations on icons, again similar to MIUI and iOS.

New Customization Features

Now, Moto’s Hello UI brings a number of new customization options. See, on the older My UX, pressing and holding on the home screen brings you all these options. On the Hello UI, you get this new panel with these five themes. These basically change the wallpaper and the icon shape, but yeah, it’s a cool addition. There’s also fonts right next to these themes. Now, you can turn off this panel with this option, but I like it. It has a nice animation to it and looks cool. Down here, you have the widgets option and the personalized option, and most of these things remain the same. I mean, you get the usual Moto widgets, and I thought some of these were new, like this adaptive clock widget that shows you more details when you stretch it. But I checked on the H14 Neo, and it had these widgets too, so maybe this is coming to older Moto phones with an update. But wait a minute—older Moto phones and an update? Good luck! So, maybe they’ve just been here for quite some time. If you have an older Moto phone, just check if you have these widgets.

Lockscreen Features

Anyway, that’s not all. Hello UI also brings some new lock screen features. So, you get these three clock faces to choose from, and there are different fonts and colors that you can change as well. One of these clock styles even has widget support—similar to, wait for it, Nothing UI this time, I mean iOS. You can also change the notification style on the lock screen, and you can choose the left and right shortcuts too. Other skins have had it, but yeah, it’s handy here as well. There are also some changes to the app drawer. For example, it remains white no matter which theme you use. It does not follow the Material You design language, and I’m fine with it. I also noticed some tweaked icons—not a lot, but yeah, these icons have changed. Not many people know that Moto UI has had folder support in the app drawer, but now Moto has these Google and Moto folders enabled by default for less clutter, I guess.

New Wallpaper Features

Then, there are also wallpaper features. Now, when you choose a photo from your gallery as the wallpaper, you get these animate options, but these were present before too. What’s new is the stylized feature, which brings these different effects like this one or this one. You also get the new AI Wallpaper Maker in Hello UI, which lets you take your photo and create a wallpaper depending on the clothes you’re wearing to match you and your phone.

UI Updates

I mean, is this bad, or am I not artsy enough? The one common theme that I noticed in the new Hello UI is that every single app, every single settings page, has been kind of revamped and tweaked for a more modern look. To give you a few examples, the colors page in the display has more options now, and you get this dial to adjust the color temperature. The “About Phone” page looks way better. I mean, the older one was just bland. The system updates page has also changed. Hope we’ll get updates now. Honestly, it looks way better with better animations, and I can just hope we see some updates coming. Now, the Dolby Atmos app looks a bit different, as you can see, and it has a spatial audio option. It works with the new Moto buds, and this is still missing on the H14 Neo. The Moto app has been updated too. I mean, it has the same features and tools, but the pages for almost every single feature have been revamped with more attractive images—more high-quality images—which does make the UI look more appealing. Also, remember the super useful Ready For feature in Motorola phones that lets you connect your phone to your TV, your PC, your monitor? Well, it’s now called Smart Connect, and it still has all the features. I mean, there are things like smart clipboard, which is very, very useful, or you know, the ability to stream apps from your phone to your PC. Yeah, there’s all the features, and it still remains super handy.

The Big Misses

Now, I said some big changes, but I also talked about some big misses, right? Well, number one is the fact that there’s still no always-on display. I mean, remember older Moto phones used to have this peak display feature, which was like AOD but still not proper AOD? Well, with all the Moto phones coming with some good OLED panels, no AOD is just not cool. Also, there’s still no native app lock, no dual apps, or clone apps feature. I mean, these are features people have been wanting for years now, so I really hope Motorola brings them in the next update.

The Big Question

Now, coming to the big question, and this is a question that I’ve been getting a lot: will older Moto phones get the new revamped Hello UI? So, I asked Motorola, and they responded. I quote, “All motor devices will move to Hello UI.” So, maybe this means what I think it means—all motor devices that are scheduled to get major updates will probably move to Hello UI. But I’m also skeptical because a lot of budget Moto phones that I’ve launched recently have come with Android 14 but not Hello UI. So, yeah, it’s all a little confusing right now, but I think we’ll get more info, and I’ll keep you guys updated.

Conclusion

See, this whole confusion apart, there’s also the debate around updates, and Motorola is promising timely updates now. But I think we’ll only get a clear idea once Android 15 releases later this year. But if you ask me about the new Hello UI, I like the changes Motorola has made. You know, there’s a fine line between stock Android and a full-blown custom skin. This is stock Android with some good changes. Previously, with My UX, we used to like the fact that Motorola kept things simple—very stock Android. But every single non-stock Android UI element looked a bit out of place. Hello UI, on the other hand, just has more personality everywhere. This still feels like stock Android, but we finally have some Motorola touches to it, and honestly, it’s nice. Anyway, I want to know your thoughts on the new Hello UI on Motorola phones. Comment down below.

 

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