Motorla has officially confirmed the Moto X smartphone with the company’s chief executive, Dennis Woodside, naming the handset at the D11 conference and revealing it would be manufactured in the US.
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Previously the phone has been rumoured under a number of names, internally it was thought to be called project ‘Ghost’, while many leaks have mentioned the Motorola X, Motorola X Phone and Nexus X, amongst others.
But, now we have the real name. What we don’t have yet, however, is any kind of confirmation that the handset will be available outside of the US.
Reports Stateside are making a big deal out of the fact that the Moto X will be manufactured within the US using an old Nokia factory in Texas.
Certainly that’s a positive thing for the US economy, particularly if the device sells well, but while Woodside stated the Moto X would be ‘broadly distributed’ there wasn’t any clarification on whether that means broadly distributed amongst US carriers or broadly distributed globally.
Previous rumours have mentioned the handset would be available with all US networks and there wouldn’t appear to be any of the usual network exclusives (with the possible exception of colour variants, we suppose).
There is a ray of hope in the fact that Woodside did mention the Moto X is intended to go head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy S4, something which, in our view, can only be properly achieved with a global rollout. Sure, the US market is big, but to really bring down the iPhone and Galaxy S4, you've got to go global.
Reassuringly, we might find the Moto X priced fairly low, as Woodside also hinted that the company might follow Google’s approach to the Nexus 4 in delivering a high spec at an affordable price point.
In terms of specs and features, Motorola’s CEO mentioned the Moto X will have an OLED touch display and would be ‘contextually aware’.
He further expanded on this last point by stating the phone would be able to tell if you’re in a car, whether it’s in your pocket or your hand and if you’re about to take a picture.
Quite how it can achieve all this eludes us at present but it’s all sounding very Minority Report, though admittedly very much in-line with Google Now and Google’s generally terrifying, info-harvesting mega-system of services and software.
Sometimes we wonder if Google and Motorola are actually trying to build Skynet.
Woodside also indicated battery life and the phone’s durability would be robust, previous rumours have suggested Sapphire Glass and while he didn’t mention this tech specifically it hasn’t yet been ruled out.
On the subject of batteries, Motorola has impressed in this area before with its Razr Maxx devices so we’ve little doubt it can deliver again.
On the subject of a launch date, as you might expect nothing specific has been given but Woodside dropped a big old hint by saying the company’s brand new product line will be launched between now and October.
This product line will allegedly only comprise a handful of models rather than the much wider-ranging portfolios the company has produced historically.
You can expect the Moto X to be the flagship device, probably meaning it'll be launched first to spearhead the range. With that in mind we think we could be looking at a launch over the Summer.
Certainly the phone is already in a usable state as Woodside even said he had one in his pocket at D11, though he didn't show it to onlookers.
We’ll bring you more as we hear it.
by pbriden via Featured Articles
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