Though I had my doubts at the time that this deal was announced, it now seems that Motorola’s handset business is now owned by Lenovo. Here’s a snippet from an announcement that was posted today:
In Lenovo we have a partner that shares our mission and that brings global scale, a diverse product portfolio and a track record of seizing strategic opportunities and making the most of them. Together we will go farther, faster. With an impressive portfolio of smartphones, wearables and PCs, our two companies will be uniquely positioned to push the boundaries of choice and value, and bring exciting new experiences to people everywhere.
That may be true. Consider the following:
Lenovo also gains access to the North American smartphone market. That’s good for them. Though it also means that they will have a ton of competition to deal with.
Motorola gets access to Asia. That will help to sell more phones.
The title sounds like hyperbole, but it isn’t. Motorola’s new Droid Turbo is going to get a lot of attention from smartphone buyers for a variety of reasons:
The Droid Turbo claims to have an astonishing 48 hours of battery life. Plus you get a rapid (“Turbo”) charger that promises to give you eight hours of battery life after just 15 minutes of charging. It also has wireless charging.
The 5.2″ screen has 565 pixels per inch. That’s 31% more than the similarly sized Galaxy S5 and 41% sharper than the bigger iPhone 6 Plus.
32GB or 64GB of storage out of the box.
21 Megapixel Camera
The fastest Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor in existence.
Right now it’s on Verizon in the US exclusively. But one can hope that it makes an appearance in other countries as this is clearly the Droid that you’ve been looking for.
I got e-mails from Rogers and Telus announcing that they’re carrying some new phones.
First Rogers. The Android based HTC Desire 510 launched today at both Rogers & Fido. The device is available for $0 on select two-year Share Everything plans with Rogers and $0 with a 2-year Tab24 agreement on a Smart plan with Fido. The device is available in grey and white – white is a Rogers/Fido exclusive. Driven by a quad-core processor for the LTE network, the HTC Desire™ 510 displays rich graphics on a 4.7″ display, juggles between multiple apps, and provides the smooth gaming of a premium smartphone.
Over at Telus the new Moto X will available in black at TELUS for $100 with a two-year SharePlus plan or $600 outright. The Moto X in bamboo finish as well as the Moto 360 smart watch will be available at TELUS on October 31. The Moto X will be sure to have friends burning with phone envy. From the phone’s stylish design, lightning fast performance, stellar voice activation powered by Google to the 13 MP camera, the Moto X has it all at an affordable price point.
I’ve asked for loaners of both phones. When I get them, expect a review or two to be posted.
First up is the new Moto X with a bigger, sharper screen, a faster processor and improved build materials. Here’s what it has under the hood:
5.2-inch Full HD 1080p Super AMOLED panel
2.5Ghz quad-core processor
2GB of RAM
16GB of internal storage
13MP rear camera with dual LED flash
4K video capture
2,300mAh battery
Android 4.4.4 KitKat
Option for a bamboo back case
These specs build on the original Moto X which was ground breaking at the time.
The second was the Moto 360 smart watch. Promising “all day” battery life, the Moto 360 can pair with any smartphone running Android 4.3 or higher. Users can then receive notifications about weather, flight alerts, traffic, and more through Android Wear. The device also includes built-in Google Now functionality, as users can say “Ok Google” to send texts, set reminders, see directions, and more. Existing Android apps such as Facebook Messenger and Lyft also work with Moto 360.
Telus has already reached out to me to say that they’ll be carrying both products. The Moto X will be available in black and bamboo . The Moto 360 will retail for $279. As I hear what plans that other Canadian carriers have, I’ll post it here.
Motorola seems to own the low end of the smartphone space with phones that don’t seem low end. Exhibit “A” is the Moto G which when I reviewed it last year, I thought it was a great smartphone. Sure it lacked LTE connectivity and there was no Micro SD slot to expand the memory, but the majority of people who were the target audience didn’t care.
So, if you compare these specs haven’t changed that much with the exception of LTE connectivity and the Micro SD slot which allows you to add another 32GB of storage space. Externally the phone is the same as well. It’s still slightly bigger than an iPhone 5/5S but it’s still easy to hold. The rubberized back plate makes sure you have a good grip on the phone. I should note that you can get the back in different colours so that you can make the phone reflect your personality. Though, just like the original Moto G you’ll have a tough time removing the back. Even though you can remove the back, you still can’t remove the battery. Another thing that hasn’t changed is the screen. It’s still bright and sharp and is truly the star of show. It is a 1280 x 720 display with a 329ppi pixel density. To put that in perspective, it’s a bigger, higher resolution, more defined display than the iPhone 5S. Pretty impressive for a phone that is designed to be basic. It feels solid just like the original Moto G and it is still running a largely stock version of Android. This time in KitKat form. The only tweaks are as follows:
Motorola Protect which acts like Apple’s Find My iPhone. You can remotely locate the phone, lock the screen, change passwords and more.
Motorola Assist which is like Apple’s Do Not Disturb feature. It silences your phone either when you’re sleeping (after you set that up of course) or when you’re in a meeting. The latter it figures out by itself if you use Google Calendar. There’s also a handy auto-reply feature.
Finally, there’s Motorola Migrate, which helps transfer data from your old phone over to the Moto G. But only if you have another Android device.
Now one big change is the move to LTE from HSPA+. When I tested it on the Rogers network, I got an average of 40.15 Mbps downstream and 7.79 Mbps upstream. That’s quick!
Back to what hasn’t changed and that’s the camera. It’s the same 5 MP shooter that the Moto G had with the same user interface from the It has the same interface as the Moto X and Moto G. Swipe from the right of the screen and you can browse the pictures you’ve taken. Zooming in and out is a one finger operation. Place you finger in the middle of the screen and swipe up and you zoom in. Swipe down and you zoom out. It has the ability to automatically turn on HDR automatically which may be handy for those who want to make sure that they get the perfect shot. Since we’re talking about pictures, that means that it was time to take a trip to Pearson Airport to photograph some planes. This time to take pictures of planes taking off. Here’s a shot of a plane getting ready to take off. Click it to see it at full size:
That’s pretty good from a phone that’s supposed to be a budget phone. And here’s a 720p video of the same plane taking off. Set it to full screen and 720p resolution:
You’ll notice the wind noise overwhelming the microphone. But it does pick up sound pretty well and the video is pretty good… Other than the wind making it difficult to hold the camera straight. That illustrates the lack of image stability. But this is a budget phone and you’ll have to cut it some slack.
Battery life wasn’t affected with the addition of LTE. I fully expect you to go beyond a day of usage before needing a recharge. Again, this is something that you don’t expect from a budget phone.
Speaking budget, if you sign up for a two year plan, you can get it for $0. Alternately it’s $224.99 outright. That is beyond affordable for those wanting to either buy their first smartphone, a parent who wants to get their child a phone, or someone who needs a low cost phone. Motorola has addressed what was missing with the original Moto G and you truly have no excuse not to put the Moto G LTE on your shopping list. You will not regret it.
The deal ends Google’s short-lived foray into making consumer mobile devices and marks a pullback from its largest-ever acquisition. Google paid $12.5 billion for Motorola in 2012. Under this deal the search giant will keep the majority of Motorola’s mobile patents, considered its prize assets.
Shares in Google climbed 2.2 percent to about $1,131 in after-hours trading. Reuters reported the deal earlier on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the deal.
The purchase will give Lenovo a beach-head to compete against Apple and Samsung Electronics as well as increasingly aggressive Chinese smartphone makers in the highly lucrative U.S. arena.
Now, what’s interesting is this from the Google Blog:
Google will retain the vast majority of Motorola’s patents, which we will continue to use to defend the entire Android ecosystem.
So this is simply about the ability to make phones. Interesting. This deal still has to be approved in the US and China. The former might be an issue given the mistrust of China and Chinese companies that’s floating around at the moment. But we will see.
Posted in Products with tags Motorola on December 9, 2013 by itnerd
Not everyone wants a Samsung Galaxy S4 or a iPhone 5S. Some people just want a basic phone that does what they need it to do and nothing fancy. Motorola has recognized that and come up with the Moto G to fill that need. It’s an exclusive with Telus and Koodo Mobile and they are both the first to have the phone in North America. Now let me hit the specs up front so that you can see how Motorola defines basic:
Android OS 4.3 Jelly Bean
1.2Ghz quad-core processor
1GB of RAM
4.5-inch display (1280 x 720 resolution)
5MP camera with a 1.3MP front-facing camera
8GB of internal storage
HSPA+, WiFi, Bluetooth
So, that’s pretty basic. But it works. Here’s why.
First it is slightly bigger than an iPhone 5/5S and it is easy to hold. The rubberized back plate makes sure you have a good grip on the phone. I should also note that you can get the back in different colours so that you can make the phone reflect your personality. Though you’ll have a tough time removing the back. I broke a nail doing it so that I could get the SIM card in. Another observation, the battery is NOT removable even though the back is and there is no MicroSD slot. If you want additional storage beyond the 8GB (of which just of 5GB is free) it comes with, the cloud is your only option. The Moto G has a water repellent coating which means you’ll be able to whip it out in the rain without fear of killing it. But it is not waterproof. The screen is bright and sharp and is truly the star of show. The reason being is that it is a 1280 x 720 display with a 329ppi pixel density. To put that in perspective, it’s a bigger, higher resolution, more defined display than the iPhone 5S. Pretty impressive for a phone that is designed to be basic. I should also note that the phone is light and feels very solid. So it’s clear that Motorola didn’t cheap out when it came to the construction of the phone.
The phone actually felt very quick and I think it could easily compete with the higher priced Galaxy S4. Again, that’s says a lot for a basic phone. However, since this phone is only HSPA+ and not LTE, it’s not going to be quick surfing the net. Using Speedtest.net, I got an average of 2.45 Mbps downstream and 2.80 Mbps upstream. Those who are the target market for this phone will not care. It comes with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, and it’s pretty stock. No cool customizations as is the case with Sony or Samsung. But I have no issue with that as it doesn’t interfere the ability to use the phone. Plus again, the target market for this phone will not care. It also comes with some extra features:
Motorola Protect which acts like Apple’s Find My iPhone. You can remotely locate the phone, lock the screen, change passwords and more.
Motorola Assist which is like Apple’s Do Not Disturb feature. It silences your phone either when you’re sleeping (after you set that up of course) or when you’re in a meeting. The latter it figures out by itself if you use Google Calendar. There’s also a handy auto-reply feature.
Finally, there’s Motorola Migrate, which helps transfer data from your old phone over to the Moto G. But only if you have another Android device.
Now when it comes to the camera, it’s basic at 5MP. It has the same interface as the Moto X which makes it easy to use. Swipe from the left of the screen and you get all the controls that control the camera. Swipe from the right of the screen and you can browse the pictures you’ve taken. Zooming in and out is a one finger operation. Place you finger in the middle of the screen and swipe up and you zoom in. Swipe down and you zoom out. It has the ability to automatically turn on HDR automatically which may be handy for those who want to make sure that they get the perfect shot. But you cannot control things like white balance or ISO. It’s also on the slow side to take pictures if you are someone who likes to take rapid fire shots. In short, this camera is best aimed at the point-and-shoot crowd. So what do pictures look like from this camera? Let’s find out by going to Pearson International Airport and taking some shots of planes landing. Click the picture to see it at full size:
For a 5MP camera, it’s actually quite good. It’s sharp and there’s nothing here that I can complain about. So, how about the video? It shoots 720p video and actually doesn’t do a half bad job. Though the video does seem slightly blurry to me. Take a look at the sample below and set it to full screen and 720p resolution:
One thing to point out. With the lack of storage, you’re not going to be shooting a lot of pictures and videos.
Now on to battery life. If the screen is the star of the show. Battery life is the co-star. You will get well beyond a day of usage. When I used it as my daily phone, I found that I could over get a day and a half on a single charge with heavy usage. That’s very impressive.
So what is this phone going to cost you? At Telus, it’s going to cost you $0 on a two year term or $200 outright. At Koodo it’s $0 on a tab or $150 outright. That is beyond affordable for those wanting to either buy their first smartphone, a parent who wants to get their child a phone, or someone who needs a low cost phone. Assuming of course you can look past the less than 8GB of storage and HSPA+ connectivity rather than LTE. If that’s you, you’d be insane not to look at this phone and it should truly be your only choice. Motorola has hit a home run with this phone and deserves to dominate this end of the marketplace.
Motorola is owned by Google, and you knew that sooner or later that the combination of these companies would produce a smartphone to get your attention. The Moto X provided to me by Rogers (which has an exclusive on this phone by the way) is the phone in question. Will it get your attention? Let’s find out.
From a construction standpoint, it’s thin, light, and also easy to hold. It also fits decently in your pocket as long as you don’t wear pants that are too tight. It comes in black (but it’s also available in white) and has a glossy screen with a matte back. The back hides fingerprints well as it’s built from a polycarbonate plastic that looks good. However the screen when off does not. However, when the screen is on it hides them well. Speaking of the screen, it’s a 5″ screen that’s bright and vibrant, but not quite as sharp as some of the phones that I’ve tested recently. It only displays at 720P which might explain why it isn’t as sharp. In terms of buttons, there’s a volume control and a power button on the right side.
The only thing that you can pop into the phone is the SIM card. There’s no other expandability. So the 16GB that it comes with will have to be carefully managed. It has a dual core processor running at 1.7 GHz. This makes the Moto X feel snappy. Anything I tried opened up quickly and never lagged. What really set this phone apart from every other phone I’ve tested this past week was the performance of the Moto X on the Rogers LTE network. I averaged 59 Mbps downstream and 25 Mbps upstream. That pretty much crushed any other phone I tested this year with the exception of the BlackBerry Z10 which was also on the Rogers network. Though I will admit that the Z10 was slower than the Moto X, but not that much slower. That validates why PCMag.com named Rogers the fastest wireless network in Canada. You also get the usual Bluetooth, NFC and WiFi connectivity as well.
The Moto X comes with Android 4.2.2 and Motorola hasn’t gone out of it’s way to make it overly unique in the way that many other companies like Sony and Samsung have. Though it does have one feature called Google Now which is Android’s answer to Apple’s Siri. It’s always live so you don’t need to press buttons to use it. You simply say ” OK Google Now” and then say what you want the phone to do. It only requires a short amount of time to train it and the results are pretty great even in noisy environments when it comes to voice recognition. That’s an advantage over Siri. The problem with Google Now is that it’s rather limited and inconsistent in what it can do. For example take this command:
“Directions to work”
What Siri does with this phrase is it open Apple Maps and gives me directions to work if I have a work address stored in my contact info. Google now simply Google’s the phrase. I then tried “directions to home” and it opened Google Maps and directed me to my home.
Weird.
Google Now also bills itself as being a hands free.
Well, not so much.
I tried to text message my wife as a test. The way that Google Now wants you to do it this way:
Say “OK Google Now”
Say “text 416-555-1234”
I had to then click the screen a couple of times to then be able to activate voice dictation.
I could then voice dictate “I’ll be late”
Click send
If I tried to say “text 416-555-1234, I’ll be late” it simply Googles that phrase. If I was using an iPhone 5, it would have sent a text message to that number. Now I am assuming that I haven’t mastered the method that Google Now wants me to use my voice to control the phone. Perhaps if I did, I would have achieved better results. But as it stands, I think Google Now would be likely best suited to quick text dictation and other simple tasks.
A couple of other things to mention. When you have a an email, a text, a missed call or whatever, a white alert icon blinks slowly on and off on the phone’s otherwise black screen. It does this at steady intervals, and its not so annoying that it would bug on your night stand as you sleep. It also lights up the second you pull your phone out of a pocket or purse. Nice! The Moto X has lock screen apps and it allows you to have widgets and shortcuts at your fingertips as soon as you’ve unlocked your phone. Another feature, if you twist your wrist twice, it activates the camera.
Speaking of the camera, I like the camera interface. Swipe from the left of the screen and you get all the controls that control the camera. Swipe from the right of the screen and you can browse the pictures you’ve taken. Zooming in and out is a one finger operation. Place you finger in the middle of the screen and swipe up and you zoom in. Swipe down and you zoom out. It has the ability to automatically turn on HDR automatically which may be handy for those who want to make sure that they get the perfect shot. But you cannot control things like white balance or ISO. In short, this camera is best aimed at the point-and-shoot crowd as opposed to those who want to control every aspect of their picture taking experience. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
The camera takes pictures at 10MP and does 1080P video. Good on paper, but let’s see how it performs at Pearson International Airport. Click the picture to see it at full resolution:
The picture was decent and clear. It should be noted that I used the Moto X’s ability to shoot video and take pictures at the same time. As for the video, here’s what the camera captured. Make sure you set it for full screen and 1080P:
One thing that I noted was there was a lot of auto focusing by the Moto X mostly at the start of the video before the plane enters the frame. The image also had a tendency to go dark for a second and then come back. I have no explanation for that.
Battery life was pretty good. I got just over a day on a charge which is pretty good and is what you want from a phone. Though you might see better results based if you’re a heavy user. The Moto X has a battery saver mode that if you enable it, it comes in when you drop to 15 percent charge. It disables background data use and also institutes aggressive screen dimming and time outs. That’s a welcome feature.
So what’s my bottom line? The Moto X is not a bad phone and is worth looking at if you’re in the market for an Android phone as it has some unique features that may appeal to you. It won’t wow you, but it is a very competent phone for the most part. It’s performance on Rogers LTE network will wow you though, and that may be all you need to put your credit card down for one. It’s $149.99 on a 2 year term or $549.99 at Rogers. Try one out and maybe you’ll be saying “Hello Moto”.
The big selling point of the Moto X is its hands free functionality. According to Motorola, other phones that don’t do this are “lazy.” Now that’s debatable, but Motorola is going to push the issue with a new ad. Take a look:
This ad is clearly a shot at both Apple and Samsung. It’s witty and I think it will get people’s attention.
Google is trying to make its purchase of Motorola worthwhile by announcing a smartphone to dominate the smartphone market. Dubbed the Moto X, it has these specs:
4.7-inch 720p AMOLED Display
Motorola X8 Computing System
Snapdragon S4 Pro processor, 1.7Ghz dual-core Krait CPU and quad-core Adreno 320 GPU.
2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage
10-megapixel rear camera
2,200mAh battery that has up to 24 hours of battery life
Touchless Control via Google Now integration. It has a dedicated processor that listens for voice commands while preserving battery life. This feature allows users to obtain weather information, directions, and more with hands-free controls.
Multiple customization options
Unique camera controls including a unique “Quick Capture” camera functionality. You open the camera app with a wrist flick. Once open, a picture can be snapped by touching anywhere on the screen.
This phone is coming late August or early September to all major US carriers for $199 on a two year contract.
Lenovo Purchase Of Motorola Now Official
Posted in Commentary with tags Lenovo, Motorola on October 30, 2014 by itnerdThough I had my doubts at the time that this deal was announced, it now seems that Motorola’s handset business is now owned by Lenovo. Here’s a snippet from an announcement that was posted today:
In Lenovo we have a partner that shares our mission and that brings global scale, a diverse product portfolio and a track record of seizing strategic opportunities and making the most of them. Together we will go farther, faster. With an impressive portfolio of smartphones, wearables and PCs, our two companies will be uniquely positioned to push the boundaries of choice and value, and bring exciting new experiences to people everywhere.
That may be true. Consider the following:
Here’s the problem. Google never made a dime with Motorola. Thus I wonder if Lenovo can do better. I guess we’ll see.
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