Google and Motorola co-developing "X Phone"

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Medion

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Moto X confirmed for late summer release, multiple products launched between late summer through October (Thanks T4rd):

Moto X confirmed by Motorola XEO Dennis Woodside at All Things D on May 29th.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57...hone-is-real-and-will-be-launched-by-october/

Confirmation:
Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside...let the world know that the company will be launching the rumored Moto X smartphone sometime between now and October. In fact, the entire product line of Motorola smartphones will be revamped,
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Contextual awareness:
Woodside wouldn't show the Moto X, which he said was in his pocket, but said it was contextually aware of what's going on around it. It can fire up the camera when he takes it out his pocket (he didn't explain how), and it will act differently if you are driving 60 miles an hour in a car.
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Multiple processors:
A phone that persistently understands changes has an impact on battery life. "Motorola has come up with two processors that allow you to do those things" that won't destroy battery life, Woodside said.
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On Google's involvement:
Woodside addressed how much Google is involved in Motorola's business. He said it is supported by parts of Google, such as finance and legal, but Android is completely independent and Motorola is managed like any other partner. "We are treated as a separate company," he said.
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Moto X for Verizon? Moto XT1060

AT&T/GSM Model? Moto XT1058

Sprint Model? Moto XT1056

4.7" quad-core model? Moto XT1055
 
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January 2013 rumor mill:

  • Motorola X Phone will be announced at Google I/O in May.
  • Current target for release is July 8
  • All carriers will sell the X Phone.
  • Verizon will sell it for $299 on contract.
  • All versions will also be sold through the Google Play store at similar off-contract price to Nexus line.
  • If you want to unlock the bootloader through Verizon, they will charge a $15/month fee.
  • If you buy it through Google Play, it comes unlocked with no fee.
  • Not a “Nexus” but will come running stock Android and with some bloatware.
  • Bloatware can apparently be removed once unlocked. (no shit)
 
My original speculation, removed from first post;

I've said it before and I will say it again - Motorola's build quality with someone else (ANYONE else) doing the updates would be my dream phone. Moto does seem to be turning the corner here lately though in terms of software updates, but I'm not at the point where I trust them, yet.

And you all know that I love to speculate on specs, so here's my line of thinking. Samsung doesn't like to sell their Exynos tech to competing products, so that rules out Exynos 5 (some Chinese phones got Exynos 4 late in the game though). OMAP5 isn't ready and may not be released anyway, so scrap Moto's usual SOC of choice. Motorola usually skips on Qualcomm chips and I'd rather personally avoid Snapdragon, but with OMAP out of the picture I can't rule it out. But given the timing, I suspect that Tegra 4 will be the design choice winner here. Consider Sony's Novathor to be a dark horse candidate here as they're pretty much picking up where OMAP left off. Their upcoming chipset with the PVR Series 6 looks godly, but isn't expected to be ready in time for this rumored phone.
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When I posted my link in your thread, it was more to say, "oh look, a second thread about a cool device that no one here cares about!" I was on the crapper though, so words of wisdom eluded me.

Most people here are into Samsung's phones. Granted, I own one as well, but I'm not a Samsung fan, just a fan of awesome devices, of which my Galaxy S II is one. But I'll be considering every OEM when I finally do upgrade, and this phone is HIGH on my radar.
 
Medion said:
When I posted my link in your thread, it was more to say, "oh look, a second thread about a cool device that no one here cares about!" I was on the crapper though, so words of wisdom eluded me.

Most people here are into Samsung's phones. Granted, I own one as well, but I'm not a Samsung fan, just a fan of awesome devices, of which my Galaxy S II is one. But I'll be considering every OEM when I finally do upgrade, and this phone is HIGH on my radar.
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I think Motorola really shot themselves in the foot with the shitty implmentations of their skin on all phones before the OG Razr w/ICS. The Maxx HD is the first phone of theirs that I would ever run without rooting/roming.

I think they have taken some great steps in the right direction with the latest line of Razr phones. Now they have to figure out how to replicate that across all carriers under one brand like Samsung and not change up designs/branding for every individual carrier.

Hopefully this phone is the first big leap in that direction.

I'd be happy to buy this phone off contract for Verizon on Google Play if those rumors turn out to be true (although I LOL'd at the $15/mo bootloader fee)
 
ComputerBox34 said:
January 2013 rumor mill:

  • Motorola X Phone will be announced at Google I/O in May.
  • Current target for release is July 8
  • All carriers will sell the X Phone.
  • Verizon will sell it for $299 on contract.
  • All versions will also be sold through the Google Play store at similar off-contract price to Nexus line.
  • If you want to unlock the bootloader through Verizon, they will charge a $15/month fee.
  • If you buy it through Google Play, it comes unlocked with no fee.
  • Not a “Nexus” but will come running stock Android and with some bloatware.
  • Bloatware can apparently be removed once unlocked. (no shit)
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$15 a month for an unlocked boot loader would be a great way to piss people off and burn bridges.
 
ComputerBox34 said:
January 2013 rumor mill:

  • If you want to unlock the bootloader through Verizon, they will charge a $15/month fee.
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Lol, no.

I highly doubt that will happen, but if it does, it's hilarious to think that they can actually enforce that. A one time fee could be tolerable, but a monthly fee would be straight retarded. How would that even work? I mean, there's literally no way to enforce that. Not only in the sense that some dev will probably break it anyways, but it's not even a service. What's to stop someone from just paying the first month to unlock it and deciding they "don't want it anymore"? Verizon will just be like "Okay, well you better relock your bootloader!" Lol. Or how long would you have to pay it? For 2 years or as long as you keep the device? That just wouldn't work. Then you could probably just swap phones for a short period to kill it.
 
ocellaris said:
$15 a month for an unlocked boot loader would be a great way to piss people off and burn bridges.
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if you want to do custom roms, then buy elsewhere, we’ll continue with our strategy that is working thanks -- Motorola
 
Cheetoz said:
if you want to do custom roms, then buy elsewhere, we’ll continue with our strategy that is working thanks -- Motorola
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I dont know if its working for them. They are losing money left and right. They also get pummeled by Samsung and HTC (I think HTC beats them) in sales. I hated every single phone I bought from them in the last 3 years. Samsung for sure will keep pummeling Motorola , IMHO Samsung build quality and overall support is magnitudes better than motorola. After the way Verizon treated me on the Gnex I will probably refrain from buying any Android smartphone on Verizon for the foreseeable future.
 
///AMG said:
I dont know if its working for them. They are losing money left and right. They also get pummeled by Samsung and HTC (I think HTC beats them) in sales. I hated every single phone I bought from them in the last 3 years. Samsung for sure will keep pummeling Motorola , IMHO Samsung build quality and overall support is magnitudes better than motorola. After the way Verizon treated me on the Gnex I will probably refrain from buying any Android smartphone on Verizon for the foreseeable future.
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Actually the build quality of the Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx has excellent build quality.
 
///AMG said:
IMHO Samsung build quality and overall support is magnitudes better than motorola.
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:confused:

Actually, build quality is not one of Motorola's weaknesses. There are many things they've screwed up in Android devices, but build quality isn't one of them.
 
I dont know about the recent ones such as the Razr or the Razr Maxx/HD, but the Droid X and Droid 2/Global didn't feel as nice (but was still solid) and something always broke so I guess I am more complaining about their QC. I went through 2 Droid X's and something was always broken, Droid 2 same thing, and the 2 global was always kind of well really bad and GPS stopped working within weeks of me getting it. HTC and Samsung were always great for me minus the obviously horrible battery life of the Thunderbolt.
 
Your problem its you went with droid, crappy verizon spec phone, I hated those phones.
 
Medion said:
:confused:

Actually, build quality is not one of Motorola's weaknesses. There are many things they've screwed up in Android devices, but build quality isn't one of them.
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I actually don't see any weaknesses in Motorola phones except for a bit of lag. The software isn't very optimized, but their designs are very unique and attractive.
 
Moto posted a job listing on Linked In today for a Project manager, specifically for the X phone.

I doubt this is rolling out anytime soon
 
ComputerBox34 said:
Moto posted a job listing on Linked In today for a Project manager, specifically for the X phone.

I doubt this is rolling out anytime soon
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Product Manager, not Project Manager. Two different positions and roles. A Product Manager can still be hired and used well after the phone has been developed and nearly complete as they are basically just marketing people.

Also, if you read the comments in this Droid Life article, there's one commenter ("Bionic") that claims to know a lot about this phone.

Here's what he says:

There are 3 variations in testing however the current favorite is as follows:

5 inch screen edge to edge
2 ghz S4 prime cpu
LCD3 screen at 400ppi

2 gigs o ram
vanilla android 5.0 (play store version)

because there are 3 variations the onboard storage isnt known yet but will be high and an sd card slot is likely

LTE support on all carriers
13 megapixel camera
3500 mAh battery

$299 on verizon
$329 - $389 in play store
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I asked if the $300 on Verizon will be on contract or full retail and if the Play Store version will work on Verizon and he said:

Verizon is full of themselves. They are wanting to sell this phone for 300 bucks but someone can easily purchase the unlocked verizon compatible version on the play store for a little more money and still use verizon's great network.

now if verizon were to sell it for 200 they might get more interest.
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When questioned as to how he knows this:

i cannot tell you where i get this information. I can only tell you that what I say will come to fruition at Google I/O
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And why you should believe him:

It not like im looking for personal fame on the internet here, im just trying to get the "word of mouth" going because i believe this phone is the biggest thing since the OG Droid
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Seems plausible to me though. I'm not saying I believe him, but this phone does seem to be gathering a whole lot of hype and attention. Just as much, if not more than the Galaxy S4, which is crazy. So I wouldn't be surprised if what he's boasting isn't far from the truth.
 
T4rd said:
Product Manager, not Project Manager. Two different positions and roles. A Product Manager can still be hired and used well after the phone has been developed and nearly complete as they are basically just marketing people.

Also, if you read the comments in this Droid Life article, there's one commenter ("Bionic") that claims to know a lot about this phone.

Here's what he says:



I asked if the $300 on Verizon will be on contract or full retail and if the Play Store version will work on Verizon and he said:



When questioned as to how he knows this:



And why you should believe him:



Seems plausible to me though. I'm not saying I believe him, but this phone does seem to be gathering a whole lot of hype and attention. Just as much, if not more than the Galaxy S4, which is crazy. So I wouldn't be surprised if what he's boasting isn't far from the truth.
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Wow. Being the pessimist that I am, I read "product" as "project." :p Absolutely awesome if all of this comes to fruition. I'd be first in line if this thing was even $400 on the Play Store.

edit: I think I've seen this guy before. He leaked a lot of information about the Bionic and even has a twitter account. I don't remember if everything he said about the Bionic was true.
 
The Galaxy S4 has a ton of momentum going for it. The Motorola X phone will be a tough challenge.

I think they will sell equally well.

In other news:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_...s-x-phone-job-req-four-clues-about-the-phone/

linkedin-xphone-product-director_610x587.jpeg
 
More fuel for the hype fire.

128GBs of internal storage + SD card slot..?! Bit far fetched to me, but would be friggin crazy if true. Camera sounds pretty promising too. Will this phone have any weaknesses? :eek:
 
my wish for the eventual google/moto collaboration is a Razr M with nexus firmware, a better camera, and the Nexus 4's price tag.

come on google, make it happen
 
T4rd said:
More fuel for the hype fire.

128GBs of internal storage + SD card slot..?! Bit far fetched to me, but would be friggin crazy if true. Camera sounds pretty promising too. Will this phone have any weaknesses? :eek:
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If its rumored to be less then $400 then there is no way they put 128gb's into it unless this is just a media player and not a smartphone.

Camera ... Meh ... just got a nice DSLR for $200 with a tri-pod to boot, don't think I'll care about how awesome these phones pictures are since they are all mediocre. My big thing is the quickness of the shot, if they put in a fast shutter speed then I'm all for hyping the camera.

Everytime I hear more about this phone I want to think its just made up by fanboys to dream about the best phone, while we get phones from every vendor that is missing a thing here and there it seems like from rumor that this phone will have it all. Wonder if that is true or not but continuing the use of kevlar is a huge plus from me!
 
brucedeluxe169 said:
my wish for the eventual google/moto collaboration is a Razr M with nexus firmware, a better camera, and the Nexus 4's price tag.

come on google, make it happen
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I hear you, someone needs to make a high-end 4-4.3" (Android) smart phone already. This phone doesn't seem like it's going to fill that void though.

Trimlock said:
If its rumored to be less then $400 then there is no way they put 128gb's into it unless this is just a media player and not a smartphone.

Camera ... Meh ... just got a nice DSLR for $200 with a tri-pod to boot, don't think I'll care about how awesome these phones pictures are since they are all mediocre. My big thing is the quickness of the shot, if they put in a fast shutter speed then I'm all for hyping the camera.
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That's what I was thinking on the price, maybe there will be a cheaper model with lower storage. I think 32GB is more than enough for most people, at least it's perfect for me and what I do. Storage is actually pretty cheap though, I never understood a $50-$100 increase on a phone with only 16-32GBs of extra storage, it can't cost more than $15 or so for them to put that extra storage on there. So I think it would still be somewhat feasible for it to be at that price or right at $400. Profit would be pretty small on the phone though with all the other specs they're boasting so far.

As for the camera, I don't care much about phone cameras either since I rarely take pics/video. My wife has a D90, but I never keep it on me and they always say "the best camera is the one you have on you." I just mentioned that because Moto has been pretty weak in that area in their previous phones compared to Apple, Nokia and Samsung's phone cameras. So it's nice that they'll (supposedly) be competing in that realm now too.
 
Storage price hikes have always been about the luxury aspect of having the space on your single device more so then what it costs. One of the reasons why OEM's are not allowing SD cards is so more people won't go out and buy a $20 chip and have more space then their $100 upgrade charge. 32gb is more then enough for me too, so I agree. I will say though having a 128gb model will sure piss off some of google's OEM vendors that still offer 16gb phones. ;)

I hear you on the camera, while my Atrix photo's aren't bad what I like about it is it takes a fraction of the time to snap a photo then on my wife's 4S. We have some small kids so while I get them while they are awake she can only get them while they are sleeping :D
 
Trimlock said:
If its rumored to be less then $400 then there is no way they put 128gb's into it unless this is just a media player and not a smartphone.

Camera ... Meh ... just got a nice DSLR for $200 with a tri-pod to boot, don't think I'll care about how awesome these phones pictures are since they are all mediocre. My big thing is the quickness of the shot, if they put in a fast shutter speed then I'm all for hyping the camera.

Everytime I hear more about this phone I want to think its just made up by fanboys to dream about the best phone, while we get phones from every vendor that is missing a thing here and there it seems like from rumor that this phone will have it all. Wonder if that is true or not but continuing the use of kevlar is a huge plus from me!
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This is what I'm starting to feel as well. I think there is a lot of BS flying around.

Somebody called out that Bionic guy in the Droid Life comments. Apparently his source was not quite "authentic"
 
Some more rumors out and about today. Just wanted to cover them and give my own speculation on them.

-One rumor states that it will use a dual-core Snapdragon, while yet another says the Tegra 4i. I see neither as likely, unless Motorola is going really cheap (dual-core Snapdragon) or avoiding CDMA carriers (Tegra 4i).

-Another rumor says that the "X Phone" is actually a brand, similar to Galaxy. So, it will be multiple phones with the first launching around June. This makes sense.

-Yet another rumor says that you can custom order them online, choosing such things as color, or storage capacity. This would make sense, given the "up to 128GB" rumor that came out awhile ago.

-Lastly, another rumor that I saw recently was that Motorola would guarantee at least one major Android software update. Motorola would be doing the updates, bypassing the carriers. This would mean faster updates, and the guaranteed update is nice (Droid X2 users would have loved that), but it's not enough for me. Galaxy and Nexus phones get at LEAST 18 months of support. We saw the S2 and Nexus S go from Gingerbread to ICS to Jelly Bean. Two named releases is standard for flagship devices, and if any OEM wants to come back and challenge Samsung, they need to promise something similar.
 
I can see Tegra4i, wouldn't be the first time Moto tried a flagship with an Nvidia chip.

Not sure what to think of the Tegra4i when compared to the regular Tegra4 but we will see, especially if this phone does release. Some of the more recent rumors seem to put the phone into the regular '$300 - $400' range with spec's that match.
 
Trimlock said:
I can see Tegra4i, wouldn't be the first time Moto tried a flagship with an Nvidia chip.

Not sure what to think of the Tegra4i when compared to the regular Tegra4 but we will see, especially if this phone does release. Some of the more recent rumors seem to put the phone into the regular '$300 - $400' range with spec's that match.
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Tegra 4i is not compatible with CDMA networks. Motorola making a flagship phone that is not compatible with Verizon would be a real shocker.
 
Medion said:
Tegra 4i is not compatible with CDMA networks. Motorola making a flagship phone that is not compatible with Verizon would be a real shocker.
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This.

I don't know what to believe anymore. I just stopped paying attention to anything to avoid getting a chubby...and then losing it when the next rumor came out (not in the fun way)
 
ComputerBox34 said:
This.

I don't know what to believe anymore. I just stopped paying attention to anything to avoid getting a chubby...and then losing it when the next rumor came out (not in the fun way)
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Yup. Right now, Snapdragon is the most logical choice for Motorola if they are launching in the summer. Tegra 4 is NOT intended to be CDMA2000 compatible. Samsung isn't selling Exynos to serious competitors. Texas Instruments has all but bowed out. Sony's Novathor has become vaporware and wasn't expected to be seen until at least the Fall anyway. That leaves Snapdragon.

Only ways that Motorola uses Tegra 4 is either;
-it's for a tablet, in which case using it exclusively on Verizon's 4G network is fine, or;
-they're making a GSM-based world phone that supports GSM/UMTS/HSPA/LTE (like the Nexus 4, but with fully functional LTE support). This is possible, given a previous rumor where the X-Phone would not conflict with phones that Moto still designs strictly for carriers, like their "Droid" co-branded phones.

That last bit makes sense, but the thing about these rumors is that there is SO MUCH rumored, something HAS to end up being true :)
 
ItaliaFerrari said:
I think Google's marketing is failing them. There were so many Nexus' out there in 2012 and looked very generic.

http://www.androidauthority.com/google-x-phone-motorola-non-nexus-handsets-181388/

Looks like the Motorola brand is also turning generic. Several versions of the X phone with a Motorola brand will only confuse customers. I really hope Motorola/Google gets their marketing fixed.
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So confusing on what Google has planned for this "X" phone, and what about the Nexus line too ? Will there be, both a high end Nexus-Five this year, as well as a high end "X' this year, both directly sold from Google ? Won't both those phone be sort of the same, and cancel each other out ?

Or will Google have Motorola take over the Nexus line from here on out ? Who knows but Google on any of this ?

I still think we will see a Nexus-Five this Summer / Fall, made by either LG, Sony, or HTC, but not a Motorola Nexus just yet.
 
To be honest, I don't believe Google/Motorola will offer much different hardware compared to the HTC One. In fact, it'll probably use the same screen and type of RAM. I also wouldn't be surprised if it's a S600, but I do believe Google will wait till it's closer to launch time on whether to use S800 instead. It is likely that carbon fiber will be used because it can be thinner and lighter, which allows them to use a bigger battery. If Lenovo can do it, so can Motorola. They will obviously swap out the camera module. Other than that, the hardware will be basically the same compared to the One. And no to Sapphire Glass; that's the most ridiculous rumor; it costs way too much.

But what Motorola would do different is through software. MotoBlur will be minimalistic if not completely standard android. But it will have lots of proprietary/dedicated widgets that you can download from the Play Store. It will basically be Google telling others to stop building custom launchers; make widgets. Or MotoBlur will be the downloadable launcher. That's the path I see Google moving to, because Google would like more people to use android launcher for tracking purposes...
 
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Really don't care about the hardware. A S600 is plenty fast enough for the next 2 years. The thing I was hoping for most is that Google would figure out a way to make the unlocked phone bought from Play store work on Sprint/Verizon, and it sounds like they've just given up on CDMA and all future Nexus/X phones will be GSM only, which is a shame.

Google has enough power/clout to make this happen, they just don't care.
 
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