Motomentous: Moto X, Moto G, Moto 360, and Moto Hint Unveiled
The public unveiling of Motorola’s four new consumer products is set for later today – but the press was treated to details of the gadgets yesterday, and the specs are online for your enjoyment. Altogether, Motorola has announced two new handsets – the Moto X and Moto G – and has finally released specifications for the Moto 360 smartwatch, which goes on sale at 12 p.m. Eastern today. Finally, Motorola also announced the Moto Hint, a Bluetooth headset that might not make you look dumb – a miracle in and of itself.
Let’s start with the smartphones. The metal-framed Moto X handset has a 5.2-inch, 1080p HD display, a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 with quad-core CPU, 2GB of RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage. It’s got a 13 megapixel rear camera and a 2 megapixel front-facing camera. The handset runs Android 4.4.4 out of the box, which will undoubtedly be upgradeable to Android L when that’s released later this fall. Like the previous iteration of the Moto X, this new version allows for lots of customization, including leather and wood backs, as well as panels of all different shades and colors. The Moto X will be available for $99 with a two year contract in September, and will run $499 without a contract from Motorola’s website.
The Moto Hint, an in-ear Bluetooth earbud, is exclusively compatible with the Moto X, and will set you back another $149. It looks pretty slick, and has nearly as many style and customization options as the Moto X itself, though it remains to be seen if it can erase the stigma earned by Bluetooth headsets the world over. If nothing else, it’s small and stylish enough that fewer people will make fun of you for wearing it.
If you’re looking for something that’s nearly as good as the Moto X but much friendlier on your wallet, the Moto G – for which we’d seen details leaked yesterday – might be the new Motorola handset you’ve been wanting. The Moto G has a five-inch, 720 HD display, 1.2GHz quad-core CPU, 1GB of RAM, and internal storage ranging from 8GB to 16GB depending on your configuration, with expansion possible via microSD. The rear and front cameras are 8 megapixels and 2 megapixels, respectively, and the phone goes on sale at noon eastern today for the ridiculously inexpensive price of $179 without a contract. That likely means that if you pick up a Moto G with a contract, it should cost you, well, nothing. The big drawback here, though is that the new Moto G seems to lack 4G LTE capability, which seems like a serious oversight.
Finally, the Moto 360, Motorola’s long-awaited Android Wear smartwatch, is officially priced at $249, and comes in black or silver metal with a black or gray leather strap, which can be swapped out for other watchbands. Later this year, Light Metal and Dark Metal versions of the watch and band will launch for $299, though metal bands can be purchased separately for $79.99 apiece. The Moto 360 features a 1.56-inch, 320×290 LCD display covered in Gorilla Glass. Under the hood it has 4GB of internal storage and 512MB of RAM, along with an optical heart rate monitor, a pedometer, wireless charging via a special cradle, and IP67 water and dust resistance that will allow for underwater use up to one meter for 30 minutes. Probably don’t go swimming with it if you can avoid it – but feel free to get clean in the shower with your Moto 360.
That’s about it for Motorola’s four new products, either coming out within an hour of this post going live, or in just a few weeks. As part of its last hurrah before leaving Google for new corporate overlord Lenovo, Motorola has lined up a solid list of products that will show off everything Android can do. But will we ever see the supposed eight smartphones that were rumored to be coming this year? And what about the mythical “Shamu,” aka the Nexus 6?
[Motorola]