Will Motorola Release 8 Smartphones this Year?

Brian P. Rubin -

Motorola has a big press event scheduled for September 4 in Chicago, at which many believe we’ll finally get release information about the Moto 360 smartwatch. But beyond making the coolest looking wearable around, Motorola also makes some really nice smartphones – and a new report today claims that the company will release a whopping eight handsets before the end of the year, some of which we’ll surely see at the upcoming event.

A post on TKTechNews claims to cite “sources at Motorola,” who say that between now and Christmas 2014, Motorola will release the following smartphones:

  • Droid
  • Droid Maxx
  • Droid Turbo
  • Moto S
  • Moto G
  • Moto X+1
  • Moto X Play
  • Shamu / Nexus 6

The post goes on to claim that one of the Droid devices will have a Star Wars tie-in – which makes a certain amount of sense since A) LucasFilm held the trademark on the word “droid,” and B) there’s a new batch of Star Wars movies coming down the pike. Tying a new smartphone into one of the biggest franchises on the planet certainly seems like a good way to generate buzz.

The post also reports that the “X Play could be a Mini Moto S. Or if X+1 sales fail or if other things happen (can’t yet speak on this) then the 5.9 Moto S could get canned and the X Play would become the Moto S.”

Overall, it sounds like a bit of a mess. And, to be quite honest, I’m not sure how much faith we ought to put in this report. Eight phones in less than four months? That’s bananas. On the flip side, Motorola is still owned by Google, since Lenovo’s purchase of the division has yet to be finalized. This could be Google’s efforts to squeeze the most value out of Motorola that it can before the sale is finished.

It’s likely that if any of these devices are truly coming out from Motorola this year, we’ll hear about some of them on September 4. Stay tuned.

[Source: TKTechNews]