Posted on

Flipkart to sell Moto E at Rs 6999, How Motorola is playing smart

Flipkart is again the exclusive launch partner for yet another Motorola smartphone. Moto E is all set for launch on May 14 0000 hours. This time Motorola has placed the price tag really low. Moto E is available at a very cheap price of Rs 6999.

Moto E, a 4.3 inch device, is powered by a 1.2 GHz dual core Snapdragon 200 processor and a Adereno 302 GPU. It is also packed with a 5 MP camera at the back and has 4 GB internal storage. You can expand the storage till 32 GB with external storage cards.

image

Also, Motorola has used the Corning Gorilla 3 glass on this latest smartphone. Also, the device has water repellent features.

Talking about the software part, the device comes out of the box with Android 4.4 KitKat. The device is a dual SIM smartphone.

Offers on Flipkart

Flipkart is offering 3 offers with the launch of Moto E.

Flat 50% offer on Transcend 8 GB memory card, flat 50% offer on Moto E cases and e-books worth Rs 1000 come prepacked with the device. You will have to download the Flipkart e-books Android app to access the e-books.

Blow at the other Indian manufacturers and sub-10000 smartphones

With the launch of Moto E, without doubt, Motorola is playing the aggressive game perfectly. It is believed that Moto E will be immensely popular among the budget smartphone buyers.

For the price tag, Moto E comes with really impressive hardware and software configurations. As for India, Android updates are pushed really slow to the users. A majority of the Android users in India are still running Gingerbread. The launch of Moto E with Android 4.4 KitKat might attract lots of Indian buyers.

Some of the other top smartphones in this price range include Lumia 520, Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2, Karbonn Titanium S5 Plus. Even Micromax’s smartphones are not priced as low as Rs 6999.

Also, Motorola is now covering all the segments of smartphone based on price – the low budget Moto E, Moto G priced a little high at Rs 12,499 and the high end Moto X at Rs 23,999.

Moto G LTE version

Also, Motorola announced a LTE version of Moto G at the London event. Moto G 4G also comes with an external SD card slot for expanding memory till 32 GB.

What’s your thought on Moto E? Do you think it will be as popular as Moto G and Moto X? Do tell us if you are buying one.

Link : Moto E on Flipkart

Posted on

After Moto G success, Moto X is coming to India in few weeks

Motorola has announced that it is bringing the Moto X to India in the next few weeks. It will be available in Australia too. The announcement comes from the official tweet from Motorola.

At this moment, Moto X has been available only in the US, UK, Germany and Mexico and Latin America.

image

Similar to Moto G, it is expected that Motorola will be selling the Moto X only on Flipkart. This strategy has worked well for Motorola, except that the demand for the low cost Moto G was huge in India that it went out of stock every now and then.

The price tag is unknown, but it should cost more than Moto G.

The launch in India will not come with Moto Maker. The Moto Maker is available only the US for now. It allows the buyers to customize the Moto X to their needs. They can choose the front and back panel colors, camera rim and more. Over 2000 combinations are possible, says Motorola. Once designed, the Moto X will be delivered straight to their doors.

About Moto X

The Moto X comes with a 1.7 GHz dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 2GB RAM, 4.7 inch 720p HD AMOLED display, 10MP rear camera, 2MP front camera and has 16GB/32GB internal storage. It comes with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean out of the box. But, a promised Android KitKat update is available.

Moto X comes with PixelClear technology and has Active Display. Active Display displays your notifications in a brilliant way that the screen doesn’t light up. Only the notifications are shown with a black screen covering the rest of the area. If you wish to get this feature on your Android, you should try ActiveNotifications.

Moto X is well known for its brilliant voice recognizing feature. The device hears you all the time. You can give voice commands even when the device display is turned off and it will respond you.

Motorola’s next plans

Motorola has announced that the Moto Maker will be available to Western Europe and Mexico in the next few months. And, if Moto X finds success in India, Moto Maker may be available in India too.

Based on reports, Motorola is developing a Moto X2, the next generation of Moto X. It is believed to go official in the late summer of 2014.

Also, Motorola is making its first smart watch. It is said that Motorola is keeping the smart watch high on style and design. It will be available later in this year.

Posted on

Google’s Motorola Business to be sold to Lenovo!

Google has confirmed that their mobile handset business, mainly Motorola, which it bought about two and half years ago will be acquired by Lenovo. This basically means Google will be exiting the mobile phone manufacturing industry. Lenovo which bought its laptop and PC business from IBM, also will find it beneficial to now own the Motorola brand.

This comes in the same week Google might be settling it’s issues with Samsung and also only a couple of weeks after it acquired Nest, a home automation company. The Motorola business might be sold for over US $3 billion.

Moto-X_thumb.png

Win-Win for Google and Lenovo

Google had to get rid of Motorola. It was not making money over the last couple of years and worse not having a hit phone to its credit was a problem. Google is into software and the web. It simply might have been too much to focus on, having to run a hardware based Motorola company.

Google also might be retaining the patents from Motorola which will serve it protection from lawsuits to its Android OS, from the likes of Apple and Microsoft.

Lenovo has a successful PC business but in the so called post-PC era, tablets and phones are the future. Here Lenovo has very little dominance. So having Motorola’s business is not a bad idea. Lenovo will have some very well engineered phones in the Moto X and Moto G variants. It will find itself a foothold in the US markets.

Does Motorola get anything?

It is hard to say if Motorola might winning anything in this trade -off between Google and Lenovo. Motorola has undergone restructuring. Motorola’s new owners will probably be more committed to becoming a large phone maker than Google has been. Lenovo also has a good track record of doing a good job with its new acquisitions. An example of that is IBM’s PC and notebook businesses.

So chances are all three parties in this regard might end up winning.

This write-off/sale by Google also signals, that it will be concentrating on betting on getting success with products like Nest and Google Glass.

What do you think about Lenovo adopting Google owned Motorola? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Google Blog

Posted on

Google reveals Motorola’s “Project Ara” to let users customize their phones

When Google bought Motorola most industry experts have never been truly able to explain “why” it did so. Was it for Motorola’s patents which could be valuable against an Apple? Was it as leverage against Samsung who were more or less dominating the Android based phone market? Was it that Google now wanted to become like Apple and make their own phones?

Google’s wisdom has been questioned for a while regarding Motorola, as over the last couple of years – Motorola has eating millions out of Google’s profits. But it seems Google had a plan for Motorola all this while.

A day ago, they announced “Project Ara” for Motorola. Project Ara is basically making a phone last longer but making them modular. So basically the idea is the phone will come apart in several modules and one could just change the screen if it was smashed or opt for a bigger battery instead of a better camera.

So what is the vision of Project Ara?

The vision is to replicate Android’s open source nature into hardware. As in Project Ara is supposed to become a free and open hardware platform. Here are some images of the early designs with Project Ara.

Project Ara HandsetsNote the Moto X lock-screen notifications icon on these devices. The phones looks like a jigsaw puzzle full of modules and that is what it is supposed to be. It will contain a endoskeleton (endo) and modules. The endo-skeleton will basically keep the modules in place as a framework.

Project Ara modularsHow has Google gone about planning to make modular phones?

Some of you might be aware of a concept called Phonebloks. The concept is similar to “Project Ara” and also promises freedom of customization and choice for users. The problem with Phonebloks was that the design it was suggesting looked “scientifically dodgy” but the idea of users modular built block by block is not really news. But Google is working with Phonebloks creator Dave Hakkens to tap into its community.

Google expects to roll-out a alpha versions of Module Developers Kit (MDK) over the next 4-5 months.

In 2007, Modu an Israeli company also came out with the idea of selling modular phones. The company went bust in 2011 and surely enough in May 2011 Google stepped in and bought many of their patents on modular technology. This means Google has been thing on these lines almost since the time they acquired Motorola.

Here is a nice video from Phonebloks that explains the concept of modular phones.

Will Google succeed? That is a entirely different question but if it does, the hegemony of phone manufacturers with deep pockets will be shaken in a big way.

What are your views on modular phones? Do you think they will work? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Motorola blog

Posted on

Motorola unveils ‘Moto X’: Always on microphone and 2000+ customizations

Moto X

Google bought Motorola over a year and half ago. Today, Motorola has unveiled the new Moto X phone. The phone as Motorola’s premier phone will probably compete with Samsung Galaxy S IV, HTC One and Apple iPhone 5. Moto X as a phone is not exactly great on hardware specs and that is not it’s focus. It main focus is on customization options and also some very unique features.

Moto X Basic Specs

  • Display: 4.7 inch 720p AMOLED display.
  • Processor: Qualcomm’s Snapdragon s4P processor. 1.7 GHz Dual-Core CPU and Quad-Core GPU.
  • Battery Time: Full 24 hours battery time.
  • Memory: 2GB RAM
  • Storage: Two versions being 16GB and 32 GB
  • Camera: Front Camera 2 MP and 10 MP camera.
  • Connectivity: Phone supports Bluetooh 4.0, USB 2.0, WIFI, NFC.

Always on Microphone

While the hardware is not exactly the best of the best, it will probably help not eat too much of the battery. This is because the microphone of the phone will be always on. It will be able to recognize the voice of the user and not allow others to command the phone.

So the phone would be listening to you all the time. To activate the phone one simply has to say “Okay Google Now”. I use Google Now on my Nexus 4 and its voice activations to reply to an email, set alarms or even search on Google is extremely useful. It it requires me to first activate the microphone. With Moto X, the phone’s interface truly becomes hands free.

The phone will also show displays that allow users to skim through notifications but extending them while the phone is idle. That basically means people can look who the notification is from before opening it.

Motorola’s Allows over 2000 Customization options

Moto X_Custom

Moto X will be sold at $199 with AT&T. This is a sort of subsidized price with a phone contract so the phone without any contracts (like the ones sold in India) will be much costlier. AT&T customers will be able to customize the way their phone looks. Basically on Motorola’s Motomaker website, it allows users to choose from over 18 different colours for the back, different colours for side-mounted buttons and rings around the camera also has mutliple choices.

You can see the customization options in a demo video

Where is Android 4.3?

Google has bought Motorola, so we could say Moto X is a Google phone. But apparently Google is not so keen on appearing to favour Motorola as a OEM. This means the phone will ship with Android 4.2.2. Though there is not as much bloatware on the phone so Motorola should be able to ship Android 4.3 very soon.

Though some might find it odd that Google cannot ship its own phone with latest Android OS, but that honour seems to be reserved for the Nexus phones.

The phone currently will be sold only in the US and should make it out to other markets. The customization options will in all probability be a US-only feature (rather AT&T only).

(via Motorola Blog)

Posted on

Motorola to hold event to unveil “Moto X” Aug. 1

Moto_X_inviteGoogle owned Motorola has finally announced an event where the new phone “Moto X” is expected to be announced. Motorola has been struggling to become profitable over the past few years when Google acquired it. It was expected that someday Motorola will churn out a Google phone now that it is part of Google. The event will be held in New York.

Google does announce Nexus phones which gives the pure Android experience every year but with Nexus phones they are basically working with a company with their own limitations and agendas. With Motorola, Google has complete control of the device so expectations from this phone will be high.

What to expect from “Moto X”?

Just about everything related to Moto X has been secret. Google has done a very good job on keeping things secret (which makes me wonder if phone leaks are done on purpose).

The phone is expected to have some features like listening to voice command at all times even when the phone is idle or showing icon based notifications when the phone is idle. These features were leaked by Canada based mobile operator Roger Wireless (Check out the leaked video).

Sundar Pichai the man who heads Android and Chrome at Google, is also hosting an event on the 24th July. So we should be expecting a new version of Android very soon. This new version of Android will most probably be shipped with “Moto X”.

Motorola’s success is important to Google

Google recently has been investing a lot of money into Motorola and also writing off losses. That is sustainable in the short run but for an increasing mobile and tablet world, advertising revenues might soon stagnate for Google. Google needs Motorola to basically pay for itself if not earn it handsome profits. Will it work out? Only time will tell.

(via AllThingsD)

Posted on

Motorola’s “Moto X” Features Leaked in a Video

While the rumour mills work overtime about specs and features on Motorola’s high expected phone “Moto X”, Google has still not really showed off this new phone officially. There was an event expected on the 11th July, but Google had quickly denied it was anything to do with Moto X.

The advert on Moto X (image below) showed that we can expect heavy customization options. But Rogers Wireless, a Canadian telecom company has leaked a advertisement about the new phone with some interesting features.

MotoX Invite

While Google Now is already baked into Android, it seems Moto X will ship with some features borrowed from Google Glass. It will continuously listen to the users for commands. In other words, to ask Google for a search while the phone is idle, it will only require a hands free voice command to the phone.

Another feature that seems interesting are icons displaying the type of notifications your receive while the phone is idle, which allow you to sort of ignore check the phone for every type of notifications.

Here is a leaked video of the Rogers Wireless advertisement

While these features seem to work with “Moto X” – I am guessing that the phone will also feature a new version on Android, possibly Android 4.3.

Do watch the video and drop in your comments.

Posted on

Motorola’s “Moto X” expected to be announced on July 11

Update: It seems the event was not about “Moto X” but the phone is expected soon. You can see a leaked video of Moto X features at this link.

When Google acquired Motorola, it was often argued that Google bought the company only for it’s patents. There have been rumours of a new Android based Google phone being developed at Motorola. Moto X has been announced more or less as around the corner with newspaper ads in the US. Motorola’s official page on Google+ also shared the same advert.

MotoX InviteThe words suggests the Moto X phone will be highly customizable (hence designed by you) and it will be assembled in the USA. The assembled in USA will basically earn Motorola some political brownie points much like how Apple announced the “Made in America” Mac Pro.

When is Moto X going to be launched?

The official announcement page from Motorola Mobility suggests over 2000 new employees at their Texas facility during the summer, where the Moto X will be assembled. This means the phone should start shipping out in a month or so. Motorola has announced press invite on the 11th of July leading to rumours, that the phone will be announced at the event.The two people diving in the advertisement show an “X” and “I”, which translates to “XI” which is 11 in roman numerals.

But the press invite is for a select few and that reason is being cited by some experts to suggest the event will not a launch for Moto X.

With all the hype around Moto X, it hopefully will be something innovative and path breaking and not just a lot of hyperbole. Hopefully, Motorola who are the pioneers of mobile technology are also valued for something more than their patent portfolio by Google.

What do you expect from Moto X? Do drop in your comments.