Some people have been wondering: What ever happened to Motorola? The former mobile powerhouse that churned out the sleek RAZR flip phone and hip-for-its-time Sidekick landed on a downward slope and never ascended, losing customers and popularity. Even with the original Droid (and the many Droid successors after), the company was never able to make much more than a dent in today's iPhone/Samsung dominated mobile market (the fact that they were Verizon exclusives didn't help). And then, Motorola was bought by Google. The Droid phones continued, but Google has stayed quiet about the new 'Google Company', at least from a Google perspective.

 

Fast forward to about a month ago. An ad for Motorola's next 'big thing', the Moto X, surfaced across tech sites everywhere. I posted about it here on the Community. It was a good ad-the design-it-yourself theme was the differentiating factor, the words 'designed, engineered and assembled in the USA' gave it the home court advantage, and the tag 'a Google company' gave it the powerful backing. Needless to say, it peaked people's interest.

 

Fast forward another month, to yesterday, and the phone is finally here. However, the rumored 'superphone' isn't superior, at least spec-wise, to any of today's big flagships (Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, Sony Xperia Z, and even the iPhone 5, which is on the heels of an Apple upgrade). In fact, in an age of quad core processors and 1080P screens, the Moto X's 1.7GZ Snapdragron S4 Pro Processors and 4.7-inch AMOLED 720X1280 screen are fairly pedestrian (at least in terms of CPU and resolution).

 

Where the Moto X differentiates itself, however, is in the customization aspect. While consumers will have the choice of black or white from the get-go, Motorola will also offer buyers the option to cutomize their Moto X's, giving them a slew of customer colors, patterns, and even engravings to choose from in the Moto Maker online studio. More specifically, you'' get a choice of two front colors, 18 for the back, seven accents, custom wallpapers, and cases.The work will be done in Motorola's new Forth Worth-based plant. For more information on the phone and specs, check out CNET's Moto X review here. And for an interesting analysis of why the Moto X is Google's polar-opposite-of-Apple experiment, check out this CNET blog post.

 

While the specs aren't as high as some of the main competitors, that's not the point of the Moto X. Google is taking a different approach with the device-hoping that users opt for a more personal device with some unique features rather than top-of-the line specs. More importantly, however, this is the beginning of things to come from Google's Motorola, a look into a potential future where consumers will be able to custom-make their mobile devices down to the processors, screen sizes, memory, etc. The Moto X is a different beast, but a good start. Only time (and customer dollars) will tell whether it'll be a big hit, but I think Google is onto something.

 

Do you?

 

 

(Source: CNET)