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What don’t Apple, Samsung, HTC or Sony’s smartphones have? Leather or wooden backs, of course – which Motorola is hoping will set its flagship Moto X phone apart from the rest.
The new Moto X, initially priced at £419, has a full HD (1080p) 5.2in screen but the narrow bezels and a curved back to make it easy to hold. There are enhanced gesture and voice control features, including a customisable trigger word so users can use something other than “OK Google” to wake the phone for a voice command.
“We think the [specifications] game doesn’t work with consumers any more,” Christoph Jeneba, Motorola’s head of product for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told to the Guardian. “We have to offer more to differentiate ourselves from the competition.”
Users can say things like “good morning” to their phone to wake it up, turn on notifications and turn off silent mode, or “good night” to do the opposite. Waving a hand over a ringing Moto X will silence it, while approaching the phone with a hand will show notification on the screen without fully waking the phone.
Motorola will also be rolling out its phone customisation service Moto Maker in the UK and France soon, launching in Germany in September while having been available in the US since 2013.
Users will be able to customise their Moto X with a wide choice of colours, backs and materials before purchase, including engraving and a 32GB storage model for an added fee.
The new Moto X replaces the old Moto X from 2013, which launched with critical acclaim in the US, but failed to sell well and stalled on launch in the UK months later.
The new Moto X has a 2.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and a 13-megapixel camera with a ring flash. It joins a highly competitive smartphone market but is priced lower than most of its £500-plus competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8 costing £419 from the end of September.
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