When Google took over Motorola Mobility, we — and others — thought that this would mean a range of co-designed phones and tablets which would run close-to-stock Android and generally set the standard for the industry.
This didn’t quite happen. We have certainly seen some great handsets from Motorola in the RAZR M and RAZR HD, and they are a lot closer to stock than Samsung and HTC offerings, but they’re not quite what we think people expected.
Back in December, we heard some noises about Motorola working on a project named X Phone, that would be much closer to what we had earlier expected. However, the news in December was delightfully bereft of detail.
Now, fast forward to February 2013, and we’re hearing these rumours again, this time with a slightly more local flavour.
According to sources within Telstra, Chief Technology Officer Hugh Bradlow has been telling employees that this new mystery phone — a collaboration between Google and Motorola — is a “real breakthrough, a game changer that will put pressure on Samsung and Apple”.
Referring to the device as a Motorola X, indications are that it will be unveiled at the Google Developer Conference in May 2013, and available for purchase in July.
According to one Google insider:
“Google has been working on this device for a long time. It has software features and capabilities that are not available on a Samsung Galaxy smartphone or Apple iPhone. The software is really powerful and it pulls together Google services like no other manufacturer has done in the past.”
Despite this positivity, there’s a distinct lack of detail about any of the features of this rumoured phone. No size, specs, or any indication of how the Motorola X will be so game-changingly different to Samsung’s efforts which, let’s face it, have been pretty successful so far.
In response to these rumours, Ausdroid’s Jason Murray so eloquently said:
Unconfirmed device will feature things we’ve never seen before and be amazing, source within company allegedly tells others within company.
What do you think of this chatter? Are you keen to see a Google and Motorola collaboration like the rumoured Motorola X? Having been so impressed with the RAZR M, I can say that I am certainly looking forward to more of this news, though for now, the Xperia Z is what I have my eye on.
