Motorola debuts new smartphone

Motorola lifted the wraps Thursday on a new, customizable smartphone called the Moto X that’s set to roll out to consumers in the U.S. later this month, MarketWatch reported.

This is the first significant smartphone to be designed by Motorola since its acquisition by Google Inc, which was completed last year. Google shares closed up 1.9% at $904.22 on Thursday following an event in New York City at which the company showed off the device.

The Moto X faces a tough field of competition that is currently dominated by Apple and Samsung with their respective iPhone and Galaxy lines.

Motorola boasts that the new device is “Designed by you and assembled in the US,” referring to the smartphone’s customizable features. It also runs on Google’s Android mobile operating system.

“We’re going to show the world what Android can do,” Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside said at the event.

The Moto X allows users to customize the exterior of the device, with different colors for the back, front and buttons. Users can choose from 16 different colors for the back casing, and black or white for the front and border. The buttons can also be accented with different shades.


The device also boasts features such as Touchless Control, which uses Google Voice to add voice-recognition capabilities. The camera function was designed for a quick boot-up. Rick Osterloh, Motorola senior VP of product management, said the idea was to let a user launch the camera and snap a picture in two seconds or less.

The phone will be manufactured in a facility in Texas, different from most mobile devices that are assembled in China or other Asian countries. Osterloh said the local production was key to the ability to allow users to customize their device and receive it in four days or less.


“In nearly every other consumer category, this capability exists,” he said of customization. “It’s not happened for phones, and that’s because it’s very hard to do.”


Analyst Gene Munster, who covers both Google and Apple for Piper Jaffray, said in an email Thursday afternoon that the new device may emerge as the “new, biggest competitor” to other Android phones.


“We believe design as a feature puts the Moto X in a strong position against other Android devices (largely plastic), but may be unlikely to change customer desire for iPhones,” he wrote.


Brian Marshall of ISI Group also said the Moto X is most likely to provide competition to other Android phones. But he added that the new device raises the pressure on Apple to innovate its design — and add a larger-screen iPhone to the lineup. The Moto X comes with a 4.7-inch diagonal screen.


“It is imperative in our view that Apple introduce a 5.0” iPhone form factor in early [calendar year] 2014, though we believe a low-cost iPhone, iOS7 and the stickiness of the Apple ecosystem can help sustain iPhone growth for several more quarters,” he wrote in a note Thursday afternoon. “However, the risk of meaningful market share losses is increasing as Android vendors introduce more compelling hardware form factors and the Google app ecosystem becomes more mature.”