Motorola is already hard at work on its next-generation flagship Moto X 2016. An image of the smartphone has leaked and shows a device with a premium metal case, large rear camera lens, speaker grill and microphone.
Motorola was once a company on the cutting edge in the mobile world. The company produced some of the most iconic mobile phones, including the Motorola StarTAC released in January 1996, and its sleek and ultra-slim RAZR released in 2004 quickly became an instant success and has sold over 130 million units, making it the best-selling clamshell phone in the world to date.
Motorola hasn't since experienced the same kind of success in the smartphone arena, and it looked like that was about to change when Google announced that it would acquire Motorola for $12.5 billion in 2011. The deal closed in 2012 and the company began work on a handset that was billed as a "game changer" in the smartphone arena.
The Moto X was released in August 2013 and offered users advanced voice recognition, contextual awareness and the ability to allow customers to custom design the device using a new service called Moto Maker. The Moto X also received a huge marketing budget thanks to Google, but sales of the device never lived up to expectations. Google subsequently sold Motorola at a loss to Lenovo for $2.91 billion in 2014.
Lenovo's acquisition of Motorola hasn't slowed the company down, and it continues to release smartphones under Motorola's name.
It appears as if Motorola is already well into development of its next-generation flagship Moto X, now that an image of what is reportedly the Moto X 2016 has leaked. The image shows a smartphone with a full metal rear case and much larger camera lens than previous Motorola smartphones. The device also has a speaker grill and microphone located on the lower portion of the handset.
Unfortunately, there's no word on what kind of specs the Moto X 2016 is packing or when we can expect to see the device hit store shelves. As always, we'll keep you posted on any new information regarding the Moto X 2016 as they become available.
