Motorola is undergoing some changes under Lenovo, and the Moto X line will apparently be part of the revamp, getting rebranded as the Moto Z.
Companies usually stick to their recognized brands - Samsung has its flagship Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines, LG has its LG G line, Apple has its iPhone line and so on. However, it's not unheard of to change the branding of a flagship line.
Just recently, Tech Times reported that Sony was gearing up to fold all of its Xperia lines (Xperia Z, Xperia C, Xperia M) into one single umbrella - the Xperia X. HTC also launched its latest flagship as the HTC 10 instead of the One M10, as initially thought. It seems that Lenovo Moto is the next in line for a rebranding, moving from X to Z.
VentureBeat obtained some marketing material that reveals Moto's plans to transform its iconic Moto X series into Moto Z, starting with this year's models.
This means that the Moto X flagship we're expecting on June 9 may in fact launch as the Moto Z. A small note is required here: when Motorola first touted its June 9 event, the Moto G4 and G4 Plus - still unannounced at the time - were rumored to be the stars of the show. With the new Moto G series now out of the bag, however, there's no doubt anymore that the June 9 event will be for the Moto X/Moto Z.
Two new Moto flagships should hit the scene this year. According to VentureBeat, these will be the Moto Z Play and the more premium Moto Z Style, both sporting 5.5-inch displays.
To ensure some brand consistency, Verizon will reportedly tweak the brand names of its exclusive Droid smartphones as well. More specifically, the Droid Turbo and Droid Maxx handsets will be rebranded with "Droid Edition" tags on the global branding, such as a Moto Z Play Droid Edition.
Lastly, Motorola and Lenovo are reportedly looking to stand out from the crowd by adopting modular backplates for future flagships. These modules, such as a premium camera grip, stereo speakers and pico projector, will reportedly retail as MotoMods.
It all remains in the rumor state at this point, but the next big Moto event is just around the corner. Everything should become clear on June 9, when the Lenovo Tech World show kicks off in San Francisco.
As always, we'll keep you up to date as soon as we hear more.
