Here's the mystery Motorola phone coming later this year with four antennas. In a case and taped over. pic.twitter.com/vjrz3XnEAN
— Diana Goovaerts (@DiaMariesbeat) March 9, 2017
MWC 2017 that ended early last month saw Motorola made the most of the situation by introducing the Moto G5 -- a mid-range smartphone that was clearly capable of a whole lot, and will achieve plenty without requiring customers to break the bank. However, it seems that Lenovo-owned Motorola did also put out a teaser for its next generation Moto Z during the new Moto Mods preview, but the 2017 Moto Z somehow or rather escaped the attention of many.
Android Central did manage to snap a shot that showcased the newest home button design by Motorola, in addition to a more elongated form factor with its edges being rounded off. What resembles the Moto G5’s home button carries an extra “Moto” branding just so that you know which manufacturer is behind the handset. The thing is, the Moto G5 is not compatible with Moto Mods such as a game controller, which leads to the question, what model is the handset being featured?
The Moto Z series are flagship devices that will play nice with Moto Mods, which means the image captured would be none other than the 2017 Moto Z. It looks like Motorola did not bother to keep the device under wraps from public view, as Motorola’s press conference showcased the device alongside the announcement of new Moto Mods that will debut this year -- at least 12 of them.
Is this an accidental leak, or one that has been done on purpose as a subliminal message of sorts? Only the folks at Motorola will be able to tell you. New Orleans also played host to the new 2017 Moto Z, where both Motorola and Sprint were seen to unveil the carrier’s upcoming Gigabit LTE service. The mysterious device on display? It has been heavily taped so that folks are unable to tell whether it is the 2017 Moto Z or not, but we do know that it will run on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset with a Snapdragon X16 LTE modem that will offer Gigabit LTE support.
We also take note that there are just a few flagship smartphones for this year that the world would really look forward to, and they are none other than the 10th anniversary iPhone 8, the Pixel and Pixel XL from Google, as well as the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus. The other flagships from the different hardware manufacturers? Those do seem to pick up the crumbs that are left behind on the table, and the Moto Z 2017 will sadly be one of them. Perhaps it is a perception issue, but until something groundbreaking and big comes along, there will always be the second tier of flagship devices like the LG G6 and the Huawei P10, among others.
Whatever the case is, we do look forward to the Moto Z 2017 to see whether it is able to live up to the reputation of its predecessors, offering plenty of value for your hard earned buck.
