The specs were pretty much leaked all over. We knew going into today what they were gonna be.
The look was leaked all over, and lo and behold it is pretty much dead on.
You knew it was going to be on all US carriers, you know what goes along with that. Only the Gnex escaped the wrath of the carriers (bloat) and even that did not come away unscathed. This includes locked bootloaders. It has yet be seen how locked down they are, but I wouldnt bet (especially if you are on Verizon) that they are going to be all that easy to unlock.
Price: The minute you heard that this was a flagship phone, you HAD to know that it was going to be priced the same as a SGS4 or a HTC One. There were never going to be subsidies. If you thought otherwise, you just were fooling yourself. Google Owns Moto Mobility. This is true, but even though they are part of the same company, they COULD NOT subsidize the phone. Motorola still has to make money. Google is not going to eat the bottom line forever.
Even more than that, Google COULD NOT subsidize the phone even if they wanted to. For the final sale to go through, Google had to promise that Motorola would get no special treatment. None. Not on Pricing, not on early access, NONE. This is for 5 years from the date of sale. China Clears Google's Motorola Deal - WSJ.com
Will you see a Moto Nexus? Sure if they beat out the competition in a fair and unbiased fight. But the fight has to be fair.
Blur was always going to be a part of the equation. It is Motorola. Making it pure Android could be considered an "unfair advantage" and go against the agreement I linked to above. I will be honest, I am not sure what exactly is included and not included as far as Blur extras (I havent really seen much) but the point of this phone is quite simply to show that you can have a full featured phone, with a skin that runs beautifully on 6 month old hardware. Blur is there and the features are there, but this should be fast as anything, and as intuitive as people feel Vanilla Android is.
You might see a GPe Moto X, I feel that you surely will. Don't expect the price to be any different than the GPe One or SGS4. It won't be and you will just be setting yourself up for more disappointment. Same thing goes for the Developer edition.
Where you have every right to be pissed is the dumb exclusive stuff with ATT. I don't care if it is a day or a year, that is a major mess up in almost everyone's opinion. 16 and 32GB as well as customization right off the bat on all carriers. That is how it should have been done. But someone at ATT really threw money (or blackmailed) the brass at Moto for this one. I am guessing it has something to do with the Razr line being exclusive to VZW and ATT threatening that they needed a bone.
Don't expect to see Google suck down any costs associated with Motorola from here on out for at least 4 years, if ever. It cannot happen. Would Google really give up China to pay for you to take a phone? I think not.
Personally, this was never on my radar so I really have no dog in this race. I have been holing out to see what the Honami, G2 and Note 3 bring to the table before burning the upgrade I have.
In the end, this phone should send some serious thoughts through the industry. Assemble it in the US and cut the skins down to size, you can still have a great phone without bolted on extras (Samsung). It also might help to curb the "numbers game" with extra cores, higher clock speeds and stuff like that.
The look was leaked all over, and lo and behold it is pretty much dead on.
You knew it was going to be on all US carriers, you know what goes along with that. Only the Gnex escaped the wrath of the carriers (bloat) and even that did not come away unscathed. This includes locked bootloaders. It has yet be seen how locked down they are, but I wouldnt bet (especially if you are on Verizon) that they are going to be all that easy to unlock.
Price: The minute you heard that this was a flagship phone, you HAD to know that it was going to be priced the same as a SGS4 or a HTC One. There were never going to be subsidies. If you thought otherwise, you just were fooling yourself. Google Owns Moto Mobility. This is true, but even though they are part of the same company, they COULD NOT subsidize the phone. Motorola still has to make money. Google is not going to eat the bottom line forever.
Even more than that, Google COULD NOT subsidize the phone even if they wanted to. For the final sale to go through, Google had to promise that Motorola would get no special treatment. None. Not on Pricing, not on early access, NONE. This is for 5 years from the date of sale. China Clears Google's Motorola Deal - WSJ.com
Will you see a Moto Nexus? Sure if they beat out the competition in a fair and unbiased fight. But the fight has to be fair.
Blur was always going to be a part of the equation. It is Motorola. Making it pure Android could be considered an "unfair advantage" and go against the agreement I linked to above. I will be honest, I am not sure what exactly is included and not included as far as Blur extras (I havent really seen much) but the point of this phone is quite simply to show that you can have a full featured phone, with a skin that runs beautifully on 6 month old hardware. Blur is there and the features are there, but this should be fast as anything, and as intuitive as people feel Vanilla Android is.
You might see a GPe Moto X, I feel that you surely will. Don't expect the price to be any different than the GPe One or SGS4. It won't be and you will just be setting yourself up for more disappointment. Same thing goes for the Developer edition.
Where you have every right to be pissed is the dumb exclusive stuff with ATT. I don't care if it is a day or a year, that is a major mess up in almost everyone's opinion. 16 and 32GB as well as customization right off the bat on all carriers. That is how it should have been done. But someone at ATT really threw money (or blackmailed) the brass at Moto for this one. I am guessing it has something to do with the Razr line being exclusive to VZW and ATT threatening that they needed a bone.
Don't expect to see Google suck down any costs associated with Motorola from here on out for at least 4 years, if ever. It cannot happen. Would Google really give up China to pay for you to take a phone? I think not.
Personally, this was never on my radar so I really have no dog in this race. I have been holing out to see what the Honami, G2 and Note 3 bring to the table before burning the upgrade I have.
In the end, this phone should send some serious thoughts through the industry. Assemble it in the US and cut the skins down to size, you can still have a great phone without bolted on extras (Samsung). It also might help to curb the "numbers game" with extra cores, higher clock speeds and stuff like that.