Google has been making a name for itself recently with its insanely priced line of Nexus products. Excluding the Google Play Editions of the Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One and Chromebook Pixel, everything in the play store is beyond reasonably priced. For example the Nexus 4 is still a flagship smartphone and has been only $299 since release. So when Motorola announced the insanely hyped X phone would be $199 on contract quite a few people were surprised.
While the Google Edition of the X could theoretically still be $299 I rather doubt it. While some people might still go for the Google play editions of the S4 and HTC One for the HTC One’s build quality and the S4’s err… slightly larger screen size maybe? It would be hard to justify an additional $300 for either device. I doubt HTC and Samsung would be overly pleased with that turn of events.
So what is a budget minded customer to do? Apparently just wait a few months. Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside revealed that this was just the first of several phones planned for release under the Motorola X brand. Woodside even outed the price point saying “The experience of devices you can get for less than $200 is sub par right now.”
Motorola will be targeting this device at the US prepaid market along with developing markets where carriers offer no subsidies. No word was given on Europe, but hopefully the cheap X will work its way across the pond as well. Woodside said he wanted to give prepaid customers an option other than 2 or even 3 year old tech at a reasonable price point. While my Nexus 4 eventually saved me from cheap prepaid phones, I can attest to the horrendous state of affairs on CDMA prepaid carriers like Virgin Mobile.
If this cheaper X phone can still provide the same experience shown off today at Motorola’s announcement it may well be the most compelling pre-paid phone out there. Hopefully the specs won’t be nerfed too much. Especially since the current specs aren’t exactly earth-shattering. Is anybody excited to pick up a hunk of unlocked X phone for less than $200? Let us know in the comments below and feel free to come on over to our Google Plus page and join the conversation over there as well!