I just got back from Chicago, visiting Motorola for their somewhat-private event at their brand new headquarters in downtown Chicago. Their press event was a bit different when compared to the likes of Samsung, Sony and others that happened this week. Normally you go to an event, sit down in an auditorium for about an hour or two and listen to the OEM talk for about an hour about their new smartphone and why it’s so awesome. Instead Motorola decided to do something different. And that was to have the press come out to Chicago and to their new world HeadQuarters where they would take them on a tour of their labs as well as showing off their new devices. Which include the Moto X, Moto G, Moto 360 and the Moto Hint. All of which I got hands on time with on Thursday. Although I only got review units of the Moto X, Moto G and Moto 360.
It was really interesting seeing where and how they do everything from R&D to final production. Motorola does all of their R&D right there in Chicago. Which makes that the largest R&D space in the country. And it’s great to see them doing this here in the US. They showed us how they worked on perfecting things like Moto Display, as well as how they worked on their front-facing speakers. Which I think are better than HTC’s Boomsound. As well as briefing us on all of their new products for the fall of this year. I actually really enjoyed this event as it was interesting to see how all this stuff gets done. As many people think that phones are just made overnight, when they aren’t. It takes about a year to 18 months from a phone to go from a concept to launch. So Motorola is likely already working on the next Moto X, Moto G and Moto 360.
Motorola also brought us there to show off their new products. Which I’ve had for about 48 hours now, and so far I really like the Moto X and Moto 360. And this comes from someone that gave up on the first Moto X because battery life deterioated after Android 4.4 KitKat came out. The Moto G is amazing. To get this kind of hardware, and software into a smartphone that is only $180 off contract is just amazing. Although it is a bit puzzling that there is no LTE version of the Moto G yet. Since the original Moto G had both a HSPA+ and LTE version. Hopefully that comes soon. I think Motorola has something here with the Moto G. As not everyone wants a flagship smartphone with a flagship price. But they want something that will, plain and simple, just work. And that’s what the Moto G is. Motorola even brought some of their other software over to the Moto G. Which we’ll talk more about in the full review soon.
I really like what Motorola did for their press this week. And I really hope that they do that again in the future, and other OEMs also transition their event to something like this. I know everyone wants to see a livestream of an event, but I actually prefer it this way, because then we aren’t rushing to get this news out, we have about 12 hours before we can publish. And it means that we can put out better quality content since we can take our time. I’ve included lots of pictures below, some from their labs, some of the first Moto 360 prototypes and others from throughout their headquarters.