In 2013, Motorola’s lower / mid-range Moto G disrupted the established smartphone market. Until the Moto G arrived, I found devices at this price to be too compromised to not be frustrating for my daily driver. They either had low resolution screens, slow and old generation processors, limited RAM, storage, poor cameras and a small battery. Sometimes, a device would launch that would surprise me (the LG L5 II was one such device) but most were compromised in too many areas. Motorola ripped up the book that said substandard processors, screens and battery life is for inexpensive models and dropped the Moto G onto the market. Later on, the Moto G was followed by the Moto E, which was in itself a cut down version of the Moto G. The Motorola Moto E offered a dual-core processor, qHD 4.3-inch display (that’s 960 by 540 pixels) and 1GB of RAM. The camera wasn’t very good, but battery life was: on paper, several of the Moto E’s specifications were similar to flagship models from 2011 such as the HTC Sensation. For those of us wanting a no-frills, nearly stock Android experience for, well, telephone duties, the Moto E was (and arguably remains) a great option. But now there might be a better option coming soon, hopefully for a similar price.
And so on to today’s news report, which is that a new unknown device has appeared at the FCC, Federal Communications Commission, under listing ID IHDT56QF1 and with the memorable model name “4583.” There’s not so much information about the model other than it supports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (no 802.11ac), Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and operates on the 850MHz and 1,900MHz GSM bands; this hardly makes the device unique! The dimensions don’t match an existing Motorola device but would suit a device with a screen of between 4.4-inch to 4.6-inch across the diagonal. There is no mention of LTE, either and the FCC label is showing as being present on a “permanently attached, retractable plastic tab,” which points to a sealed battery that shouldn’t be replaced by the user. Let me cut to the chase: second generation Moto E, anybody?
We’ve seen rumors that the next generation Moto E will have a slightly larger screen than the original 4.3-inch, indeed 4.5-inch has been mooted and this would suit the device size details above perfectly. The lack of LTE is another tell-tale (but perhaps Moto will be releasing an LTE-equipped model in due course?). In the absence of any other details, it’s speculation as to what this handset is or other features, but it looks like we won’t have long until we find out.