Earlier today, a Verizon test engineer by the name of Jose Arturo let loose some information that has now been removed, but included some long-awaited information regarding an update from Android 4.4 Kit Kat for the Motorola Droid Turbo, which had suffered many fixes-that-break-other-things situations since its launch last fall. The part we wanted to bring up from the postings is the mention of a new Moto X and some work being done on it currently.
Back in April, Arturo mentioned that, oddly for Motorola at least, a front-facing flash module would be added to, or was looking to be added to, the upcoming handset from Chicago. This would be an interesting addition to the handset designed in the West, even though the rise in selfie-focused devices has risen over the past few years.
The most important piece of hardware regarding the upcoming Moto X is the concept of expandable storage. The original Moto G lacked a MicroSD card slot, while the first generation Moto E had one, which ushered in the second generation of both, with a slot for storage expansion present on both. The Moto X, apparently, is looking to pick up on this trend for 2015, especially since Samsung abandoned the feature, and people still like being able to buy more storage later or for cheaper.
Something that we have also heard is that Motorola is planning to wow customers this year, with a possible bump in screen resolution, for the second year in a row, up to QuadHD at 2560 by 1440 pixels, perhaps spread across a 5.2-inch display, much like the Droid Turbo. We’ve also heard rumors that the device could feature a higher megapixel count on both the front and back cameras, rising to 5 and 16 megapixels respectively. And of course the device would come with the latest fully-developed version of Android which looks to be, at least from the current point, Android Lollipop, perhaps 5.1.1, unless Google chooses to issue another update to be clever with 5.1.2 before or at Google I/O.
If either of Arturo’s tidbits of information are true, we could be looking at a much more appealing package than a traditional year-to-year cycle, especially because the recent trend is to remove, not add, expandability, which could win Motorola the hearts and dollars of many MicroSD card fans and customizers alike later this year when the new Moto X is launched.