Two real-life images depicting what’s alleged to be a new variant of the Moto G6 Plus appeared online on Friday, having been obtained by tech blog 91mobiles. The supposedly revised version of the device is shown running the Android version of the AIDA64 benchmark which clearly lists its system-on-chip of choice as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660. Last month, Motorola announced the Moto G6 Plus as its most premium mid-range offering for this spring but even that phone debuted with the less powerful Snapdragon 630. The newly sighted handset is identified by the model number XT1926-5 and ships with 6GB of RAM as opposed to 4GB found inside the base model of the lineup introduced in April, according to the same report.
As the two appear to share the same model number, the leaked benchmark results may have been spoofed, with another possibility being that Motorola will simply be using different chips for various models of the Moto G6 Plus, depending on the region. While the smartphone still isn’t available on a global level and Lenovo’s subsidiary does have a history of leveraging several silicon models in identically named devices, this scenario would still be largely unprecedented given the significant differences in processing capabilities between the Snapdragon 630 and 660.
The newly spotted Moto G6 Plus variant retains the 64GB storage configuration of the previously announced device but the same report claims a model with 128GB of flash memory may be in the works as well, citing no specific sources. Motorola‘s newly appointed President Sergio Buniac said in April that the company is planning to streamline its device portfolio and release fewer new smartphones over the course of this year than it did in 2017. The company’s next Android device is expected to be announced in Brazil early next month, coming in the form of the Moto Z3 Play, a modular mid-ranger with a side-mounted fingerprint reader. While Motorola is presently growing its stateside and international presence, the overall mobile business of its parent company Lenovo is still bleeding money, having lost $142 million over its last fiscal year which ended this March.