Motorola announced the Moto Z4 on Thursday, which was a somewhat mid-range smartphone from the company. This led to many wondering if we might see a Moto Z4 Force or Moto Z4 Play this year. The company’s Twitter account confirmed that there wouldn’t be any other Moto Z smartphones launching this year.
We have seen leaks for the Moto Z4 Force in the past few months, so it’s possible that Motorola cancelled the project, or some retailers thought that the Moto Z4 was the Moto Z4 Force. Either way, it looks like the Moto Z4 is the only model that’s launching this year.
This isn’t a total surprise, we haven’t seen a “Force” version since the Moto Z2 Force in 2017. And with Motorola pushing the Moto Z series into the mid-range part of its lineup, it opens up space for the rumored Motorola RAZR foldable phone that is set to debut this summer. This is the phone that many are more interested in checking out from Motorola, and not the Moto Z4.
Motorola may also be looking to kill off the Moto Mods, and launching one more phone that supports them could be the beginning of the end. Motorola said that it would support these Moto Mods for three years, and it is now in the fourth year. While it has not released any new Moto Mods in the better part of a year, it does still support older versions. Motorola (and more importantly Lenovo) kept its word with support, which is always good to see.
One of the downsides to keeping this promise though, is that Motorola isn’t able to really change the design of the Moto Z lineup, since they all need to support the Moto Mods that you attach to the back of the phone. The only real design changes we’ve seen, is to the front of the phone. With Motorola embracing the 18:9 aspect ratio last year, and then a notch this year with the Moto Z4. The fingerprint sensor has also moved from below the display to the side of the phone. Otherwise, it’s largely the same design as the 2016 Moto Z.
Motorola has also been focusing more on its Motorola One brand in the past year. After releasing a couple of phones under that brand last year, there are a number of others coming in 2019. Like the Motorola One Pro, and the company already announced the Motorola One Vision which is seemingly a pretty decent looking smartphone for around $400. The Motorola One line is all Android One smartphones, which are likely easier for Motorola to keep updated, since it doesn’t have to build the updates itself and get them certified.
Nevertheless, the Moto Z4 is going to be the only Moto Z smartphone we see this year. One has to wonder whether it’ll be the last Moto Z smartphone that we see announced by the company. With it having hands in a number of other lines right now: Moto G, Motorola One, RAZR and others.