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Motorola’s ‘big announcement’ on Aug. 2 better not just be the Moto Z3 Force
At the end of June, Motorola posted a mysterious YouTube video. The clip has no sound, is only 11 seconds long, and shows a picture of Chicago, the Motorola logo, and the words “August 2, 2 P.M., Motorola HQ, Chicago.”
Check it out below to see for yourself:
Fortunately, the description of the video is a bit more helpful in deciphering what Motorola has in mind for August 2:
Mark your calendar. On August 2, we’re making a big announcement at Motorola’s HQ in Chicago. Say “hello” to a whole new way to connect, stream, download, video chat, and more. Are you ready?
What might this “big announcement” be? I know one thing: if Motorola is just hyping up the announcement of the Moto Z3 Force, that will be incredibly lame.
Fool me once…
For those of you who are unaware, back in May, the vice president of Motorola’s parent company Lenovo teased that a new Lenovo device would be almost entirely bezel-less. Later, rumors spread that the device would have 45-day standby times and 4TB of storage.
Needless to say, the smartphone industry went crazy. If Lenovo released a phone with specs like that, it would radically alter the market, assuming it wasn’t priced over $2,000.
But what did we get? We got the Lenovo Z5, which is just another budget iPhone X clone with 64GB or 128GB of storage, a display notch, a huge chin, and a 3,300mAh battery.
Yawn.
To say this was disappointing is the understatement of the year. Lenovo committed the cardinal sin of marketing: it overpromised and underdelivered.
Now we have another mysterious marketing ploy with the YouTube video above. The video’s description makes it seem like Motorola has a game-changing product that is going to give us a “whole new way” to live our digital lives.
The problem is, we have a pretty good idea what Motorola is going to launch on August 2, and if we’re right, it’s not likely to change any game at all.
The Moto Z3 Force is just another smartphone
Judging from previous launches in the Moto Z line, this August 2 event is timed well for the launch of the Moto Z3 Force. We loved the Moto Z2 Force — it was even in the running for our Best of Android 2017 list — and are thus incredibly excited to get our hands on the follow-up. We also dug the Motorola Z3 Play quite a bit, even if it has a sub-par camera and poor battery life.
However, the Z3 Force is just another smartphone. It will no doubt be a quality device, with great specs, terrific build quality, and compatible with the innovative Moto Mod library. But, in the end, it will be another black touchscreen slate we use to browse Reddit and make the occasional phone call.
Unless the Z3 Force has some truly unbelievable feature, it will not meet the hype Motorola is building.
But launches don’t have to be all about one device. It could be that the Moto Z3 Force is launching on August 2, but Motorola is also launching something else along with it. It is also possible — although unlikely — that the Z3 Force isn’t coming at all, and the August 2 event is all about a new and exciting product.
What might that be?
Mods, speakers, and smart displays… oh my!
In the smartphone industry as it currently stands, nothing can compare to the library of Moto Mods. Those snap-on modular devices are one of the few examples of truly innovative and interesting smartphone hardware features.
Granted, you might not use them or even care for them, but at least Motorola has something up its sleeve that truly separates it from the rest of the pack. That can’t be said for some other smartphone manufacturers, like OnePlus, HTC, or even Google.
With that in mind, maybe the August 2 event is when the company will launch a new Moto Mod that will potentially change the way you use your smartphone.
But what could a Moto Mod be that gives you “a whole new way to connect, stream, download, video chat, and more?” That would be some Mod.
Maybe instead it’s a new smart speaker or smart display device. That would be an interesting new product for the company, but it would hardly be that exciting since we’ve known about the Lenovo Smart Display with Google Assistant since CES 2018 in January. In fact, just yesterday the device went up for sale at Lenovo.com, so it wouldn’t make much sense to launch a new smart display product only a week later.
Maybe the hype will be worth it this time
However unlikely, it is completely possible that Lenovo and Motorola learned from the mistakes made surrounding the Lenovo Z5 and the August 2 event is going to drop something truly amazing on us.
The fact that we don’t really have any idea what’s coming yet is a good sign. In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is launching on August 9, and we already have a good idea of every major feature of the device. It is unlikely that there will be any surprises from Samsung that day.
But August 2 is less than a week away, and we have only scattered clues as to what Motorola has in store for us. At this point, we can only hope it’s something truly amazing. Or, at the very least, not just the Moto Z3 Force.