Motorola has struggled to find its footing in the smartphone era. After early successes like the Droid, it increasingly fell behind the likes of Samsung and OnePlus. After focusing on cheaper phones for the last few years, Moto says it’s coming back to the flagship space in 2020.
Under Lenovo, Motorola backed away from high-end phones—it hasn’t even launched a competitive flagship device in the last two years. In 2018, it released the Moto Z3 on Verizon with a year-old Snapdragon 835. This year, the Verizon Moto Z4 stepped down to the Snapdragon 675. The new Moto Razr is apparently a sign that Motorola is changing course. Moto expects to launch a premium smartphone in “early 2020” running on the Snapdragon 865 platform, meaning it will support some flavor of 5G.
We don’t know if this upcoming phone will be another entry in the Z-series, or if the company will finally drop that gimmick. Regardless, it’s good to have confirmation that Motorola is coming back to the high-end phone market. It was starting to look like it would stick with mid-range devices indefinitely.
