latest
Smartphones are getting more and more expensive, but flagships from a year or two ago are still good devices - I should know, my main phone is still a 2016 Google Pixel. If you've been looking for an inexpensive phone, or even a secondary/backup device, today might be your lucky day. Daily Steals currently has several refurbished Motorola phones on sale at steep discounts, when you use our exclusive coupon codes.
Projector phones always seemed like an idea that made more sense in science fiction than in present reality, which is probably why the Galaxy Beam failed to gain much traction. Such as it is, the benefit of the Moto Mod design allows anyone with a compatible phone to add on a countless number of peculiar peripherals... one at a time. Now, at Verizon, you can get a free Insta-Share Projector Moto Mod for free when you purchase any other Moto Mod. At $300 off, it's quite the bargain.
Motorola has struggled to come up with compelling Moto Mod accessories, and its latest attempt is a partnership with Polaroid. The new Insta-Share Printer Moto Mod plugs into your Moto Z device so you can print your snapshots instantly on 2x3-inch adhesive sheets. Does that sound vaguely fun? Well, you'll pay $200 for the privilege.The Moto Z camera gains a few new capabilities with this mod attached. You can take Polaroid photos with filters and borders, then print them immediately. However, the prints come out in front of the camera, so that's going to slow you down. You can also print older shots or grab images from Facebook, Instagram and Google Photos. The photos are small, but they're also stickers. I mean, who doesn't like stickers?[EMBED_YT]https://youtu.be/O23ISH8Fd0w[/EMBED_YT]The Insta-Share Printer uses the ZINK inkless paper system from Polaroid's other mobile printers. In fact, this Mod is really just one of Polaroid's existing printers that sticks to the back of your phone. It's twice as expensive, though. The paper is spendy, too. A 20-pack of ZINK paper is $9 on Amazon.The Insta-Share Printer Moto Mod goes on sale at Verizon this week. It'll be exclusive there for a while, but the printer will launch elsewhere at a later date. Motorola is taking pre-orders and will ship them at the end of the month.Source: Motorola
Read update
- Motorola has published a blog post confirming all the devices above, along with the as of yet unreleased Moto X4. We also forgot about the Moto Z Play Droid - whoops. We've added both to the list above.
Back in the days when the Moto X could be used with one hand and Moto Maker was a cool new thing, Motorola was one of the best manufacturers with software updates. Since their skin is so minimal, anything else would be disappointing. But Motorola is not what it once was, and it's fallen behind in terms of software support. The Lenovo-owned company has just released its update roadmap for Android 8.0 Oreo.
Android Oreo is all we've been hearing about for the past week or so, but it's important to remember that virtually every phone is still on Nougat. That includes the Moto Z and its Verizon sibling, the Moto Z Droid. Both phones have just had their 7.1.1 Nougat kernel source codes released by Motorola on GitHub.
Six new Moto Mod concepts announced, including DSLR lens, DirecTV, and "Moto 360 Camera" attachments
Back in 2016, Motorola committed to releasing twelve Moto Mods per year - a rather ambitious amount. However, it appears that the Lenovo-owned company hasn't forgotten about that promise, as it revealed six new Moto Mod concepts a few days ago at an event in Ghana. Moto has shown off Moto Mod concepts in the past (alongside production Moto Mods), but these are new.
The tech market is getting competitive these days, and smartphone manufacturers that aren't named Apple or Samsung must price their products aggressively to survive. Motorola didn't seem to get that memo when it launched the unlocked Moto Z with an MSRP of $699.99, but with this latest discount, it appears that the company has seen the light. For a limited time, B&H is offering the Moto Z in unlocked guise with a bunch of freebies for just $449.99 - that's $250 off retail, for those of you who aren't math people.The Moto Z features a 5.5-inch 1440p AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 820, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage and a microSD slot, a 13MP rear camera, a 5MP front-facing camera, and a 2600mAh battery. It packs all this, plus a quick fingerprint sensor and support for Moto Mods, into a svelte 5.2mm-thick body. It is worth noting that there's no headphone jack, though.$449.99 for a phone with these specifications is already a pretty solid deal, but B&H is also throwing in a bunch of free stuff: a $25 B&H e-gift card, a VR headset, as well as a "Smartphone Photo Bundle" that includes a 32GB class 10 SanDisk microSD card, a mobile LED light, a smartphone mount, a tripod, and a microfiber cleaning cloth. (If you aren't a fan of free things for whatever reason, Amazon also has the phone listed at $449.99. Its bundles with the Hasselblad camera mod and the Insta-Share Projector have also fallen to all-time low prices.)If you're interested, act quickly; B&H's deal will expire at 11:59PM EST tonight (February 6th). We wouldn't expect Amazon's deal to last much longer. Hit the source links to see the retailers' listings.
In most cases, buying an unlocked Android phone means faster updates, because (in most cases) it sidesteps the carrier approval process. Motorola's 2016 flagship, the Moto Z, was updated to Android Nougat almost two months ago. In addition to all the lovely features that Nougat brings, the update also added Daydream compatibility. The only problem? The unlocked US variant of the Moto Z still hasn't received the update, only the Verizon-exclusive Moto Z Droid and Z Droid Force.
Last year, Motorola skipped on updating the Moto X line of devices, in favor of introducing the Moto Z. The device's main selling point was 'Moto Mods,' modules the user can hotswap to add functionality. Unfortunately, the expensive cost of both the device and the Moto Mods, as well as the lack of a headphone jack and short battery life, led it to fall below expectations.
Motorola's latest Moto Z flagship phones are modular, designed to accommodate add-on modules that snap to the back of their cases for extra battery life, more complex camera modules, pico projectors, et cetera. Critical and consumer response to the change has been mixed, as it was for LG's modular G5 designs. But in a recent meeting with technology journalists, the Lenovo subsidiary doubled down on the modular approach. Motorola committed to at least 12 new Moto Mod add-on products per year.
[Deal Alert] Save up to $500 on the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, LG G5, Moto Z Droid, and more at Best Buy
In the market for a new phone? If you're on AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon, Best Buy may have some deals worth looking at. Some of these offers can get a little confusing between all the different carriers and options, so try to hang on.
Read update
- Motorola has made the update official on its company blog, announcing that Android 7.0 Nougat will be rolling out this week to the Moto Z and Moto Z Force (not just the Droid editions). Motorola seemed to forget about the ZTE Axon 7 when it called the Z and Z Force, "the first smartphones from another manufacturer to be recognized by Google as Daydream-ready devices." Oops.
Despite being released on August 22, hardly any devices outside of Google's Nexus and Pixel lineups officially run Android Nougat. In fact, only about 0.3% of all Android devices with the Play Store actually have it. Many Verizon customers have reported that their Moto Z Droid and Moto Z Droid Force phones have received OTAs to Nougat.
The new Moto Z line is divisive. It's probably the best example in a limited field of new "modular" phones, consisting of only the Z variants and LG's G5... and LG already dropped the modular design for its more recent V20. But if you've been eying either the Verizon-exclusive Moto Z Droid (or the Moto Z Force Droid with a bigger battery) or the unlocked Moto Z, the sticker shock of the phones and the Moto Mod add-ons may have been a disincentive. Now Motorola is giving a generous 0 off all of them on its web store.
Motorola picked a pretty busy day to release its list of phones that are slated to be upgraded to Android 7.0 - make of that what you will. After previously confirming that the new Moto Z , Moto Z Droid, and Moto G4 lines would be upgraded to Nougat "starting in Q4," a more complete list was published to the company blog today. The list is fairly predictable, with some notable exceptions.
Certain Android manufacturers do a good job of regularly supplying kernel source code, and Motorola is one of them. Nearly two months after the Moto Z Droid became available from Verizon, Motorola is now posting those files online.
The response to Lenovo's new Moto Z Droid and Moto Z Force Droid has been mitigated at best. Most of us think they're good phones overall, but the wrong corners have been cut and the Mods strategy isn't convincing enough to sway the decision in their favor.
Pre-orders for Moto's new flagships went up last week, but today is the day the phones go officially on sale. Both the Moto Z DROID and the Moto Z Force DROID are available for purchase at Verizon's website and the prices are like we discussed earlier.