Lenovo has big ambitions for Motorola smartphones, after revealing that it would be releasing as many as 12 Motomods in 2017.
In an interview with Pakistan’s Express Tribune, Sharay Shams, Lenovo’s GM of smartphones for the Middle East, confirmed that despite concerns over the usefulness of modular phone designs, Motorola would be continuing with the Motomods scheme.
During the interview, Shams is quoted as saying: “The company will introduce 12 Mods this year, which will remain compatible with the phones to be introduced by the company over the next three years.”
He also seemingly took a shot at LG over it’s largely failed attempt to introduce modularity to smartphones with the LG G6: “LG had introduced a gadget like our Mods sometime in the past, but it failed to succeed.”
LG’s modular design for the LG G5 failed to pick up steam thanks to a lack of compatible “modules” that could be attached to the phone. That left the whole feature feeling useless, seemingly compromising the phone’s design for nothing.
But it appears Motorola hopes to avoid such a fate, maintaining that it hopes to continue giving consumers the choice to customise smartphone features to their personal tastes. Shams explains: “It has revolutionised the smartphone industry with innovation which remained stagnant for the last 10 years,” adding that Mods “transformed the smartphones into what you want to make it and when”.
Motorola has already released a number of ‘Mods’ for the Moto Z smartphones, include one that turns the handset into a projector that can deliver PowerPoint presentations. There’s also a ‘Mod’ that improves the phone’s camera.
Part of the appeal of the ‘Mods’ is that they’re hot-swappable, which means you can exchange features without having to turn the phone off. That said, it remains to be seen exactly how useful Motorola’s upcoming ‘Mods’ will be.
Motorola is expected to announce its next smartphone at Barcelona’s MWC 2017 tradeshow later this month, although it’s unlikely that the handset will be a mod-friendly Moto Z; instead, it’s tipped that we’ll see a budget Moto G5.
Related: Samsung Galaxy S8
Watch: MWC 2017 – What to expect
What do you think of the Motomods scheme? Let us know in the comments.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
