Lenovo is pointing the way forward on a newly revealed roadmap for Motorola, following the announcement of a brand change to Moto by Lenovo.
The Moto by Lenovo brand will be focused on high-end smartphones, and all of the company’s flagships will be outfitted with fingerprint scanners in 2016, said Lenovo’s head of mobile Chen Xudong.
Motorola was one of the few mobile brands not to add fingerprint scanners to its flagships last year, while Samsung, HTC, Sony, and Huawei all dabbled in the new technology, standardized by Apple with the launch of Touch ID.
That might be due to Motorola’s inability to find an adequate supplier. Last year, ex-chief Dennis Woodside said Apple had scooped up the best fingerprint provider, AuthenTec, for $356 million.
Xudong also confirmed that the Moto G and Moto E are dead, revealing that the mid-range and budget smartphones will be merged with Lenovo’s lineup. All of Motorola’s future phones will have displays over 5 inches as well, with Xudong saying that smaller displays are not popular outside of Europe.
It is sad to see the Moto G disappear, considering it is one of our favorite budget smartphones. Motorola also hasn’t been on the ball with its premium flagships this year, with the Moto X Play and Moto X Style not winning over the market in the same way as the original Moto X.
Hopefully, removing the other smartphones will give Motorola more space to work on the next Moto X, and make it better than ever. It needs to compete not just on style, but on specs and price — two areas where Motorola missed last year.
Motorola’s parent isn’t doing any better in the mobile industry however, with sales starting to drop. Huawei and Xiaomi are top of the charts in China, and in other regions Huawei and Samsung are starting to cement their claim.
