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Do We Need The Moto Z Smartphones' New Add-On Modules? (hothardware.com)
This week saw the release of the Moto Z Droid and Force Droid, new Android smartphones from Motorola and Lenovo with snap-on modules. Slashdot reader MojoKid writes that the Z Force Droid "is sheathed behind Moto ShatterShield technology making it virtually indestructible."
Motorola guarantees it not to crack or shatter if dropped... However, what's truly standout are Moto Mods, which are snap-on back-packs of sorts that add new features, like the JBL Speaker, Moto Insta-Projector and Incipio OffGrid Power Pack (2220 mAh) mods... Even the fairly complex projector mod fires up in seconds and works really well.
But the Verge has called it "a good phone headed down the wrong path," adding "this company is competing in the global smartphone market, not a high school science fair, and its success will depend on presenting better value than the competition, not cleverer design. Without the benefit of the value-projecting fairy dust of brands like Apple and Beats, Lenovo will have an uphill climb trying to justify its Moto Mods pricing with functionality and looks, and our review has shown that none of the company's extras are essential."
But the Verge has called it "a good phone headed down the wrong path," adding "this company is competing in the global smartphone market, not a high school science fair, and its success will depend on presenting better value than the competition, not cleverer design. Without the benefit of the value-projecting fairy dust of brands like Apple and Beats, Lenovo will have an uphill climb trying to justify its Moto Mods pricing with functionality and looks, and our review has shown that none of the company's extras are essential."
The Verge's advice focuses on value in a packed market, and explicitly recommends against attempting novelty. This is crap advice, the kind of numbing pablum that Walmart gives to reps with a new product. "You want to make jeans? Sure, you have to make them in a way that fits on the existing shelving and matches the existing pipeline of ass-coverings, and don't come to us in the spring without lighter weight stuff and shorts." The message is that innovation doesn't sell, which is completely wrong, you can still sell the hell out of yoga pants (high volume/moderate margin) and utilikilts (high margin low volume) if you are careful. Innovation doesn't sell in volume right away. Was Tesla thought to be a competitor to the big automakers? Puhleez. But they put out an innovative niche product and did it goddamn well, and now as they ramp production and solve nontrivial production problems, they are becoming a serious threat to a super-defined market dominated by a few big players.
Also, the Verge article mixes up the use of the word "value" between low-cost+performant product vs premium product, and implies you must choose one end of the spectrum or you are fools. This is also complete BS; it's entirely possible to put out a mid-market device that eats the premium product's lunch (with the exception of the 1% of the market that buys Kardashian-style gold-plated iPhones just because of the logo and the gold). This is how Samsung arrived at its current market position. Let's not forget that along the way to it's current dominance, Samsung put out versions of the Galaxy phone that had stylii, projectors, card slots, display adapters, etc etc. Some of those are still highly profitable products at high volume today, and there's certainly room for improvement -- particularly with respect to flexibility. To dismiss as "high school science fair" and unaware of the global market is profoundly ignorant of the history of this market.
Not only is this a viable play-book for Moto, it's exactly what they should do in order to not become part of the "value" market on the clearance shelf.
I think not...(*poof*)
Not "low end" - the Moto-G and Moto-X represent good value mid and high-end phones.
The X competed with the iPhone 6+ and Galaxy flagship at a substantially lower price. High hardware specs and unadulterated Android.
The Z (Zee or Zed?) does not represent the same value.
And the clip-on modules? The only one making the slightest sense over wireless accessories is the power pack, and they've never been hits compared to general-purpose portable USB power-banks. The Moto X fast-charge made it even less useful (claims "up to 8 hours of power in just 15 minutes of charging" using a QC2 charger).
The clip on backpack battery represents a throwback to the old StarTac (pre-RAZR) days where you could get a slimline battery (which was for chumps) or this mutant cancer battery bulge, which gave you something like a week worth of standby. It was ugly, but holy wow it was an official manufacturer-built battery backpack, not unlike what they're making now.
Being able to buy a phone with a first party batter backpack puts Motorola on the radar of a lot of people who crave a true all-day phone. I'm certainly looking at it now.
I have a Nexus 5x which while having an average battery life, I went on a company offsite outing today and had to bring a USB battery bank to keep it from running out of juice. I suspect there are other people out here that demand more battery life than the average phone is capable of giving.
Nobody actually cares about the pico projector or... whatever the other one was. Everyone paying attention to this as a positive attribute is totally focused on the first party battery backpack. If I bought a Moto Z, I'd buy three backpacks, one for current use, one for the office (on a charger) and one at my house as a backup, all ready to hot-swap. I can live with a thicker phone, but using ride share services as often as I do, I can't function without my phone these days.
moox. for a new generation.
I feel like a battery + slide out keyboard (and maybe a headphone jack if they really aren't including one on the phone) would be a game changing "mod" accessory for this phone. I know I personally would drop my Google Fi subscription (which I love for many reasons) and switch back to Verizon solely because of a 5 row slide-out QWERTY keyboard that is backlit and easy to type with thumbs and feels solid. I don't care how much it would cost or how thick it makes the phone in my pocket.
Who ARE these people constantly asking for thinner and thinner phones??? Or is "Well... we can make it 0.001mm thinner?" the ONLY answer the engineers have when the marketing people are hounding them for the "next big thing"...
The worst article in a long time. No smartphone is about what is needed, it is about what is wanted (even if that want is just to feel superior because you have the latest model from $Company).
In fact smartphones in general are not NEEDED, nor are tech sites reporting on them.
Their goal is to attract consumer interest, and this will do it. I just wish their connector was open source, so there would be a 0.00000001% chance of other brands following suit - lets go down the line of things like ara or PC type ugrades