Even though Motorola has definitely been keeping busy of late, releasing Edge-branded mid-rangers and high-enders left and right and topping them off with the occasional ultra-affordable new Moto G-series handset, the company is almost certainly not done for the year as far as product announcements are concerned.
At least two additional devices are expected to see daylight by the end of 2022, and although their freshly leaked specifications and designs don't exactly look special by, well, any standards, the price points could be low enough to make for some very interesting value propositions.
A global 5G mid-ranger with MediaTek power
Unveiled several months back with an excellent screen and fairly competent camera in tow but no 5G support, the Moto G32 (known on the inside by its "Devon" codename), is purportedly set to receive a 5G-enabled variant soon.
Based on a somewhat blurry render made public by the almost always reliable folks over at 91mobiles, this phone could look pretty much identical on the outside to the existing 4G LTE-only G32 while packing an unspecified MediaTek processor under its hood instead of a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC.
Confusingly enough, these non-5G and 5G-capable models of the same device are said to share the aforementioned Devon internal moniker despite multiple differences in specifications.
The Moto G32 5G, for instance, is rumored to replace the "regular" G32's primary 50MP rear-facing camera with an even more capable-sounding 64MP shooter while downgrading the secondary sensor from 8 to just 2 megapixels and retaining the tertiary 2MP cam on the back.
All of this newly speculated information appears to perfectly line up with the super-early details revealed by none other than Evan Blass all the way back in June. At that point, the legendary leaker also predicted this "5G version of Devon" would be internationally released by the end of 2022 and then expanded to North America sometime in 2023.
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There's no reason to doubt that's still Motorola's plan, and if priced aggressively enough (read well under $300), a Moto G32 5G mid-ranger with the same 90Hz Full HD+ screen and 5,000mAh battery as the 4G LTE-only variant could definitely find great success in the budget-friendly US smartphone market segment.
A decidedly unattractive entry-level handset with humble specifications
There's really no way around it - the Motorola "Maui" looks absolutely cringeworthy in its first leaked render, sporting a massive "chin", a "modern" centered hole punch, and for some reason, a pretty distinctive "forehead" as well.
This design almost makes us nostalgic for the waterdrop-style notches the company appears to have entirely given up on, and alas, the rumored specs are not a whole lot better, including a modest 3 gigs of RAM, a 16MP main camera joined by a pair of 2MP sensors on the generic-looking plastic back of this somewhat mysterious device, a 5MP selfie shooter, and a 720p display virtually guaranteed to stick with a "traditional" 60Hz refresh rate.
Powered by the same MediaTek Helio G37 chipset as the likes of the Moto G22, this phone (whose marketing label remains a big question mark) will obviously need to be extremely cheap to make any sort of impression on even the most unpretentious prospective buyers around the world.
Knowing Motorola, however, that shouldn't be a problem, so those of you on (really) tight budgets may want to remain (cautiously) excited about potentially taking a low-cost metaphorical trip to Maui in the near future.
Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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