Motorola exec leaks retail box for Under-Screen-Camera-Edition of Edge X30
Some would argue that the last time that Motorola released a handset of any significance, it was back in November 2009 when the Motorola DROID made Android a household name. Others might point to the overly ambitious Motorola Atrix which was released in 2011. Not only was the Atrix the first phone to sport a fingerprint scanner, it was the first to employ a dual-core chip and it also could dock into a special laptop accessory to drive a PC-like experience.
The Atrix fingerprint scanner was downright awful and the self-proclaimed most powerful smartphone in the world didn't leave the legacy it could have. The Droid X gets honorable mention for being in the first class of handsets that offered what was then, a large 4.3-inch display. After it moved away from the flagship tier, Motorola was successful with its budget line, especially the low-priced models that had certain features like a large battery or carried a stylus.
Motorola made a solid return to flagships with 2020's Moto Edge Plus
Feeling its oats, Motorola returned to flagships two years ago with the Moto Edge Plus which included a waterfall screen, a 6.7-inch 90Hz OLED display, 256GB of native storage, and a 5000mAh capacity battery. And last month it was the first phone manufacturer to introduce a handset powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC. Don't let the name fool you, this is Qualcomm's most powerful AP chipset for 2022, and the new naming scheme is supposed to make it easier to understand whether a Snapdragon component is top-tier, low-tier, or somewhere in the middle.
Motorola executive posted a picture of the Moto Edge X30 Under-Screen Camera Edition's retail box
The handset introduced in December is called the Moto Edge X30 and today an executive of the firm took to Weibo to share a photo of the retail box for a special edition of the phone. According to GizmoChina, this variant of the Moto Edge X30 carries an under-display camera. Perhaps Lenovo (the company that currently owns Motorola) needs a new marketing firm since this model will reportedly be known as the Moto Edge X30 Under-Screen Camera Edition, which is a little wordy.
The executive who posted the image on Weibo was Chen Jin, General Manager of Lenovo's China Mobile Phone Business. The Moto Edge X30 Under-Screen Camera Edition is expected to have the same 60MP front-facing camera sensor found in the regular version of the device. If it does borrow the non-camera specs from the regular variant of the Edge X30, it will sport a 6.7-inch OLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate and a 1080+ resolution.
Motorola has clawed its way back to become one of the top phone manufacturers in the states
Again, if the special Under-Screen Camera Edition mirrors the regular version of the device, it will have an in-screen fingerprint scanner with up to 12GB of memory and 256GB of internal storage. The rear camera array could be led by a 50MP camera sensor with two other sensors on the back, and Android 12 is expected to be pre-installed. If everything goes as rumored, the Under-Screen Camera Edition of the Motorola Edge X30 will be the first handset with such a feature to include the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset under the hood.
You Moto fans in the states might need to take a deep breath because the Under-Screen Camera Edition appears to be headed only to China. The good news for Lenovo/Motorola fans in the world's largest smartphone market is that the appearance of the retail box indicates that this special edition of the Moto Edge X30 could be released soon.
Motorola took advantage of the U.S. ban on ZTE in 2018 to replace the Chinese manufacturer as the fourth-largest smartphone manufacturer in the states. ZTE had failed to follow U.S. restrictions on shipments to Iran and North Korea and ended up on the Entity List unable to access its U.S. suppliers more than a year before Huawei was placed on that list.
The big difference is that unlike Huawei, ZTE was the fourth-largest smartphone manufacturer in terms of U.S. shipments at the time. The most recent data generated by Statista shows that as of the end of the third-quarter of 2021, Motorola (including Lenovo) was the third-largest smartphone shipper in the states with 9% of the market. Apple (47%) and Samsung (34%) were the top two.
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