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Motorola is filling the gap OnePlus left behind, mostly
As we near the launch of Motorola’s return to the flagship space, it’s becoming clear that the company is ready to fill a gap left by the departure of OnePlus, though there’s one very obvious difference between the two.
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The Motorola Signature 27’s launch is coming up fast and, with it, the first truly exciting flagship the company has launched widely in quite some time. There have been a handful of high-end Moto devices in recent years, but this is the first one in quite a while where it seems Motorola is holding nothing back.
Between a powerful Snapdragon chip, top-tier cameras, and rumors of a massive battery, this is shaping up to be something special. Of course, all-out flagships like this aren’t uncommon in some parts of the world. Oppo, Honor, and other Chinese brands have been building devices like this for years but, especially in the US, they’re just completely lacking, especially now that OnePlus is dead. While OnePlus flagships in more recent years have not quite risen to the same bar as Oppo’s, they’ve been the best equivalent in the States and, now, they’re just gone.
Motorola is stepping up in a big way here, and seems to be the closest many are going to get to a OnePlus replacement.
It’s fitting, really. As much as I’d love to have Google Pixel step up its game here, Motorola’s Lenovo backing and long history in the smartphone space more than earns its spot as a proper flagship smartphone maker. The problem, really, is just going to boil down to pricing.
OnePlus was well known for top-tier specs, of course, but it built its brand on doing so at a lower price point. Even in its final days where prices were creeping higher than ever, a OnePlus flagship was still priced equal to or less than most competitors. Motorola Signature 27 does not seem to be trying to recover that part of OnePlus’ reputation based on early pricing leaks. RAMageddon surely isn’t helping matters, but Motorola’s return to the flagship space is not going to come cheap from the sound of it.
Another sore point for Motorola is in software updates, but it’s not like OnePlus was really doing that well in that regard anyway. Things are moving in a better direction with Motorola moving up to 7-year commitments on certain devices, but there’s still room for improvement and quite the poor track record to make up for.
With the launch of Motorola Signature 27 mere weeks away, I’m personally very excited to see what the company has in store. What do you think?
You’d think that Android foldables effectively doing all of the R&D for Apple’s first foldable would prevent any major issues, but apparently that’s not enough. While the scale of the problem remains unclear, Apple’s iPhone Duo is cracking for many in the same place, suggesting there’s a manufacturing problem in play. It’s not quite an OG Galaxy Fold debacle, but it doesn’t feel far off either.