It’s time to start taking Motorola seriously again

Motorola was one of the biggest names in the global mobile phone industry. It was also one of the first brands to challenge Nokia’s dominance in the Indian mobile market, with disruptive products such as the original Razr V3.

So why is the brand now seen by many as second tier? Part of the problem is history – while Motorola was an early adopter of Android, its products were quickly eclipsed by phones from Samsung, Sony and others. Motorola has since changed hands twice, which has affected its perception.

Motorola is often viewed as a substandard manufacturer by the buying public and, to some extent, reviewers and influencers. Samsung, LG, HTC and Sony price their devices at Rs. 50,000 or more and everyone thinks it is justified. But when Motorola priced the Moto X at Rs. 32,000 and the Moto Turbo at Rs. 42,000, people said they were “too expensive”.

Motorola still suffers from bad decisions and products from three or four years ago. After pioneering the mobile phone revolution – Motorola developed and sold the world’s first commercially available cell phone in 1984, the DynaTAC – the company fell hard. The brand struggled at the start of the smartphone era, producing flagships such as the Motorola Razr XT910 that were rightly criticized for being painfully average.

Then something wonderful happened to Motorola – it was taken over by Google. Google changed the way things were done at Motorola, and the Moto X was a sign of the future. It was the most innovative smartphone of 2013, with its fancy new voice controls powered by Google Now and its vanilla Android user interface.

Motorola then made more waves with the Moto G and Moto E, which quickly became the go-to recommendations in their price segments thanks to impressive feature lists at competitive prices. And the icing on the cake? Motorola was on top of Android updates, sometimes even beating the Nexus series by rolling out the latest Android versions on time.

Although Google took less than two years to sell Motorola Mobility to Lenovo (while retaining Motorola’s patent hoard), the company hasn’t looked back. It remains at the forefront of innovation and design, producing quality smartphones, excellent smartwatches such as the Moto 360 and engineering marvels such as the Moto Hint.

Let’s also compare 2014’s flagship phones, along with our ratings:

HTC One (M8) – 8/10

Samsung Galaxy S5 – 8/10

LG G3 – 8/10

Sony Xperia Z3 – 8/10

Motorola Moto X (2nd Gen) – 8/10

It’s not just us at NDTV Gadgets who think that – reviewers and experts around the world agree that the Moto X is as good as, if not better than, every other flagship.

Why, then, do we continue to underestimate Motorola? Why do we argue that Rs. 30,000 is way too expensive for a Motorola Moto X (Gen 2) when it can be considered a better smartphone than a Samsung or Sony one would pay way more for ? Why do we think Rs. 41,999 is too much money for the Motorola Moto Turbo as it manages to exceed the specs of the Google Nexus 6 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 while maintaining a significantly lower price?

From rise to fall to rise, Motorola is now back at the top of its game. He makes beautiful products that work well, and he cuts down on price competition while he’s at it. What’s not to like?