Motorola just filled a gap in its smartphone lineup, reviving a brand that hasn't been used in a couple of years to add the much-anticipated Moto X4 to the ranks. Slotting in between the Moto G and Moto Z series, the Moto X4 is launching in Europe at €399, and will be available in September.
More: Moto X4 hands-on preview
For that modest price tag, you get what initially looks like most other Motorola phones, with the added bonus of a nice glass back covering on the opposite side of a 5.2-inch 1080p display. The frame conceals a 3000mAh battery, full IP68 water resistance and a headphone jack to boot. Not bad, Motorola.
It isn't a flagship, but we shouldn't have expected it to be one.
Internally things round out mostly as you'd expect: Snapdragon 630 processor, 3 or 4GB of RAM, and 32 or 64GB of storage (depending on market, as usual). That's all driving a near-identical build of Motorola's latest clean and fast software, which remains a crowd favorite no matter what hardware it's running on. Now, how about the camera? Well, there are actually two rear cameras: a 12MP primary, and 8MP wide-angle. You won't find OIS on either, but the primary camera seems promising with an f/2.0 aperture and rather large 1.4-micron pixels. The wide-angle, as we've seen on LG phones, should be fun.
More: Moto X4 specs
Motorola is only announcing pricing and availability for the Moto X4 in Europe at this point (it is, after all, launching at IFA 2017 in Berlin), but has confirmed that the phone will come to the U.S. We don't know exactly when or for how much, but we know it'll be a model with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, for what it's worth. Given how pricing usually breaks down between regions, it's reasonable to expect the Moto X4 to come in at $399 in the U.S. — we sure hope it stays under the $400 level.
