Motorola has launched a sign-up page where you can let the company know you’re interested in more details about the upcoming Moto X smartphone. Unfortunately that’s about all the web page does right now… you enter your email address, and Motorola says it’ll send you some more information at some point.

But the page does confirm what we already knew about the Moto X: It’s a customizable phone that will be designed and built in the United States.

Moto X

According to the signup page, Motorola expects to have “more than 2000 new employees in Ft. Worth, TX working to make all of this possible.”

Google bought Motorola in 2012, and the Moto X is expected to be one of the first phones released that wasn’t already in the works when the acquisition went through. In other words, it should have a more Google-influenced design than any Motorola device released to date, even though Motorola is continuing to run as a standalone company (there’s no guarantee the company’s phones will be Nexus devices, for instance).

This won’t the the first Google device built in America. The company’s Google Glass wearable devices are manufactured in the US and so was the ill-fated Google Nexus Q media device.

Now if only we knew what the phone would look like, what kind of specs it would have, or what Motorola means when it says it’s a smartphone you can design yourself (rumors suggest a huge range of options for case colors and materials, but hopefully there’s more to it than that).

Update: ABC News reports customers will be able to select a phone color, choose different colors for the back and sides of the phone, engrave names or messages, and even upload a photograph to be used as the default wallpaper when your device ships.

It should only take a couple of days to ship a custom phone.

The phone’s currently being tested with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, but it might be running a newer version of Android by the time it ships. ABC News says built-in sensors will let you use sensors and voice recognition to launch the camera, switch to speakerphone automatically when you’re driving, and do other things without using the touchscreen.

via reddit

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4 replies on “Motorola’s made-in-America Moto X will employ 2000 people, offer custom color options”

  1. The engraving names or messages could also function as a theft deterrent, making the phone less attractive to would-be thieves who might want to resell the phone. However, this might also adversely affect owners interested in legitimately selling the phone.

    1. Apple has been offering laser engraving of iPhones & iPads, and before that iPods, for many years; I don’t think thieves look closely enough at a target to notice whether it’s engraved or not before snatching it, but yes, the consensus is that it does reduce the resale value of the item for the legitimate owner.

  2. Seeing that Google has been gimping the Motorola Droids with each OS update, the only good thing about this Google/Motorola phone is that I could tell myself that I’m probably helping the US economy (I live in the US).

    I certainly hope this Moto X phone isn’t Nexified. Or maybe even this whole customization thing allows me to upgrade the base gimped model to have a microSD card slot, extended removable battery, slider keyboard and if it’s not a high end device then I’d like to choose the SoC, RAM and internal storage size and speed.

    It’d be nice to even add software features like USB mass storage, USB charge only, sleep mode, speed dial (yeah, Google removed it on JB updates to the Droid line), no Verizon apps other than what’s required to function and the ability to remove any base Google Android app (ie. Google Play Books, Movies, Music, Talk, etc.).

    1. Well, according to the ABC News link it’s a mid-range phone. Coupled with the color options and engraving, this sounds like a phone targetting teenagers. Too bad.

      Judging from what they’ve done to the current Droid line (removing useful features that people like while keeping the bloat that no one wants) and this Moto X phone, Google buying out Motorola Mobility hasn’t been a good thing for Motorola.

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