From DailyTech: For decades after it invented the cell phone, Motorola Mobility is still alive and kicking in the smartphone space. Today the brand is owned by the Lenovo Group, Ltd. (HKG:0992), a Chinese OEM best known for its PC offerings. Now the new management is prepping a critical refresh of the brand's aging lineup.
Lenovo -- who also recently bought up the veteran servers unit of International Business Machines, Corp. (IBM) -- has been a strong presence in the Asian smartphone market, even prior to the Motorola purchase. Yet it has faced trouble translating that success into an international rollout. That's what makes Motorola a valuable commodity to its new owners ambitions: the brand is a respected household name not only in the Americas, but in many of Lenovo's other untapped markets, as well.
Lenovo's hopes of growing that base and expanding the Motorola brand in foreign markets are riding on a dynamic duo of devices. Based on recent leaks it appears Motorola is poised to parade out this major refresh within the next couple weeks. The latest leaks come from Evan Blass, who briefly retired from the leaks business last August, but recently staged a comeback. Blass who goes by the handle @evleaks on Twitter Inc. (TWTR), has a strong track record and was responsible for for validated leaks of Motorola's H2 2014 lineup.
Both devices appear to feature dual-LED flashes in the rear and similar colors and styling. From the front we see that the mid-range model (rightmost two in the models above) features stereo speakers. The higher end model (the let three in the image above) also features a front-facing LED flash (for the perfect twilight selfie) and what appears to be at least three noise cancelling secondary microphones (the small holes). There's also what is likely an ambient light sensor for automatic screen brightness adjustments.
The mid-range model (the Droid MAXX 2) will sucede the 2014 mid-range Moto X Play Edition, the unofficial successor to the 2013 Droid Maxx and 2013 Moto X. According to GSMArena, it will replace the 720p display found in the previous mid-range models with a bigger, more modern 5.5-inch 1080p (1,920x1,080 pixel) display. Memory stays stuck at 2 GB DRAM (same as last year's Moto X Play), but the rear-facing camera (RFC) and the system-on-a-chip (SoC) receive upgrades.
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