The ever reliable @evleaks has posted an image of a Motorola smartphone that is clearly pictured in a protective case that conceals its real identity. Going by the images the device not only runs on the AT&T network in the US, but also by the looks of it runs a pretty stock version of Android.

The device not only brandishes a Motorola logo, but also showcases the ‘Moto Care’ app which is exclusive to Motorola smartphones. The left most image basically shows an image of the Play Store but also reveals the virtual keyboard which appears to be similar to the one on stock Android, and different from the custom Motorola one.

Over the past few months there have been rumors about a Motorola made X-Phone which would flaunt cutting edge specs and the latest version of Android. By the looks of the images the version of Android seems pretty similar to Android 4.2, hence this could be an indication that the device is running Android 4.3 instead of Android 5.0, which was predicted earlier.

Only recently, a number of Nexus smartphones have appeared on the net running Android 4.3 giving more credence to the launch of Android 4.3 at Google I/O later this month rather than Android 5.0. That said, it will be prudent to wait for Google I/O which starts on May 15 for more information.

Update: Now @evleaks has also posted an image of the back of the device. In the caption he says that it could be the AT&T version of the Motorola X-Phone. By the looks of it, the back of the device has a mesh like finish similar to the kevlar back seen on the Droid Razr (but this could be just a cover that masks the exterior of the device), and there is also a rear camera with a flash module underneath it.

Motorola engineer Marty Cooper placed the first cellular call on April 3, 1973, marking the beginning of a revolution that would change the world forever. The device is question was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x that weighed 2.5 pounds, and was super ungainly by modern standards. We take a look at some of the most groundbreaking cellphones that have touched our lives in the last 40 years.

Motorola DynaTAC 8000x

The prototype that Marty Cooper used to make the first call weighed 2.5 pounds, and was 9-inches long and 5-inches deep. It offered just 30 minutes of talktime and took 10 hours to recharge. The first mass production model of the same phone hit markets ten years later in 1983 and an entire line of DynaTAC cellphones were made by Motorola till 1994.

Nokia Mobira Cityman 900

Motorola was not the only innovator in this space as Nokia joined the party in 1987 with the Mobira Cityman 900. It had a 1,000-mAh battery and offered a talk time of only 50 minutes. It was also pretty big, but at the time was one of the world’s first compact cellphones as it weighed ‘just’ 760 grams. The phone was made famous by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev as used the device to make a call to Moscow in October 1987 from Helsinki, Finland.

Nokia 1011

There is a reason Nokia’s name will be remain synonymous with the cellphone industry forever. It pushed mobile technology further than anyone else in the 90’s. The Nokia 1011 was the first cellular phone that ran on a GSM network. It used the 900MHz band and could even receive a SMS.

Nokia 2110

The 2110 was the model that really propelled Nokia to the stratospheric heights it managed to cling on to till the late 2000’s. It was also the first phone to feature the now iconic Nokia ringtone. It could list 10 dialed numbers, missed calls and received calls and could also send and receive SMSs. It was also known for its ungainly antenna.

Nokia 9000 Communicator

The word smartphone did not exist back in 1996, but if there was something close to a smartphone back then, it was the Nokia 9000 Communicator. It was actually the first phone to drive home the thought that a phone could be a computer. It was large, ungainly and was powered by an Intel i386 CPU clocked at 24MHz and ran GEOS 3.0. The Communicator remained an integral part of Nokia’s lineup till the last one which was the E90.

Nokia 7650

The Nokia 7650 marked the arrival of the smartphone in 2002. It was not only the first Nokia phone with a built-in camera, but was also the first device to be powered by the Symbian S60 platform, that powered the bulk of Nokia’s smartphone portfolio for almost a decade.

Sony Ericsson P800

The P800 was the very definition of a superphone. It had a large resistive touch-screen and was powered by the Symbian UIQ OS. While the initial design work was done at Ericsson, the final product was released only after Sony and Ericsson combined their business. It was the very definition of the PDA phone. Back then, touchscreens were a rarity, unlike today, but it was more than a phone as essentially it was computer and it even supported Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick Duos.

Nokia 3310

Launched in 2000, the 3310 and its various variants have become a part of Nokia history. Nokia has built its reputation because of such phones. It was considered to be indestructible phone and Nokia sold over 126 million units of the 3310 till its retirement. It was also one of the first phones to feature the popular Nokia game Snake II.

O2 XDA II

Built by HTC before it launched smartphones under its own brand name, the XDA II was a smartphone offered in the UK on the O2 network. It was one of the first smartphones to be powered by Windows Mobile 2003. It was also one the rare few smartphones to boast a touch-screen and it also combined a mobile Microsoft Office experience.

Nokia 1100

200 million Nokia 1100s have been sold since its inception in 2003. It is the best selling cellphone in the world to date, and frankly it was perhaps the first feature phone that Nokia made in an age of smartphones that attained this amount of success.

Palm Treo 600

The Palm Treo 600 was a mobility icon. Outside of the Nokia communicator and the BlackBerry it was one of the first devices to offer a lavish QWERTY keyboard and was truly a smartphone that delivered competent email capabilities.

BlackBerry 6280

BlackBerry with its smartphones defined what a professional phone should be. The 6280 back in 2003 was one of the first full QWERTY smartphones and it was essentially an emailing tool. The rock solid industrial design, QWERTY keyboard and solid encrypted email capabilities found in the 6280 was the bedrock on which BlackBerry built its business on.

Motorola Razr

Before the Razr, phones never looked beautiful. They were all rectangular, blocky and just a functional object than a style statement. The Razr changed all that. It was the thinnest phone when it hit the street in 2004, made of aircraft grade aluminum and chemically etched keypad. Over the years, Motorola sold more than 130 million Razr’s worldwide in a span of four years.

Nokia N95

With the N-series Nokia pushed the limits of photography, music and entertainment. Before the N95, Nokia had sold the N91, N93, N70, but it was the N95 that arrived at the fag end of 2006, that was the real game changer. It packed in a 5-megapixel camera, a dual-slider design, and some advanced communication capabilities. It was a winner and for the longest time was considered to be one of the best camera phones.

Apple iPhone

The iPhone changed it all. It brought a brand new multi-touch interface to the table which was wildly superior to anything that was offered in a mobile phone in 2007. Yes, Apple shortchanged the user on features as core features like MMS were missing, but it was the first smartphone that actually was made for a world connected to the Internet. It had Google Maps baked in and had a Safari browser that could display proper full websites and could handle email in rich text. Smartphones were never the same after the iPhone.

HTC Dream

In 2008, the HTC Dream became the first commercially available Android powered smartphone. It flaunted a slider QWERTY design and this marked the beginning of what only can be described as world domination. While phone itself was not a great seller, but over the last five years Android has become the most ubiquitous smartphone platform in the world.

Google Nexus One

The Google Nexus One market the entry of Google as a smartphone retailer. Essentially it was the HTC Desire, and it shipped with Android 2.1 Eclair and was perhaps the first Android smartphone that was seen in the same breadth as the iPhone.

Samsung Galaxy S

If Android is the dominant force in the smartphone market then it owes a lot of its success to Samsung’s Galaxy range of smartphones. The Galaxy S was the first one and it combined a powerful hummingbird processor with a 4-inch AMOLED display. Evolutions of these technologies have been seen its successors which have propelled Samsung to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor.

Nokia N8

With its massive 12-megapixel camera, Carl Zeiss optics and masterful aluminum chassis, Nokia hoped the N8 would be the touchscreen phone that would revive the company. While it failed in doing so, it became a paragon for mobile photography, something which Nokia is still known for.

Nokia PureView 808

The PureView 808 will be remembered for many things. It is not only the last Nokia smartphone to be powered by Symbian, but it ushered in a new era of mobile photography with its unique 41-megapixel PureView camera. The technology was so fresh that Nokia to date has been unable to bring it to its more modern Windows Phone powered smartphones. Hopefully, this will happen in 2013.

Photographs: Wikipedia

Rumors about the Motorola ‘X-Phone’ have been making rounds of the internet for quite some time now. But these rumors are set to be put to rest with the a report on The Verge which talks about a job posting for a Senior Director of Product on the official LinkedIn page of Motorola. The listing, now removed, detailed the duties of the position, which would oversee the launch of a new device and deal with carrier relationships when bringing it to market. The official job board on Motorola’s website carries a similar job posting, except that there is no mention of the X-Phone.

The rumor mills on the internet have been running round the clock for the past year talking about Google leveraging its Motorola brand to develop a secret phone termed the ‘X-Phone’. Recently there also have been rumors about Google planning to launch this phone at the Google I/O running the latest Android ‘Key Lime Pie’. Though not much is known about the phone, the device is expected to flaunt an edge-to-edge display that will be almost bezel free and will be available through multiple carriers in the US just like the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S III. Additionally, this device could also feature some Motorola specific features.

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During its quarterly earnings call, Google CEO Larry Page hinted at the kind of smartphones we can expect Motorola to launch in the future. The company, which is still launching smartphones that were planned before Google’s acquisition of Motorola, is looking at three core areas, which could be the pitch for its rumored X-Phone that is expected to be announced at this year’s Google I/O in May.

“In today’s multi screen world, the opportunities are endless. Think about your device. Battery life is a huge issue. You shouldn’t have to worry about constantly recharging your phone. When you drop your phone, it shouldn’t go splat. Everything should be a ton faster and easier.  There’s real potential to invent new and better experiences,” Page said in his prepared remarks.

Google maintains that it is still early days for Motorola after its acquisition last year. Google had not only acquired the company but also its 12-18 months of product pipeline that it is still has to work through. However, Page is pretty excited about future prospects with the company. “Our CEO at Motorola, Dennis, has built a world-class team, and they’re working on these opportunities. It’s still early days, but I am excited about the innovative way they’re approaching product development and the speed of their execution,” he said.

But the highlight of Page’s prepared remarks was his description of the current situation with devices and how they are changing our lives.

We now live in a multi-screen world. People carry a supercomputer in their pocket all the time. In fact we feel naked without our smartphone! And many users have more than one device … a laptop, a phone, and a tablet.

We’re living in uncharted territory. It’s a new kind of computing environment. Everyone is really excited about our technology and spending a lot of money on devices, driving faster adoption than we have ever seen before.

It’s been a long time in computing since we have had this rate of change — it probably hasn’t happened since the birth of personal computing.

- Larry Page, CEO, Google

Samsung has confirmed it will sell Tizen-based smartphones in 2013 according to a report by Bloomberg. While the company did not confirm models and specifications of the handsets in question, it confirmed that devices based on the new platform will be launched later this year. This comes a few days after a Japanese daily had reported about Samsung’s plans to release a Tizen-based smartphone in Japan with NTT DoCoMo as its carrier partner.

The move comes at uncertain times considering Google’s acquisition of Motorola and rumors of the company developing the ‘X-Phone’ to take on Apple’s iPhone. While Google has maintained it would not give any advantage to Motorola over its other Android hardware partners, the seeds of distrust have been sown.

Samsung tied up with Intel last year to merge its Bada platform with Intel’s MeeGo operating system. However, no commercial smartphones have come up so far as a result of the partnership. Samsung has always maintained it would launch smartphones across available platforms but has so far favored Android as its workhorse operating system. While the Korean giant has announced the Ativ S running on Windows Phone 8, it has not really pushed the device as much as its award-winning Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II, both of which run Android.

However, it seems that Samsung is seriously considering phasing out Android in favor of Tizen if the situation with Motorola under Google continues. “We plan to release new, competitive Tizen devices within this year and will keep expanding the lineup depending on market conditions,” Samsung said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg.

This year is turning out to be pretty chaotic with multiple platforms vying for the third smartphone operating system of choice. Only yesterday Canonical announced its Ubuntu platform for smartphones and RIM will launch its BlackBerry 10 platform on January 30, which it might license to other players. Microsoft is also attempting to grab its share in the smartphone space with its Windows Phone 8 platform driven by Nokia’s range of Lumia devices.

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We have heard that the Motorola Razr is likely to receive an over the air update to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich next week in India. Earlier in the week, Razr owners were notified about the upcoming update and were also informed about some of the enhancements included in the update.

A couple of weeks ago Motorola had posted a video of its Ice Cream Sandwich skin which seemed decidedly stock in comparison to the previous iterations of the Motorola Android UI including MotoBlur. Apart from the brand new spanking UI, users will a new lock screen, new icons, and an updated camera UI, but other than that the UI will be more or less stock. That said, don’t expect your Razr to get an update to Jelly Bean anytime soon.

Another leak coming from DigiTimes this morning has revealed that Samsung in all probability will make the next Nexus smartphone for Google. Well honestly, this news hasn’t come as a surprise to us since Samsung has made the previous two Nexus models (the first one was made by HTC) but what really shocks us is the fact that it hasn’t deputed its own vendor Motorola which was acquired by the Internet giant last year.

Google must have chosen Samsung to build its next Nexus device for two factors. By choosing an external vendor and not Motorola Mobility, Google would appease all those manufacturers who have long been assuming that Google will be biased towards Motorola. And the second factor behind this selection could be the fact that Google trusts Samsung more since it that Samsung is the best Android smartphone vendor in the world. Remember the original Nexus built by HTC did not do well in the market. We believe that this rumor is quite likely to come true but we’d still like to wait for any official confirmation from Google.

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Motorola’s unannounced Android handset – the XT560 has been spotted by the guys at Androidgreed, who claim that this little model is going to be a low-cost handset. Though the FCC has confirmed the existence of the Motorola XT560 but it is still not confirmed whether this handset pictured above would actually be the XT560.

According to the report, the Motorola XT560 should be released in the near future in Europe but its pricing and launch details regarding other regions has not been revealed. It will feature Android Gingerbread, should come with an HVGA display of unknown size, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 3.0-Megapixel shooter at the rear, a front-facing camera, a microSD card slot and should be based on an 800MHz Qualcomm processor.

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Apple has announced that it will license its nano-SIM patents for free free if its proposal becomes the universal industry standard. There are currently two proposed nano-SIM designs out there, one is by Apple and the other one is by Motorola, RIM and Nokia. Nano-SIM is nothing but a further miniaturization of the micro-SIM which is currently being used in many of Apple’s products such as iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and also in some Motorola and Nokia smartphones. A nano-SIM takes little real estate within a product, hence it allows a device to be thinner and smaller.

According to a report published by FOSS Patents, Apple has said if its design is chosen, it would provide “an unequivocal commitment to grant royalty-free licenses to any Apple patents essential to nano-SIM.” This shows that Apple is serious about establishing the nano-SIM standard rather than seeking to cash in on it.

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It is that time of the year again when the entire telecom industry swarms in to Barcelona for the biggest mobile tech show of the year. Yes, it is time for this year’s edition of Mobile World Congress (MWC) that will witness some of the biggest launches of smartphones, tablets and much more. MWC can get overwhelming with too many new products. To make things simple, we have compiled a cheat sheet of sorts to give you a clear picture of what you can expect to be announced at the show.HTC will have the One X, One S and One V in its kitty at its press conference on February 26. There has been some conjecture over the name of the One X, as previously it has been reported as the HTC Endeavor, but we know what it looks like and the fact it will be running a quad-core processor. The dual-core HTC Ville will be unveiled as the HTC One S and is supposedly the vendor’s thinnest smartphone ever. The One V is expected to be the successor to the HTC Rhyme, but this time targeted at men. HTC could also probably throw in a tablet with a quad-core processor. On the software side of things, we will for sure be greeted with the new HTC Sense 4.0 UI with its Dropbox integration. HTC is also expected to announce a music streaming service and could even land a deal with Sony to enable PlayStation certified games on its devices.

Nokia is expected to announce at least three smartphones at its press conference on February 27. We should be expecting two Windows phone smartphones, notably the international version of the Lumia 900 and the Lumia 610, the latter said to be the cheapest Windows Phone smartphone. The PureView 808, will perhaps be the successor to Nokia’s camera flagship product – the N8. There is also some chatter around a couple of low-end S40 phones in the Asha series.

Sony should be seen displaying its first set of devices with just the Sony logo on top. A duo of Android ICS bombshells namely the Xperia P and the Xperia U are likely to put Sony’s stall on fire at the MWC. The Xperia U will be a smaller version of the Sony Xperia S which was unveiled at the CES event. The Xperia P is the Xperia LT22 which was earlier codenamed as the Sony ‘Nypon’.

LG has already laid its cards bare by announcing a line-up of smartphones that includes the first quad-core processor running Android smartphone, the Optimus 4X HD. Also in the line-up is the Optimus 3D Max (successor to the Optimus 3D), the Optimus Tag and the Samsung Galaxy Note inspired Optimus Vu. It also has an L-series of smartphones – the L3, L5 and L7, which will introduce a new “floating display” technology that LG believes makes the devices look thinner than they are as it minimizes the distance between the display and the glass. The only thing LG has not announced, yet, is the Fantasy/Miracle that runs on Windows Phone.

Samsung has already set expectations low by announcing it won’t launch the Galaxy S III at MWC but will unveil it at a dedicated event closer to its market availability. As a trade-off, Samsung is expected to announce the Galaxy S II Plus with a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. The only other smartphones we know about are the recently announced Galaxy Ace 2 and Galaxy Mini 2 The vendor should also announce a new version of the Galaxy Tab, which will become the first ARM A15 based device and will boast of a 2GHz Exynos 5250 dual-core processor and a display slightly larger than 10-inches.

Acer will be seen flaunting its CloudMobile smartphone, its first phone to feature its AcerCloud service, an online storage system that will allow users to store their material online (images, videos or music). The device breathes on Android ICS, should sport a high-def 4.3-inch display and will also feature Dolby sound.

Motorola has rarely made any significant announcements at MWC in the past couple of years and this year is expected to be no different. If it does manage to spring up a surprise, it could either be the Atrix 3 or this Intel Medfield based smartphone.

ZTE has not hidden anything in its ‘MWC-device bag’ and has openly announced its plans to unveil 8 LTE, Windows Phone and Android devices. Out of these 8 devices, 3 have been announced along with their official images. NVIDIA powered ZTE Mimosa X smartphone, the PF200 and the N910 LTE smartphones are 3 of these 8 devices which have been announced earlier this week by the vendor.

Last year, Huawei had launched a 7.0-inch MediaPad tablet and this year it could be a 10-inch version.

Back in January 2011 Motorola had released its Atrix and apart from being a spec sheet powerhouse, it realized a gadget lover’s pipe dream – a smartphone that would morph into a full-fledged PC once attached to a special dock. Unfortunately, as great as the idea was, Motorola’s webtop UI was frankly horrendous, but now a version of the Linux Ubuntu OS backed by Canonical has been released, which is specially tailored for Android devices with docking capabilities.

Of course, when the smartphone is being used on the go, it acts like the plain-jane Android experience we all are used to but the moment one plugs it in to a dock one is welcomed with the magnificence of Ubuntu combined with the Unity UI. According to Ubuntu.com all the functionalities of the phone are integrated inside the Ubuntu UI in addition to a number of desktop class applications such as VLC media player, Ubuntu Media Player, Chromium Web Browser, Google Docs, Mozilla Thunderbird Email client and many more.

Notably, this feature is limited to dual-core devices, so most mid-to-lower end Android smartphones will not be compatible, only the cream of the crop will have the luxury to run Ubuntu and understandably so because Ubuntu is a full desktop class operating system which requires a ton of processing power something which is available scarcely in single-core devices.

By the looks of it Ubuntu on Android might look like the Motorola webtop UI, but it is supposedly smoother to operate and offers much more functionality, however it is still pretty much at a prototype stage. At the moment there are slim pickings amongst Ubuntu apps for ARM based smartphones, but there should be no dearth of apps for the upcoming Intel x86 Medfield devices.

Having said this I will not be a surprised if this ushers an era of Ubuntu based apps optimized for ARM chipsets as the idea of having a desktop OS on a mobile device is very enticing. As of now the number of dockable Android smartphones is quite limited apart from the few Motorola handsets available in the market like the Razr and the Atrix 2, so only a limited number of smartphone users can access this functionality.

Canonical will demo Ubuntu on Android at MWC next week.

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As far as MWC leaks go this one is huge, right up there with all the Samsung Galaxy S III rumors that have been flying around. So, prepare to swallow this one, because Chinese website Tianjin Daily has leaked an image and specs of the Motorola Atrix 3. While cannot confirm any of these specs, they do seem to be very formidable. Read on…

According to the report the device boasts of a 4.3-inch display and will sport a HD display with a 1280×720 pixels resolution. More than the display the device supposedly runs a quad-core processor in concert with a gargantuan 2GB of RAM. In addition to this the device will also sport a 10-megapixel camera and will have the extra large 3,300 mAh battery seen before in the Razr Maxx.

The report does not specify which particular SoC is being utilized by the device but we are guessing it will be a nVidia Tegra 3 which has already been used in the Asus Transformer Prime. Apart from this the device will also run Google’s latest OS Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box.

Hopefully we will see a stock UI rather than a skinned one. I say this because, this is the least one can expect from a Google takeover of Motorola, however don’t bet on it.

Interestingly, its form factor and shape are reminiscent of the Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus S, both of which were manufactured by Samsung, but were lead Google experience smartphones. Perhaps we are already seeing signs of Google’s influence over Motorola’s industrial design.

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Rumors are abuzz that Nikesh Arora, Google’s SVP and Chief Business Officer, will run Motorola once the Google-Motorola deal closes later this year. A report by Business Insider claims that Arora who has been running the company’s international business for Eric Schmidt and who also took over the global business later when Schmidt stepped down, is thought to have been “agitating” for a CEO role. He was recently included in a carefully scrutinized list of candidates to run Yahoo. There’s a possibility that a promised CEO slot at Motorola could have have been the driving force for Arora to continue with Google and to have consciously let go of the Yahoo offer. Dennis Woodside, Google’s current head of U.S. sales, will supposedly take over Arora’s current position.

HTC has always been juggernaut in terms of releasing smartphones, but often we have seen most of the new releases have been iterative products rather than groundbreaking flagship products. Clearly this trend of releasing iterative products is starting to take toll on HTC as it December quarter figures are down by 26 percent. Now comes a report that HTC is finally giving in and will focus on limited high spec, high margin products. In an interview to Mobile Today Magazine, HTC’s UK chief Phil Robertson states, “We have to get back to focusing on what made us great – amazing hardware and a great customer experience. We ended 2011 with far more products than we started out with. We tried to do too much. So 2012 is about giving our customers something special. We need to make sure we do not go so far down the line that we segment our products by launching lots of different SKUs.”

Previously Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha had also touched upon the topic of releasing multiple iterative high-end devices.  In an interview with The Verge at CES he admitted that in 2012 Motorola would focus on releasing lesser devices but of a higher quality.  As of now, HTC has more than 50 smartphones in its product line with devices like the Sensation, EVO 3D, Sensation XL being iterative updates of each other. In comparison, Samsung has a clear marked out flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S2, alongside the ICS powered Galaxy Nexus which is the pure Google experience device. Hopefully we will see lesser but higher quality Android smartphones in 2012 from all Android OEMs.

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Samsung has officially announced that the company hasn’t made any decision on the Samsung Bada and Intel’s Tizen merger yet. This statement comes three days after when Tae-Jin Kang, senior VP for Samsung’s Contents Planning team had told Forbes that the Bada and the Tizen merger was already underway. However, the company has now officially mentioned that it is looking at this merger “as an option.” Now when this term option comes in, we are instantly reminded of Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility a few months ago. Google to partner with another OEM but Motorola for its flagship device/OS update in the long term seems highly unlikely and this truly hasn’t gone down well with Samsung. The Korean vendor has been so far relying on Android as its primary operating system. We think it makes sense for Samsung to keep the product of this Bada and Tizen merger (if it happens) as their back-up plan. Like Kang said, Tizen could provide an additional OS that can not only be used on smartphones and tablets but also TVs and other consumer gadgets.

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