Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Tech Summits often feature a variety of tech demos from manufacturers. Although the entire summit has been online this year, some interesting digital tech demos offer glimpses of future products.
Motorola, for example, is set to bring the Qualcomm 800-series “experiences” to its Moto G phones, as well as introduce a new desktop mode on its smartphones.
PCMag spotted the details in a short video released as part of the 2020 Snapdragon Tech Summit. In the video, Motorola Mobility president Sergio Bunac discusses “bringing 800-series experiences” to the Moto G line in 2021. Further, Bunac notes that next year marks the 10th generation of Moto G.
Although it remains unclear what, exactly, that means for the Moto G line, it’s an exciting announcement. Motorola’s G-series phones typically exist in the low- and mid-range, offering budget-friendly smartphone experiences. Most G-series phones run on Qualcomm’s 600-series chips, not the company’s high-end 800-series chips. Whether that means Motorola plans to launch a high-end Moto G powered by the new Snapdragon 888 or if the company’s hinting that Qualcomm’s 2021 600-series chips will be comparable to the 800-series offerings in some way remains to be seen.
Desktop and TV interfaces
Further, the video features two new Motorola software experiences. The first is a desktop mode similar to Samsung’s Dex offering, and the other is a TV interface reminiscent of TV streaming boxes.
This isn’t the first time Motorola has offered a desktop mode — PCMag points out that Motorola offered a desktop mode almost a decade ago with its Atrix 4G smartphone. The Atrix 4G could dock into a device and offer a Ubuntu-based desktop environment, but the whole thing essentially proved that phone-to-desktop features weren’t ready for prime time.
The desktop environment Bunac teased in the video looks much better than Motorola’s first attempt, but it remains to be seen if the feature is useful in practice. The idea of having access to a full desktop environment from your smartphone is appealing, but without proper access to apps, keyboard and mouse support, and more, the desktop interface may not be useful.
As for the TV interface, it appears to be a media launcher of sorts. It’s not clear how users would access it, whether by plugging their Motorola device into a TV or through some other means. Still, it could be a handy way to quickly connect your phone to a TV and play movies or other content.
Ultimately, it looks like Motorola could have some interesting new features and product launches to look forward to next year.
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