Google working on X-phone, tablet to take on Apple, Samsung

When Motorola and Google took the stage together for the first time since the merger, we were promised “a new Motorola”. Recent reports of a new hardware line from Motorola starting with the “X Phone” could be the first sign of this promise.

There’s no shortage of speculation on the reasons Google acquired Motorola. While the most common reason is to wield Moto’s patent portfolio to defend the Android operating system, there’s just as much data to suggest that Google wanted a hardware manufacturer they could control from the inside. Google wasted no time injecting their own employees into the Motorola hierarchy, immediately followed by a 20% decrease in staff in the first of many steps to bring the company to profitability.

Reports of a new line of hardware focused on approaching the mobile ecosystem from a new perspective seems like exactly the kind of thing you would expect a company focused on delivering results to new shareholders to do.

If you’ve been following Motorola’s approach to Android, especially with the more recent Droid Razr line, you’ll see that the company has worked hard to create a “near stock” approach to their smartphones. While Samsung and HTC have opted for a user experience that is wildly different than Google’s approach to Android, Motorola has taken the stock experience and built a handful of features that compliment the UI without interrupting the look and feel. Continuing in this vein, it would make sense for Motorola to follow in the path Google has set in acquiring Viewdle and Nik Software and focus on a smartphone with a powerful camera experience.

Outside of the camera, Motorola will need to embrace several recent advancements in screen technology. As we wrap up 2012, there are several phones on the way with 1080p screens and whispers of flexible displays and indestructible screens for the next year. Motorola would also need a hardware profile that set this X phone apart from the Droid line of phones that are manufactured for Verizon Wireless, especially if the company expects to sell the phone across multiple carriers simultaneously. Currently, Apple and Samsung are the only companies that have managed to put the same phone (or in Samsung’s case, very nearly the same phone) on nearly every major carrier in the world. Motorola will need a similar strategy in order to compete.

Currently, Motorola is rumored to be struggling with settling on a hardware combination that works for the platform. With everything from flexible displays to ceramic casing in the mix, Moto in undoubtedly in the process of trying as many things as possible to make a phone that is capable of being viewed as a great fresh start for the company. Google’s injection of high level management and project managers means that there are people involved who has been a part of every aspect of the Android ecosystem on the project. While the X in the code name for this phone might not be a “Nexus” phone in the strictest sense, it will certainly be a worthy competitor for the title.

Internet search giant Google is reportedly working with recently acquired Motorola on a handset codenamed ‘X-phone’. According to people familiar with the matter, Google’s move is another effort to grab market share from Apple and Samsung, A report by the Wall Street Journal quoted some sources, as saying that Motorola is working on two fronts: devices that will be sold by US carrier partner Verizon Wireless, and on the X phone. Motorola plans to enhance the X Phone with its recent acquisition of Viewdle, an imaging and gesture-recognition software developer.