Expected Q1 2012
5th January 2012

With the Motorola MOTOLUXE, Motorola have attempted to bring a big screen Android smartphone to a more affordable market segment.. but they have had to make a few compromises along the way.

It's a bit of a slabby phone, although it is available in both white and black colours. The large 4" 480 x 854 pixel display dominates the front of the handset, and on the back is an 8 megapixel camera and flash on a fairly conventional case design.

The surprise with the MOTOLUXE is the processor - a single core 800 MHz CPU that is only roughly half the speed of the one found in the RAZR. Although there is a decent 512MB of RAM included in the MOTOLUXE, we suspect that certain applications will struggle on a processor of this type, which is a shame because the large screen will tempt users to drive the handset quite hard.

All the usual Android features are here plus something called MotoSwitch for managing and prioritising contacts. So, you get 3.5G and WiFi connectivity, GPS, Bluetooth and a multimedia player. The MOTOLUXE also has an FM radio, 3.5mm audio socket, front-facing video calling camera and a novel illuminated lanyard slot that indicates when you have a message.

We don't know how much internal flash storage the MOTOLUXE has or if it takes a microSD card, as these details were not supplied by Motorola at the time of going to press. The handset weighs 124 grams and measures 118 x 61 x 9.9mm. The battery is a 1400 mAh cell quoted as giving up to 4.5 hours talktime on 3G and 16 days standby time.

The MOTOLUXE does have some nice features, but don't expect it to be as capable as the RAZR or ATRIX 2. On the other hand, it should be a lot cheaper to buy than those high-end devices, and it may well find a good market niche.

The Motorola MOTOLUXE is already available in China as the Motorola XT615, it should be available in Europe, South America and some other regions from February onwards, although no guidance was given on price.