An internal Motorola presentation leak appears to confirm a GrapheneOS partnership for non-Pixel hardware, with an official announcement likely at MWC 2026.
I don’t have any use for a “nice processor”. I have a basic one and I don’t have any problems with it.
As for cameras, I think it’s pretty clear at this point that it’s all about the software. The Pixel was winning blind smartphone camera tests with >10 y/o sensors.
My crackpot theory is that we’re 10 years away from e-ink displays becoming the new hot thing. The clarity of looking at something that isn’t backlit is great. If they can solve refresh rate and resolution, we’re there.
Clarity can also be achieved with a 4k panel. Once your panel gets over 600ppi it’s gonna blow an eink screen out of the water at its own game. Those phones were barely ever made only Sony even tried. Probably due to battery life, or maybe noone realized what they do to the reading experience.
Either way we’re gonna improve battery life and maybe even get microled before eink ever gets competitive with emissive screens. Someone is bound to rediscover that you never truly needed eink for comfortable reading, just a significant increase in resolution.
That’s good news. I hope it’s a budget device with a plastic case, SD card, IR emitter, notification LED, and headphone jack.
And a user replaceable battery!
I’d rather have it be a bit more mid to upper range, I want a nice processor and decent cameras
I don’t have any use for a “nice processor”. I have a basic one and I don’t have any problems with it.
As for cameras, I think it’s pretty clear at this point that it’s all about the software. The Pixel was winning blind smartphone camera tests with >10 y/o sensors.
The sensor size also plays a part, the pro has a pretty large sensor for a phone.
We’re talking about the pixel 7a here, the budget model, not a “pro” anything. It doesn’t have a large sensor.
http://medium.com/@techstoriesonline/mkbhds-blind-smartphone-camera-test-winners-a-pixel-perfect-podium-tech-stories-3378dd6b28c9
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It’s not hard to be the best blind smartphone camera.
LOL ok
Google literally made their own processor for those results though. The tensor chips might not be as high end, but it’s not a budget phone chip.
Samsung and Apple make their own processors too…?
I’m not saying they couldn’t get results with another processor, but that it still wouldn’t be a “cheap” processor found in a budget device
The Pixel 7a is a budget device.
In a sense, but it’s more of a mid-budget phone. I’m thinking like $200 phones. Maybe the landscape is different than what I’m considering nowadays.
Edit: I might not be giving Motorola enough credit either lol
In a world chock-full of $1200+ phones, yeah, I’d say $500 is firmly in “budget” territory.
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sam sung did, they abandoned for thier higher end models, i think thier “budgety phones” still use thier processor.
e-ink screen! i adored the motorola-f3 with the led segment screen
My crackpot theory is that we’re 10 years away from e-ink displays becoming the new hot thing. The clarity of looking at something that isn’t backlit is great. If they can solve refresh rate and resolution, we’re there.
Clarity can also be achieved with a 4k panel. Once your panel gets over 600ppi it’s gonna blow an eink screen out of the water at its own game. Those phones were barely ever made only Sony even tried. Probably due to battery life, or maybe noone realized what they do to the reading experience.
Either way we’re gonna improve battery life and maybe even get microled before eink ever gets competitive with emissive screens. Someone is bound to rediscover that you never truly needed eink for comfortable reading, just a significant increase in resolution.
For people who don’t watch videos in the phone, e-ink already offer nice refresh ratios. There are also a few with dual screens.
By the way, there’s also the nxtpaper technology, which I’m pretty curious about, but I never used it to know if it’s really good for the eyes
Don’t forget when you could listen to fm radio using the headphone jack as an antenna.
I thought that was going to be the future, but it’s easier to sell music from your music store when you kill am/fm radio.
And no notch or circle in my display!