Even though it's still spring, it looks like Motorola is already in a giving mood, recently joining forces with T-Mobile (and Metro by T-Mobile) to give the brand's hot new 5G mid-ranger away for free and then giving us early access to one key selling point of two very exciting upcoming devices.
Shortly after confirming the state-of-the-art processor set to power the next-gen Razr foldable on Weibo, Chen Jin, Lenovo's Chinese Mobile Business Group general manager, took to the same microblogging platform to tease the July arrival of a "new benchmark for image experience not limited to parameters."
It's the... opening frontier!
As cryptic as that might sound, it's actually not incredibly hard to guess exactly what to expect here. That's because the top Lenovo exec is also ready to confirm this (not so) mysterious handset will "open the era of 200 million pixel mobile photography."
As you all should be well aware by now, Lenovo owns Motorola, and in the last few months, we've heard a lot of whispers about a so-called "Frontier" super-flagship with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC under its hood, and you've guessed it, a bonkers 200MP imaging sensor slapped on its back.
This may or may not be the rear cover of a real-life Frontier prototype.
This absolute monster is likely to join the fast-growing (and growingly impressive) Motorola Edge family rather than actually going official under the Frontier label, and today's Weibo teaser makes a July launch pretty much guaranteed, at least in China.
If the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-powered Edge X30 is anything to go by, a Western release at some point down the line is definitely possible, so it remains to be seen if the Motorola Frontier will indeed be the first phone to go on sale, say, in the US with a 200MP primary rear-facing camera and Qualcomm's latest and greatest processor.
Many (global) brands are unsurprisingly already committed to the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 "platform", including Xiaomi, OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, and perhaps most notably, Samsung, which almost certainly plans to make the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Z Fold 4 run faster than the S22 lineup.
More than just an impressive-sounding camera
Samsung just so happens to be the manufacturer of the insane-sounding 200MP Isocell sensor expected to make its commercial debut on Motorola's next-gen flagship, although for its part, the world's number one smartphone vendor might be planning to fit a more advanced version of that lens on 2023's Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Because a higher number of megapixels doesn't always translate into a superior real-world photography experience, shutterbugs may not want to get too excited about the "Frontier"... just yet.
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The Frontier essentially sounds like a Motorola Edge Plus (2022) on steroids.
Of course, there are plenty of other awesome things to look forward to on this ultra-high-end device repeatedly and rigorously leaked of late, from an extra-curvy design with a silky smooth 144Hz OLED screen in tow to a 60MP front-facing shooter and a 4,500mAh battery equipped with, get this, crazy fast 125W wired charging and crazy fast 50W wireless charging technology.
If an older rumor that hasn't been corroborated in a while also pans out, the massive 200MP camera on the Frontier's back will be joined by a 50MP ultra-wide-angle sensor and a 12MP telephoto lens to create quite possibly one of the most versatile and all-around powerful mobile imaging systems available in 2022.
It seems pretty obvious from all this that Motorola wants to give the top smartphone vendors in the world (and in the US) a run for their money in more than the market's mid-range segment. Let's just hope the price will be right too, which is never a guarantee when all leakers appear to avoid making any sort of firm prediction on that front.
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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