Rumor: Moto X will have custom colors, wallpaper, and engraving options

By Andy Boxall July 4, 2013

Check out our full review of the Motorola Moto X smart phone.

Anticipation is growing for the Moto X smartphone, following Motorola’s first teaser advert which appeared online and in print yesterday, and the many cryptic comments from Google itself. The latest news comes from anonymous sources speaking to ABCNews, and they’ve blabbed some details on exactly what about the Moto X will be customizable at the time of sale.

Before we get into it, if you’re expecting it to be like a PC, where you can boost the RAM of even change the processor; sorry, it doesn’t look like that will be possible. The custom options sound more like the things we’ve been able to do with other phones for some time, only after we buy them instead of before.

According to the sources, when you order a Moto X, you’ll be able to choose a color for both the front and back of the device, then add an engraving to the rear panel. Another leak has given us an idea of what to expect. It comes from French site Nowehereelse.fr, and shows three brightly colored rear panels, said to be from the Moto X. As we’ve not seen the Moto X yet, it’s impossible to say if these are genuine, but as the blurry picture makes them look a little cheap and nasty, we’re hoping they’re not.

Moving on, after choosing the phone’s color, Motorola will supposedly allow a photo to be uploaded which will be used as the phone’s wallpaper, although we’d imagine there will be a few restrictions here, to ensure Motorola doesn’t run into any copyright problems. Other than that, the Moto X will be sold with different amounts of internal storage memory, much like many other top-end phones.

The report also says the Moto X will make use of Google’s voice recognition technology, and various gesture controls, although other than, “a flick” which could activate the camera app, there are no other details on either feature.

So, is specifying your own colors, an engraved message, and adding wallpaper going to be enough to make the Moto X a success? Or is the promise it’ll be assembled in America enough? Perhaps, but a strong spec and a Nexus 4-worrying price tag for the unlocked version could be needed to seal the deal.

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Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…

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