Motorola’s rumored Xplay phablet could launch in Q3 2014

By Trevor Mogg March 24, 2014

motorola to hold may 13 event in london — Image used with permission by copyright holder

It’s been a turbulent few months for Motorola Mobility. In January it announced Chinese tech firm Lenoovo would be acquiring the company from Google, then the following month it lost its CEO, Dennis Woodside.

Despite the changes, it appears the mobile maker is pressing ahead with plans to release a phablet, with reports over the weekend suggesting the company is readying a 6.3-inch device for a Q3 2014 launch.

Talk of a Motorola Mobility phablet first surfaced last October, and so it appears the recent upheaval within the company has apparently had little or no effect on plans to move ahead with the production of a phablet.

The information that the handset is being prepped for a Q3 launch comes via Chinese forum Weibo, Pocket-lint said on Sunday. The message apparently came from a poster with a decent track record on all things Moto – the person did, after all, call it right with the release dates of the Moto X and Moto G smartphones last year.

The large-size smartphone will reportedly be called the Xplay and is expected to land with a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

When the Motorola-phablet rumor first surfaced last year, it was suggested the Xplay name might be ditched at some point as a number of tech devices with the same name already exist, including a 5.7-inch smartphone from Chinese manufacturer Vivo. Five months on, Motorola appears to still be going with the name, according to this latest news.

With the Moto X sporting a 4.7-inch display and the Moto G‘s coming in at 4.5 inches, the Xplay, at 6.3 inches, would be Motorola’s largest mobile to date. Phablet sales are widely expected to go through the roof this year, so we can well imagine the Lenovo-owned company is readying a bigger device to complement its current lineup.

Motorola is also gearing up to enter the smartwatch market later this year with the Moto 360, while a refreshed Moto X handset is expected in the summer.

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