MWC 2017
The world's largest annual mobile event - Mobile World Congress - takes place on the last days of February. We're on the ground in Barcelona to bring you all of the week's news. Tune in here for our full coverage, including hands-on with new phones from LG, BlackBerry, Huawei, Alcatel, ZTE, Sony, and more.
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Hands On with the Motorola G5 and G5 Plus
Motorola introduced the Moto G5 and G5 Plus in Barcelona, the latest in its series of mid-range handsets. Motorola says it polled consumers in order to develop the G5 series' feature set, which include metal designs, good cameras, fingerprint readers, and high-definition screens. We spent a few moments with the phones. Here are our initial impressions.
Motorola Phones to Gain Access to Amazon Alexa
Motorola and Amazon today said the Moto Z series of phones will soon have access to the Amazon Alexa voice-powered assistant. Alexa will be enabled through a Moto Mod that is still under development. When attached to the Mod, the Moto Z will act just like an Amazon Echo in-home speaker. Moreover, Motorola said it will bake Alexa directly into its handsets later this year.
Motorola Shows Off New Mods for Moto Z Phone
Motorola today announced several new Moto Mods that are compatible with the Moto Z series of handsets. The first is a new battery pack with a unique design. The second is an accessory that will charge any battery-powered Mod. The third is a accessory for wireless charging. The last is a gamepad to assist with gaming. It includes directionals, buttons, and pads for interacting with games. Motorola say these Mods will go on sale during the first half go the year. Motorola did not say anything about pricing for these mods.
Motorola Debuts G5 and G5 Plus
Motorola today announced the Moto G5 and G5 Plus, the fifth generation in Motorola's line of mid-range handsets. The phones feature metal frames and adopt a design language that vaguely resembles the Moto Z series. Shared features between the two phones include full HD screens, fingerprint readers, Android 7 Nougat, memory card support, water-repellant coating, and good support for U.S. LTE bands.
- G5 Plus: The larger of the two phones (pictured) has a 5.2-inch display and is powered by a 2.0 GHz Snapdragon 625 processor with 2 or 3 GB of RAM and 32 or 64 GB of storage. The main camera has a 12-megapixel sensor a f/1.7 with double focus pixels, while the selfie cam has a 5-megapixel sensor. The G5 Plus has a 3,000mAh battery with Motorola's Turbo Charging technology. It includes NFC, but the U.S. variant drops this feature.
- G5: The G5 is slightly smaller thanks to the 5.0-inch screen. It is powered by a Snapdragon 430 processor with 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. The main camera has a 13-megapixel sensor at f/2.0, while the selfie cam has a 5-megapixel sensor. The removable 2,800mAh battery supports rapid charging.
