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LONDON — Motorola is bringing its flagship Android phone to Europe. The Moto X will go on sale in the UK, France and Germany on February 1 for £380 or 399 euros, SIM-free, the company announced Tuesday.
Previously available only in the US, Canada and Latin America, the Moto X follows the low-cost Moto G to Europe. It will be available on contracts starting at £25 per month in the UK.
You’ll be able to buy the Moto X in black from UK retailers Phones 4U, Carphone Warehouse, O2, Amazon and Techdata, with Phones 4U bagging an exclusive on the white model for the first three months.
In Germany, it’ll be available in black and white from Phone House, O2, Amazon.de, Media Markt, Saturn, Expert and Sparhandy.de for 399 euros.
The phone will arrive running Android 4.4.2, the very latest version of Motorola parent company Google’s mobile software.
“At Motorola our roots are deep in mobile hardware — we invented mobile communications,” said Motorola Mobility UK vice president and general manager Andrew Morley.
“Now, as a Google company, we’ve become the kind of company that can build a 4G smartphone like Moto X. It fuses our history of mobile innovation with the best of Google mobile services.”
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The Moto X was Motorola’s first major phone after the company’s acquisition by Google, and was lauded in CNET’s four-star review for its well-crafted design, futuristic voice commands, great battery life and endless customizability. Motorola’s Moto Maker Web site lets you choose exactly the color and finish you want — even in bamboo — although the company would only say it was looking into providing this level of flexibility in Europe. To start, it’ll only be on sale in black and white.
Whereas the Moto X you buy in the US is made in the US — in Fort Worth, Texas — Motorola said that models available in the rest of the world are made in several different countries. And whereas the Texas plant is set up to build the bespoke models, with their thousands of different options, it’s clear that would be much harder to provide that service using outsourced manufacturers.
The Moto X doesn’t quite match up to more expensive flagship Android phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S4, with a mere 1.7GHz dual-core processor and a 720p HD display, as opposed to the Full HD 1080p on some models.
The Moto G has been widely praised in the UK as the best value Android phone, with its quad-core processor and 720p screen making an absolute snip at £135 — or even less from some British retailers.
For more on the Moto X, check out our full video review:
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Motorola’s Moto X targets the masses
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Editor’s note: A previous version of this story said the Moto X would be 429 euros in Europe. It will be 399 euros.
