Lenovo-owned Motorola is embracing the all-metal look and modular trend.
HellomotoHK and Venture Beat's Evan Blass have shared a bunch of leaked images that reveal Lenovo's next Moto X will likely sport an aluminium body. This phone would be the fourth-generation Moto X. The previous generations mostly featured a combination of a metal frame and plastic body, meaning the next Moto X will be starkly different from its predecessors.
Keep in mind the Moto X line has long offered premium material options for backplates, including wood and leather. An all-metal casing however would make the new flagship contend with rival phones made by Apple, HTC, Samsung, and Huawei. Speaking of other metal phones, these leaked photos suggest next year's Moto X will be shaped much like the Galaxy S6.
It's hard to say if these leaks are credible; Blass has said two of the leaked images might actually show different devices. Blass also said these devices will be modular, allowing you to change the backplates. While HellomotoHK's Moto X leaks appear to show one phone with a metallic body, Blass has now claimed they are two Moto X phones called Vertex and Vector Thin.
The phones have customisable bodies. Their backplates reportedly have 16 dots near the bottom that work as connection pins. These pins connect to six "amps" (modules). When you connect the phone's pins to the amps, you get new features, such as stereo speakers, a battery pack, a camera grip with flash and optical zoom, a pico projector, and a rugged cover with wide angle lens.
In other words: the new Moto Xs will be a lot like the LG G5, which recently launched with modules. That phone however requires you to remove the battery every time you add a new module. Motorola's new Moto X phones are different because their modules attach to the back instead.
As for specs, the 2016 Moto X phones are rumoured to feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 and 5.5-inch AMOLED displays (the Vertex has a full HD display, while Vector Thin has Quad HD resolution). Also, the Vector Thin might come with 32GB of storage and 3GB or 4GB RAM, and the Vertex could have 16GB of storage and 2GB RAM or 32GB of storage and 3GB RAM.
We will likely know more soon, as Lenovo should unveil the phones on 9 June.