Motorola’s Moto G Might Stand for “Great” Budget Phone

Willing to sacrifice 4G/LTE? Moto G, at $179, is the mid-range, contract-free phone to beat.

Calling Overseas on Wi-Fi

Walt Mossberg answers a reader’s question about using Wi-Fi to make international calls.

Motorola Hits Redial After Website Glitches Hang Up $349 Moto X Cyber Monday Deal

The company now says it will offer twice as many devices at the sale price, with the offer due to be made available on Wednesday at noon ET, and again next Monday.

News Byte

Motorola Launches a Low-Priced Phone for the Holidays

Motorola launched the Moto G in the U.S. on Tuesday. A relatively low-priced smartphone that will soon run the latest version of Android (KitKat), it costs $180 for the eight gigabyte version, and $200 for the 16GB version — both off-contract.

Motorola Taps 3D Systems to Help Make “Project Ara” Customizable Phone a Reality

A phone whose individual modules can be replaced sounds appealing, but it still needs to win support from component makers, carriers and regulators — not to mention consumers.

News Byte

Motorola: KitKat Coming to Moto X on Verizon Today, Others Soon

Google’s Motorola unit said Tuesday that the KitKat version of Android is being made available for Moto X phones running on Verizon’s network, with other carriers and countries coming soon. “Our software strategy is to build on a pure Android foundation and complement existing Google services, not compete with them,” it said in a blog post.

Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside on How the $179 Moto G Can Change the Low-End Smartphone Game

Until now, most low-end smartphones had limited processing power and were running older versions of Android. But Woodside says that needn’t be the case.

Moto X Price Drops to $99 as Moto Maker Customization Comes to All Major Carriers

Hoping to capture a greater share of holiday sales, Motorola is dropping the contract price of its phone and bringing its customizing option to all four major carriers.

News Byte

With Project Ara’s Modular Hardware, Future Motorola Phones May Look Like Tetris Games

Motorola said on Monday night that it hopes to divide up future phones into component modules. The Google-owned company’s new Project Ara will be a modular hardware platform developed in the open in partnership with Phonebloks. The idea is for users to build phones with different combinations of parts to suit their needs, and then replace and upgrade parts as necessary, rather than buying whole new phones. Motorola said to expect more information for developers “sometime this winter.”

Google “Closing In” on Unified Product Experience, Says Soon-to-Be MIA Larry Page

Google CEO Larry Page says he may or may not be attending earnings calls going forward. Let’s bet on the latter.

Motorola Keeps Those “Lazy Phone” Ads Coming