Almost half a year following its official release in the U.S., Google’s Motorola Mobility unit is bringing its flagship Moto X smartphone to Europe.
The Android-running Moto X smartphone will hit shelves in the U.K., Germany and France next month and is slated to cost £380 ($624.72) in the U.K. and €399 ($545.86) in France and Germany, Motorola said today.
The Moto X, with its minimalist design and curved back, marked a turn for Motorola and its previous lineup of more aggressively designed Droid devices. Analysts have seen it as one of the more evident results of its multibillion-dollar tie-up with Google, a $12.5 billion deal that closed in the middle of 2012.
In a move widely seen as an effort to boost sales of the Moto X, Motorola earlier this month announced that it would permanently cut the price of the device in the U.S. The 16-gigabyte version now costs $399 in the U.S., without a wireless contract, down from $550 previously.
European customers buying the Moto X won’t be able to access Motorola’s Motomaker tool, an online studio where buyers have been able to choose the colors of the phone’s back and front, and preset the phone with wallpapers and a custom message that appears when you turn the phone on. In Europe, the Moto X will be offered only in black or white versions, a company representative said.
