Moto X Style, Moto X Play, and Moto G on sale in Australia

Motorola has reminded us how much we are enslaved by our phones as it launches three handsets in Australia.

Moto X Style and Moto X Play

Motorola has reminded us how much we are enslaved by our phones as it launches three handsets in Australia.

According to the company’s research, 36 per cent of us sleep with our phone in our bed and 27 per cent fear losing our phones more than being attacked by sharks or spiders.

Armed with these insights, the now Lenovo-owned company seemed in a bullish mood with the announcement of the three handsets.

But it comes at a time of a reported 500 job cuts to Motorola Mobility’s old home in Chicago. This month the Chicago Tribune reported job cuts of 25 per cent of the workforce there as Lenovo seeks to improve efficiency in its acquisition last year from Google for $US2.91 billion.

Job cuts weren’t on the agenda at the handsets’ launch in Sydney.

The Moto X Style heads the list with its large 5.7 inch quadHD display and a 21 megapixel back facing snapper. There’s also a 5 megapixel front facing camera with a wide angle view for selfies.

To make the selfies experience even more complete, there is a forward facing flash.

The phone is designed for consuming multimedia, and will shoot 4K video. It also features fast charging with Motorola promising 10 hours of use in 15 minutes charging with its proprietary turbo power adaptor.

The optional bamboo back of the Moto X Style handset

The Moto X Style is driven by a 1.8 Gigahertz Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, and has 3 GB of RAM and storage capacities of 16, 32 and 64 GB. There’s support for a microSD card.

It has a 3000 milliampere hour fixed battery, you have the choice of either a silicone back, or one of made of bamboo.

There’s gestures such as double twisting the phone to activate the rear camera, and twisting it again to use the camera at the front.

If you’re not so concerned about a quad HD screen or 4K video, there’s the Moto X Play, which has a 5.5-inch 1080p HD display with an impressive 403 pixels per inch resolution.

By not having to drive such a powerful QuadHD screen, the Moto X Play promises up to 48 hours of battery life. It too has a 21 megapixel back facing camera and 5 megapixel front snapper.

Both phones will be sold through Vodafone from next month, although Motorola says it will sell a variation of the Moto X Play outright through retailers later.

Moto X Style costs $3 per month on an $80 Vodafone Red plan over 24 months and Moto X Play $5 per month on a $40 plan over 24 months.

The third phone, Moto G, is a budget handset that will sell outright. It’s water resistant with an IPX7 rating, and is waterproof to 1 metre, although Motorola is not promoting it as a submersible handset as Sony does with its Xperia range. It has a 13 megapixel back facing camera.

It will be available outright from retailers later this year for $369.

Both the Moto X Play and Moto G have removable and replaceable back covers.

Motorola also showcased what is calls a highlight reel, an amalgam of all your experiences with a chosen person as diarised by your photos gallery. You can import photos from social media, and over time it will learn to recognise the faces of your friends based on the tagging you use.

It will then compile them into a presentation.