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Motorola is offering a $50 rebate and a 30-day free trial on its Moto X line of no-contract, user-designed smartphones through June 29.
The offer is meant to give prospective buyers a chance to design and test a Moto X smartphone without any commitment so they can find out if the device fits their lifestyle, Jeff Miller, head of North American sales, said in a June 15 post on the Motorola Blog.
The company is offering Moto X without a contract for $299 after a $50 rebate under the special try-out deal. The rebate will be made back to the credit card used for the phone’s purchase within eight weeks of the original transaction. Customers will be free to use the unlocked phone with the mobile carrier of their choice.
“To try one out, simply design and order your device at motomaker.com and activate it on a no-contract plan,” wrote Miller. “If you don’t love your Moto X, simply ship it back to us for free any time in the first 30 days,” without any fees or restocking charges.
Customers who try a Moto-X are also offered a one-time “do-over” if they’d like to return the original Moto-X and order one with a different design scheme, again using the Moto Maker phone creation Website, wrote Miller. “As always, we want to give you the power to choose a great mobile experience, and when it comes to form and function, Moto has you covered.”
The second-generation Moto X smartphone, which became available in September 2014, includes a 5.2-inch 1080p HD display, which is an upgrade from the 4.7-inch, 720p display of the first-generation devices. The metal-framed phone also includes a Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core processor and runs Android, along with voice-activated capabilities for a wide range of no-touch commands and functions. The phones include 2GB of RAM, Gorilla Glass 3 displays, a 13-megapixel main camera and a dual LED ring flash.
When the Moto X was first unveiled, it was hailed as the first smartphone that offered a lot of customization options for buyers, including more than 2,000 option combinations, according to an earlier eWEEK report. Users can choose the front and back colors; the accent colors of the power button, volume key and camera ring; the wallpaper; the memory (16GB or 32GB) and much more.
The Moto X was also the first smartphone to be designed, engineered and assembled in the United States, according to an earlier eWEEK report. The original Moto X had an active-matrix organic LED (AMOLED) display with a resolution of 1,280 by 720, which was not a full-HD display. The second-generation Moto X models arrived a little more than a year after the August 2013 arrival of the first Moto X devices.
The then-new Moto X phones arrived on the market just as Apple unveiled its latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones.
In March, Motorola began offering its Moto 360 smartwatch with a wide choice of colors, wristbands and watch faces using the company’s innovative Moto Maker design store. Previously, the Moto 360, which debuted in September 2014, was only available with a stone gray or black stainless steel body.
Moto Maker’s customization tools arrived in August 2013.