Moto Edge X is confirmed – could it be Motorola’s first gaming phone?

It sounds like there’s a new Motorola phone coming soon, and it might mark the company’s first step into a particular niche mobile market, as it could end up being a gaming phone.

This comes from Lenovo, the company that owns Motorola, as its general manager posted on Chinese social media network Weibo about the new Moto Edge X. This post was accompanied by a teaser image, which is just a big X, that you can see above.

According to the post the “moto edge X is infinitely powerful and full of expectations,” and there’s also reference to “savior gaming mobile phone pro”, which is sadly a big victim of machine-translation scrambling. It seems, though, that the Moto Edge X is being referred to as a gaming phone.

Gaming phones are a particular niche of mobile that have top specs and good-looking screens coupled usually with mid-range prices, but they often cut corners in other departments, like the design or cameras. They sometimes also have features like multiple USB-C ports, physical triggers and RGB lights on the back.

Some companies like Xiaomi and Nubia have lines of gaming phones, and indeed Lenovo actually already has the Legion Phone Duel, but presumably this would be the first Moto phone designed for gaming. However, the intention of the post could just be to suggest it’ll be good for gaming, not a device designed for mobile games, and the machine translation means we can’t be sure.

So when will we see the Moto Edge X? The post just says “countdown” which is vague, but it implies it won’t be months out. Bear in mind, though, that this could be a China-only launch – the Moto Edge S was released only in that country, but was followed months later by its doppelganger in the Moto G100 which released worldwide.

Analysis: what is the Moto Edge X?

If the Moto Edge S launched worldwide as the Moto G100, it’s possible the Edge X will come as the G200 – and a recent leak suggested this latter phone is indeed on the way.

This leak said the phone will have a Snapdragon 888 chipset, a 144Hz screen, 8GB of RAM, a 108MP main camera and six snappers in total. All these specs would be at home in a gaming phone apart from the cameras, especially the fact the leak said there would be two front ones – gaming phones tend to have minimal front cameras to ensure the screen will take up as much space as possible.

The processor listed there is also curious because a separate leak suggests Motorola is working hard to put out one of the first mobiles with the Snapdragon 898 – that’s the successor to the 888, and will be one of the most powerful chipsets used in Android phones.

So does Motorola has multiple top-end phones in the works? That would be odd, since the brand usually deals in budget or mid-range handsets, but it’s possible, as it’s been pushing more into the premium market in recent years. One of these could end up being the Moto Edge X or Moto G200 then – we’ll have to wait to find out which.