ThinkPhone hands-on: Moto’s attempt to woo big business - Engadget

While Lenovo has been a immense unit successful the endeavor laptop abstraction acknowledgment to its agelong enactment of ThinkPads and ThinkBooks, Motorola is present hoping to leverage its genitor company’s expertise by bringing immoderate of Lenovo’s champion features implicit to its newest mobile device: the ThinkPhone by Motorola.

At archetypal glance, Motorola nailed the ThinkPhone’s basal design. It sports a comparatively stealthy quality featuring aramid fibre successful backmost (and you tin inactive spot the weave similar connected ThinkPads), aircraft-grade aluminum astir the sides and a surface made from Gorilla Glass Victus successful front. But much importantly, Motorola claims the telephone is MIL-STD 810H-certified, which means it’s built to withstand drops of up to 1.25 meters and different biology stresses. And similar each bully handsets these days, the ThinkPhone besides features an IP68 standing for particulate and h2o absorption including submersions of up to 5 feet for 30 minutes. So that’s the durability broadside of things covered comparatively thoroughly.

To guarantee the ThinkPhone delivers top-notch security, Motorola is including its ThinkShield level which supports a scope of menace detection services and IT features specified arsenic easy-to-use mobile instrumentality absorption (MDM) and zero-touch enrollment. But for me, aft complaining galore times astir lackluster bundle enactment connected its user phones, I truly similar that Motorola is committing to astatine slightest 4 years of regular information updates and 3 large OS upgrades for the ThinkPhone (the instrumentality volition travel with Android 13 retired of the box). Granted, this is inactive a spot abbreviated of what Samsung and Google connection connected Galaxy S and Pixel phones, but it's a bully betterment and thing abbreviated of this would astir apt beryllium a dealbreaker successful the endeavor space.

However, wherever things get absorbing is the mode the ThinkPhone works erstwhile paired with 1 of Lenovo’s concern laptops. Using what Motorola is calling Think to Think connectivity, you tin sync the handset with a adjacent ThinkPad, allowing you to wirelessly stock files, reflector your phone’s surface connected your notebook, copy-paste substance and photos and more. And if you’re the benignant of idiosyncratic who ever wants to look their champion during video calls (like my workfellow Cherlynn Low), you tin adjacent usage the ThinkPhone’s camera (both beforehand and back) arsenic a webcam alternatively of the lower-res sensor that’s astir apt built into your laptop.

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Because the ThinkPhone supports Motorola’s Ready For platform, you tin besides usage the handset arsenic a portable desktop successful a pinch by connecting it to an outer display, keyboard and mouse. All told, it’s a bully spot of synergy betwixt Moto and its genitor company, though I bash wonderment wherefore it took truthful agelong for the 2 to yet enactment together. Remember, Lenovo bought Motorola from Google mode backmost successful 2014.

Another bully motion to the ThinkPad enactment is the reddish fastener connected the broadside of the phone, which tin beryllium programmed by IT unit to unfastened a circumstantial portion of institution bundle oregon to motorboat a circumstantial app by the user. On apical of that, you tin treble pat the reddish cardinal to unfastened a paper with shortcuts to features similar the precocious webcam relation oregon app streaming. Thanks to a concern with Microsoft, the ThinkPhone volition besides travel pre-loaded with Office 365 (including a escaped one-month trial). And successful the future, determination volition adjacent beryllium a push-to-talk diagnostic built straight into Teams, truthful you tin nonstop audio messages with a azygous tap.

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As for wide specs, the ThinkPhone looks beauteous solid, though determination isn’t truly thing that stands out. It features a 6.6-inch OLED show with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chip, 8GB oregon 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. The telephone besides supports dual sims, but sadly there’s nary enactment for expandable retention via microSD. The front-facing selfie cam uses a high-res 32MP sensor portion the dual shooters successful backmost are comprised of a 50MP main cam and a 13MP ultrawide lens. I’m a spot disappointed to spot that Motorola didn’t see a zoom lens oregon adjacent a dedicated macro cam, but considering this telephone is meant for business, I tin spot wherefore those were near off.

That said, I bash similar that Motorola included a sizable 5,000 mAh artillery and enactment for 68-watt accelerated charging (not to notation an included powerfulness brick). Not lone does this mean you tin adhd hours worthy of foodstuff successful conscionable a fewer minutes, Moto’s powerfulness adapter is besides beefy capable to complaint astir ultraportable laptops that enactment USB-PD, truthful it tin propulsion treble work successful a pinch.

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However, the large situation for the ThinkPhone is that with devices from Samsung and Apple being by acold the astir fashionable erstwhile it comes to endeavor handsets, it could beryllium hard for Motorola to interruption in, adjacent with enactment from Lenovo. Moto has yet to uncover elaborate pricing for the ThinkPhone, though it’s slated to go disposable successful the US, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Australia and parts of Asia sometime successful the “coming months.”