As far as good-will goes, at this point in time I'm willing to just hand out loads of it towards Motorola. The company may still be battling up a very tall hill to even get close to their glory days, but no one can tell me that they're doing it without some real effort. And I'm not just talking about the phones that the company has released over the last few months, even though that's a strong argument for their case.
No, I'm talking more about the effort they are putting into selling those phones, but also the amount of time and persistence they're putting in making sure that we never really forget about the handsets they have on the market. Think about it. Most devices, and I'm talking the big name, high-end smartphones from the companies that we talk about every single day, drop off the radar entirely just a few weeks after their announcement -- right up until their availability rolls around. (Or, like this year for HTC, that all happens in the same day.) We get a few news pieces and plenty of reviews, but after that it's all about what's coming next.
Motorola, on the other hand, doesn't want you to forget about what they've already released, even if we all know that they've got something else coming down the pipe (eventually). And they keep their flagship of 2013, the Moto x, in the presses by offering up deals after deals . . . after deals. Whether it's a one- or two-day sale, or just a general price drop, or free accessories, the manufacturer is doing just about everything they can to keep your eyeballs on their phone. Everything except give you a phone.
But, hey, they're even practically doing that!
Announced on June 6 and beginning June 9, Motorola will let you customize a Moto X and try it out for a whopping two weeks. Pretty cool, right? There are some catches, though. The first: it'll only be available while supplies last (as usual), and there's no telling how many units are being held back for this particular promotion. And second, there's a price. A penny.
Yes, you read that correctly. Just one cent.
For a penny, you can try out Motorola's flagship device, fully customized to your liking, and see how it fits your needs. For most, parting ways with $300+ for an untested phone isn't appealing, so for those folks this method has to be tempting. I can't imagine it wouldn't be tempting for most. It's an impressive effort from Motorola, and proves yet again that they're doing what they can to keep attention on their device.
The cynic would say that Motorola's doing all of this because the Moto X isn't selling all that well, and certainly not up to what Motorola was originally banking on. That could very well be true, but that doesn't change anything as far as I'm concerned. They're still doing all of this, the marketing and promotions, the right way. Yes, I'd like to see more commercials and ads for the Moto X so far past its initial launch, but I figure I'm asking for too much at that point.
So tell me, would you try out a phone for only a penny? If HTC or Samsung were to follow in Motorola's steps here and let you try out their flagship device for such a small fee, would you take advantage of it? Are you going to jump at the chance for Motorola's handset? Let me know!