Moto Z offers 2 year Quad HD Google Photos
The Moto Z and Z Force are the first two smartphones in the world to come without 3.5mm headphone jacks, and the company’s modules presentation makes it one of the most compelling modular smartphones we’ve seen yet. While announcements (such as the Z and Z Force announcements this week) can’t provide every specific detail, it usually takes some digging later to uncover some tidbits of juicy info about these smartphones.
Motorola didn’t mention much about its offers for Moto Z and Z Force buyers, but the company has now provided a new incentive at its website. Scrolling down the main page shows that Motorola is promising 2 years of full resolution photo uploads with Google Photos. Currently, Google only allows you to upload Full HD photos for free in unlimited fashion, but Motorola intends to push it to 1440p photos. Since the Z and Z Force smartphones come with Quad HD resolution (1440p), it only makes sense to provide full resolution Google Photos uploads. After all, why even make the most of your smartphone if you can only upload 1080p photos and videos?
Keep in mind that Motorola is providing full resolution upload support to Google Photos for 2 years, after which, unless you purchase Google Drive storage outright (you can pay $1.99 for 100GB of storage each month), you’ll find yourself out of storage and will have to revert your photos to 1080p. On the whole, this seems like an appealing offer to at least encourage users to entertain Google Photos cloud storage for consumers who’d otherwise not. At the same time, however, it’s best to just go ahead and pay $1.99 a month for 100GB of Google Drive storage and just accept this two-year agreement as a small bonus. I mean, I don’t see why $2 a month is such an expensive price to pay for 100GB — an amount that most consumers won’t gobble up by month’s end. Additionally, some tech-savvy consumers already have cloud storage. I have 1.1TB of Mirosoft OneDrive storage for 2 years, so promises of full resolution photos with Google Drive storage isn’t all that enticing to me. I can just use Microsoft OneDrive for my storage and upload full resolution photos. When the 2 years expires, my cloud storage will drop to 130GB. 130GB is more than enough storage for me to make use of for a few years.
It’s a nice nod to cloud storage, but most consumers will see this offer expire before they blink (time flies when you’re having fun). At the same time, however, it is a free offer, and some consumers have been using Google Photos since its inception while living off free Google Drive storage all the time. Another free offer will only extend the inevitable, and that suits them just fine.
Oh, there’s one caveat: only Moto Z Droid Edition owners in the US (including Moto Z Force Droid owners) can take advantage of this offer, which lends credence to the idea that Motorola is trying to court Verizon users in the US as opposed to all customers on all carriers.
Does this new full resolution Google Photos upload offer encourage you to buy the Moto Z? If not, do you have any questions about the Moto Z that aren’t yet answered?