For almost as long as anyone can remember, the Galaxy Note has gone largely unchallenged as the king of the Android phablets. However, a curious leak from Evan Blass (opens in new tab) suggests Samsung's days of dominating that segment by default could be coming to an end — and it could be all thanks to Motorola.
The image you see above is very clearly a Motorola-branded device, with the company's trademark clock and weather widget front and center, as well as a hole-punch camera cutout lodged up in the top-left corner like some Motorola One models. Then there's the silver-and-black stylus at right, which looks to have a relatively blunt tip, indicating it probably won't rival the S Pen's 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity.
That may hint that this yet-unnamed Motorola phablet is intended as more of a budget or midrange device rather than a bona fide Galaxy Note 10 or Note 10 Lite competitor. And in that segment, Motorola actually would have some competition — only from the likes of LG, whose Stylo handsets are commonly offered through discount wireless carriers like Boost, Metro by T-Mobile and Cricket.
As Blass notes, this phone would be Motorola's first with a stylus since it started making Android handsets to begin with. While that's somewhat exciting, it's not necessarily a lock to be sold in all regions, let alone the United States. Motorola already sells a number of devices exclusively in Europe, Asia and South America, like the Motorola One Macro, so this phablet could suffer a similar fate.
That is all we know about this unexpected and mysterious Moto phone, though official news should be around the corner. We expect to learn more at Mobile World Congress 2020, which kicks off on February 24. There, we'll likely also hear about what's next in the budget-favorite Moto G and Moto E lines too, so stay tuned.