Motorola is one of the companies that's been confirmed to support the Snapdragon 888, and this week Moto is showing off some of the things it could do with Qualcomm's new flagship chip.
In a video shared on Qualcomm's site as part of the Snapdragon 888 announcement, Motorola has teased a new desktop mode for its smartphones (via PCMag). The video shows a Moto phone connected to a Lenovo ThinkVision monitor and running a desktop environment, complete with a taskbar at the bottom of the screen and windowed apps.
Motorola has confirmed to XDA-Developers that it is working on a desktop mode, and the folks at XDA found that it'll be included as part of Moto's Android 11-based software.
One thing that's not known is what Motorola phone we'll see this desktop mode on first. Rumors say that Moto is working on a new flagship codenamed "nio" that will launch with Android 11 and support video output over USB-C, and so it's possible that Motorola's new desktop mode will debut alongside this "nio" device.
Interestingly, it's possible that this "nio" device could launch as part of the Moto G family. These are typically more affordable phones that launch chips from the Snapdragon 600 or 400 series, but Motorola Mobility President Sergio Buniac hints at the end of this video that a new Moto G device is coming with a Snapdragon 800 series chip.
"2021 will mark the 10th generation of Moto G and nothing would make us prouder than bringing 800-series experiences to this family," Buniac says.
In today's third tidbit of Motorola news, it's been discovered that Moto is working on a new app in its Android 11 release that'll allow for some level of integration between smartphone and PC. This "Mobile desktop" app will reportedly let you share files between devices and possibly include other features, too.
Motorola actually tried to offer a desktop experience with a smartphone nearly a decade ago. The Motorola Atrix 4G worked with a Lapdock accessory that was basically a laptop shell without any computing parts included. You could then dock the Atrix into the laptop shell and get a desktop-like experience that was powered by the Atrix smartphone.
That Atrix's lapdock functionality didn't really catch on, but apparently now Motorola wants to give it a second try. While Moto won't be the only Android device maker to offer a desktop mode — Samsung has DeX and Google has even built a desktop mode into Android — the company could see this new desktop mode as a way to help its new "nio" flagship stand out a bit more.