Contract Free

On November 13th 2013, Google announced the release of it's Moto G smart phone. What makes that a big deal is that the Moto G is not only affordable, it's contract free.

The Moto G is an 8GB smart phone that sells for $179 and comes unlocked and contract free. The phone needs only a SIM card from any of the major carriers and you're off and running. This effectively eliminates the need for a two year agreement. Some smart phone users have found that the two year contract has not only lead to their paying for services that they may not have needed, but also left them waiting for months when they may have wanted or needed an upgrade.

This may also be good news for those non smart phone users who have been wanting to move on to a smart phone. Many standard cell phone users have found the cost of a smart phone either prohibitive, or a two contract not a viable option, due to credit restrictions or other budget concerns.

Google closed the buy out of Motorola Mobility in May of 2012. Many analyst believed that the company was looking to gain access to the thousand of patents owned by Motorola, while other say that Google clearly has its eye on the success of Apple's iPhone.

Looking ahead, work on curved screen technology has given rise to Samsung's just announced prototype of a foldable smart phone. On November 7th 2013, Samsung announced that they had created a prototype of a smart phone the size of a Galaxy S III that could be folded in half from top to bottom like a lady's compact.

The flexible OLED material used in making the phone is said to have withstood 100,000 foldings without any significant degradation in brightness or image quality at the screen's seam. Samsung says that more testing is needed before the phones can be released to the public. They believe that a two year time frame should be sufficient and are looking toward a 2015 release.