[user_7832]

> At what cost though?! And no, I am not talking about money. Any device (and any product really) is a set of tradeoffs.

My $200 Moto G3 in 2016 had a removable back cover (admittedly not battery). It was also waterproof (and had a headphone jack.)

The engineering of making things waterproof is in the realm of "A bit more annoying but easily doable if anyone's interested in doing it", not "Doable at the cost of everything else".

[nickpp]

> My $200 Moto G3 in 2016 had a removable back cover (admittedly not battery). It was also waterproof (and had a headphone jack.)

It also did diddly squat in the market place and the company producing it ran out of business.

Again, a product is a set of tradeoffs. Those tradeoff include functionality, cost, logistics to build, even marketing and sales. Maximizing a feature to serve a loud minority (headphone jack!) but thus ignoring other features will simply make a product fail in the market place in time...

[user_7832]

> It also did diddly squat in the market place

Not sure what the context or background of that is, but here in India, the G3 sold out shortly after launch.

Per this [1] stat by a Motorola exec too, it did very well.

> Motorola’s General Manager for India, Amit Boni stated at the Moto X Play launch event that the Moto G (3rd Gen) that was launched in July is among the fastest selling smartphones on Flipkart. Its sales mark grossed 140% higher than the Moto G (1st Gen and 2nd Gen).

(And I know that's legitimate because a lot of peers, friends and family, folks on the streets etc had Motorolas.)

> and the company producing it ran out of business.

Unfortunate, yes, but I don't think it was because they made and sold phones that didn't sell. I don't know if it was business mismanagement or what, but it's an unfortunate legacy of one of the most promising brands. Fortunately Lenovo isn't killing the brand, so there's that.

1 - https://telecomtalk.info/motorola-sold-over-5-6-million-indi...