Paul Briden 02/03/2017 - 12:39pm

Lenovo has announced a new Amazon Alexa MotoMod for the Moto Z series, amongst others...

While LG might have kissed modularity on its flagship series goodbye, the same isn't true of the Lenovo-owned, Motorola-made Moto brand. The newly launched Moto G5 and Moto G5 don't feature modular designs, but 2016's flagship models; the Moto Z, Moto Z Force, and Moto Z Play, do still support the modular back panel design. We don't know whether new flagship models in 2017 will use the same design, but for the existing models, Lenovo took the opportunity at MWC to launch a selection of new MotoMod accessories.

And some of them are very compelling in terms of what they can turn your phone into. Chief amongst these is the Amazon Alexa MotoMod, yup, that's right, a MotoMod which adds the Amazon Alexa AI assistant to your Moto Z series phone. You may have already seen the rave reviews of Amazon Alexa, an AI assistant that's widely regarded as one of the most advanced and powerful currently available. If you have a connected home, it can, for example, set the perfect temperature in your house before you arrive back, you can ask it to call you an Uber, or write a shopping list. To see a full break-down of Alexa's capabilities, check out our dedicted article here.

Another new model is the MotoMod Power Pack; Lenovo has released battery packs before but this one is more svelte, it doesn't add additional girth to the phone, but does boost the battery by 50%. Nice.

There's also the GamePad MotoMod which, as the name suggests, goes some way to turning your phone into a portable console with built-in physical controls. Motorola has plans for an even bigger battery booster inside 2017; a "Turbo Power MotoMod", and also one which will enable wireless charging.

So far Lenovo has only revealed the pricing and availability of the MotoMod Power Pack, which will land in March with an RRP of $49/€49.