The Motorola One Action is A Weapon in the War Against Vertical Video

Vertical video has been a problem for years, with services like IGTV seemingly exacerbating it. Motorola wants to stop it from ever happening again with a brilliant new feature on its forthcoming One Action.

The feature itself is baked right into the name: Action. Like so many other modern phones, the One Action has a triple camera array on the back, but unlike other phones, one of them is an action cam. You know, kind of like a GoPro-type camera…just in a smartphone.

This unique camera features a 16 MP sensor and is only able to capture video (so, no pictures). It has enhanced stabilization to keep that video smooth and—here’s the kicker—a rotated sensor inside of the phone so it can shoot landscape video in portrait orientation. It’s so genius I honestly can’t believe that it hasn’t been done before. (And don’t get me wrong here—there is a time and place for vertical video. Most people just don’t know when or where that place is. Heh.)

That means you’ll be able to hold the phone comfortably—portrait, horizontal, upright…whatever you want to call it—and still be able to shoot landscape videos. In a world where smartphones can be called “boring” and are seemingly uninspired most of the time, this is a truly unique feature that should be surprisingly useful. Unlike the gimmicky crap most manufactures throw into their phones in the name of “innovation.” Nice work, Motorola.

As for the other cameras, it has a 12 MP primary camera and 5 MP depth shooter for portrait mode and whatnot. Past this, the One Action is an otherwise decidedly mid-range handset, with a Samsung Exynos 9609 processor, 4 GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage, and rear fingerprint sensor. It also has a 6.3-inch 21:9 FHD+ display and 12 MP hole-punch front camera. Oh, and yeah—it has a headphone jack. Wild.

For software, it will run Android One in Brazil, Mexico, and Europe. It will get Motorola’s usual treatment on top of Android Pie (9.0) in the United States. Motorola is also guaranteeing at least two major updates—Android Q and R—for the One Action, which is a pleasant surprise (assuming they stand behind this promise).

It launches today in Mexico, Brazil, and “various European countries” for €259, with Latin America and Asia Pacific coming soon. For the US and Canada, the One Action is expected to launch in October, though there’s no pricing info just yet.