Motorola Quickly Shows Off Next Moto 360 Smartwatch, 'Flat Tire' Display Lives On

Will they or won’t they continue on with the 'flat tire' display? That’s been the big question surrounding Motorola’s next generation Moto 360 smartwatch. Today, we finally learn the answer to the question, and unfortunately, it looks as though Motorola still hasn’t clear to incorporate a completely circular display like LG, Huawei and now Samsung into a smartwatch.

In an incredibly short video posted to Motorola’s official Twitter account (the tweet has since been taken down), we see a fleeting glimpse of the next generation Moto 360. As you can clearly see, there is still a cutout at the bottom of the display, which houses an ambient light sensor in the current generation Moto 360.

Keen eyes will also spot that the side button has been moved from the 3 o’clock position to the 2 o’clock position and that the integrated lug system for the watch bands has been abandoned in favor of an external lug system typical of most modern wristwatches.

Although there isn’t much else to glean from the few seconds that the Moto 360 shows up in the video, we can say for certain that this render is a dead ringer for the suitcase full of prototype smartwatches that was posted to Weibo by Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing in late March. The external lugs, the cut-off display, and even the positioning of the side button matches up perfectly.

This image was posted to Weibo earlier this year by Lenovo's CEO

The fact that Motorola was so quick to pull down the tweet might lead some credence to this slip-up being legit, for better or worse. I can personally say that I was looking forward to seeing the second generation Moto 360 arrive sans the flat tire display, but perhaps Motorola has some other tricks up its sleeve to distract my eye to make up for the design faux pas.