Project Ara's next device will stand equal to a top-tier smartphone

Long ago, Google once said it hoped to get an official, final Project Ara device - the so-called "grey phone" - onto the market by January 2015. It doesn't take a math whiz to realize that window is rapidly closing, but that doesn't mean Google's taking the whole modular smartphone thing any less seriously. Project lead Paul Eremenko shed a little more light on Ara's future, specifically in terms of the search giant's forthcoming Spiral 3 Ara prototype.

Let's back up for a moment first: Google's been working with its so-called Spiral 2 prototype design since about last October, and the search giant is getting more ambitious with its forthcoming prototype. Eremenko says we can expect the Spiral 3 to "match or exceed the functionality of a state-of-the-art smartphone today" with 20-30 third-party modules available for developers to tinker around with. On top of all that, the new prototype should feature day-long battery life, though Eremenko allows for a single battery swap to get users through the day. Throw in a high-end camera and you've essentially got Google's vision of its new prototype in a nutshell. Considering that Ara devices could hardly boot reliably last time we saw them, this new performance push speaks to how much progress the teams have made.

This is a developing story, please refresh for updates.

Filed under: Mobile

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