You can take the Google out of Motorola Mobility but apparently you can’t take out all the creativity – or the mojo.

Vita Twitter and in media briefings at the Mobile World Congress this week, the Motorola team displayed plenty of both. That feisty attitude and the creativity which led to the Moto X phone launch last year must be a couple of the reasons why Lenovo is paying $2.9 billion for a billion-dollar-losing venture.

Lenovo’s Yang Yuanqing stole the headlines at the show by vowing to quickly turn around Motorola Mobility. Assuming regulators approve it, of course.

However, Motorola Mobility makes its own news by announcing a new smartphone and shows some moxie with a smartwatch while deeming rival products as “extremely ugly.”

First, the new Moto X.

Via Twitter, the Mobility team told a questioner:

Motorola Mobility ‏@Motorola Feb 25

Q from twitter: When is next version of Moto X? A: Keep posted – hint – late summer. #MotoMWC

The Moto X is assembled in the U.S. and allows buyers to customize it in several ways:

  • Color
  • Accent colors
  • Even a signature or personalized message

Previously only available in the U.S. for $399 (or $49.99 with two-year contract), the Moto X will soon be made available in other countries.

(Will that include China? Yang has said he wants to re-establish the Motorola brand there where Lenovo’s own smartphones are a powerful force behind Samsung.)

Lenovo Wearables?

Then there are the “wearables.”

Will there be wearable Lenovo devices for “Those who do,” as the company’s marketing slogan says?

Perhaps.

Here’s another “tweet;”

“We are working on a watch that will be available this year. We aim to address consumer issues like style & battery life” #MotoMWC

In talking about the smartwatch, the mojo came through.

Rick Osterloh, senior vice president of product at Mobility, declared that rival wearables “are all extremely ugly,” according to London’s Daily Mirror. He says his team is “trying to solve the problem of style.”

If wearables and smartwatches are to become a Lenovo play, the competition is likely to be as fierce as it is in smartphones, giving that Samsung, Sony and others are making their own.

Osterloh says Motorola Mobility wants wearables that look “like jewelry.”

Gotta like that attitude.

No Advanced Research and Projects …

But Lenovo isn’t getting everything that was part of Motorola Mobility.

The Advanced Research and Projects (ATAP), which is led by Regina Dugan (former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – DARPA – at the Pentagon) isn’t part of the deal. And that includes Project Area.

Reports tech news site Digital Trends from a media briefing in Madrid:

“Announced late last year, Project Ara aims to deliver a modular and customizable phone to those who want it. Originally in development by Motorola’s Project Ara Built Phone Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group, Project Ara was integrated into Google once it was announced that Motorola would be sold to Lenovo.”

Plus, Dennis Woodside, the longtime Google exec put in place to try to turn around the Motorola group after Google bought it, already has announced his departure.

However, Yang is confident Lenovo will become a global smartphone power with Motorola Mobility as part of the family.

Moto mojo and all.

[LENOVO ARCHIVE: Check out eight years of Lenovo stories as reported in WRALTechWire.]