The one thing that really made the 2016 Moto Z stand out was the modular design. While other flagship devices may have attempted the modular design Lenovo was the only OEM to actually get it right. The Moto mods effortlessly and magnetically attached themselves to the phone. This was the only user friendly modular design on the market. The phone itself was also pretty amazing with its super sleek design and 21mp camera. With Moto Z users having invested so much money on the various Moto Mods the hope was that Lenovo would continue with the modular design so that these Mods could be used on upcoming devices. This may not be the case.
We have some renders of the upcoming 2017 version of the Moto X based on the factory CADs, and it does not appear to have the magnetic pogo pins that we saw on the 2016 version. According to these photos the device will also come with Micro USB instead of USB Type-C which seems very questionable for a 2017 flagship device. One good note is that the design does show a 3.5mm headphone jack. We have a pretty large bezel, and a smaller 5.2" display. Maybe this will be the midranger for 2017 while the Moto Z remains to be the flagship.