Motorola Moto Z Play
The modular phone market is a small one, but Lenovo (Motorola’s parent company) has a new and consumer-friendly system with Moto Mods. These accessories work with the firm’s Moto Z phones and let you customise your handset.
Price
The Z Play is a mid-range phone that will set you back £369. It’s £130 cheaper than the flagship Moto Z and the same price as the Honor 8 and £40 more than the OnePlus 3.
Design
Unlike the Moto Z, whose 5.2mm width has forced it to ditch the headphone jack, the Z Play is 7mm thick, which means it has enough room for a 3.5mm socket next to its USB-C connector. This extra space also allows it to have a larger 3510mAh battery – its sibling’s offering is 2600mAh – though its also heavier at 165g, compared to the Moto Z’s 138g. The phone still feels thin and well built, though its glass rear is a little slippery to hold.
It shares some stylings with the cheaper Moto G4 phones, such as the small square fingerprint scanner that sits below the screen (more on this later). We are, however, impressed with how luxurious the Z Play looks and feels for the price.
The circular camera and LED flash arrangement protrudes a significant 2mm from the rear, but it’s flush once you pop on a Moto Style Shell. A black nylon one is included in the box no matter which colour phone you choose. Shells also hide the ugly connector that’s used to communicate with other Moto Mods accessories.
Whether a phone is waterproof is an increasingly sought-after feature and Lenovo lists the Moto Z Play as ‘water resistant’ thanks to a ‘nanocoating’ technology, but it’s not designed to be submerged in water.
Moto mods
The range of Moto Mods on offer is the biggest reason to buy the Moto Z Play (or Moto Z) compared to other Android phones. The modular nature means you can easily add different functionality, depending on your needs.
Lenovo’s modular system works differently to the LG G5’s and its removable chin. While that method has a certain wow factor, it’s fiddly and a bit awkward. In stark contrast, the Moto Mods simply snap onto the back of the Z Play with zero hassle using strong magnets to attach.
While we’ve seen a distinct lack of new accessories (or ‘Friends’) for the LG G5, Lenovo has said the Moto Mods system will be supported for at least three years. That should mean new accessories, plus any Mods you have will work with future phones when you upgrade.
The connector has been opened up to third parties, and anyone can buy a Moto Mods developer kit and make their own accessories, so there should be plenty of options from well-known accessory brands soon.
As it stands there are four different Moto Mods to choose from: the Incipio offGrid Power Pack (£59), JBL SoundBoost Speaker (£69), Hasselblad True Zoom camera (£199) and the Moto Insta-Share projector (£249).
Our review unit came with a JBL speaker (pictured left), which automatically diverts audio when attached. It adds an extra 118g, so it’s not something you’ll want to keep attached the whole time, but that’s the beauty of the magnetic system, and it’s no more than carrying around a separate Bluetooth speaker. There are no controls since you use the phone’s volume buttons, but it does add a handy kickstand. All in all, it’s a good
value for money Mod if you want louder speakers.
Hardware Screen
In many respects, it’s hard to tell the two Moto phones apart. They both have a 5.5in AMOLED screen, though the Z Play has a Full-HD (1920x1080) resolution rather than the Z’s Quad HD (2560x1440), and the same design on the rear to ensure Moto Mods fit.
While the difference in resolution is understandable, the Z Play’s screen will be fine for the vast majority of users. It’s bright and colourful, though those with a keener eye will notice the difference with those pixels spread across a larger space than most Full HD handsets. If you look closely, for example, you’ll see that the edge of icons appear fuzzy. You do need to look very closely though, so it’s not a big issue and we wouldn’t expect anything higher than Full HD at this price.
One benefit of the technology is that it can light up certain pixels to show information without impacting on battery life. The firm has offered this for a while, and although the Z Play doesn’t have infrared sensors next to the screen like the Z, it uses ultrasonics to detect your hand over the phone and will then show the time, date and notifications in monochrome. There’s no option to have the screen always on as with Samsung’s flagship phones.
Processor and storage
As you’d expect, the Moto Z Play doesn’t get the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 820 processor. Instead, it has the Snapdragon 625, a 2GHz octa-core chip. Graphics power is also a step down, the Adreno 506 instead of the 530 found in the Moto Z. There’s also 3GB of RAM rather than 4GB, and 32GB of storage. This can be expanded via microSD up to 2TB (although you can’t get a card that large yet).
Benchmark results for the Play (see left) are respectable and match up to other phones using the Snapdragon 625. During our time with the Z Play, we found it zippy and responsive.
Fingerprint scanner
Below the screen is a fingerprint reader, which can be used with Android Pay, for unlocking the phone as well as signing into apps or websites that support it. It’s not a physical home button though, which is a shame as we constantly found ourselves trying to use it as one: the Z Play uses the standard on-screen Android buttons.
The fingerprint scanner is a little small and awkward at times, but the rim around the edge helps your finger locate it and on the whole it works first time and quickly. You can also long-press it to lock the screen instead of using the power button on the side.
In terms of other specifications you get a distinctly mid-range set, which includes 11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and NFC.
Battery
The Z Play has a huge 3510mAh battery, which Lenovo says will last you two days so you won’t have to charge it every night. The phone also uses the increasingly popular reversible USB Type-C port.
As with other Moto phones, the TurboPower charger can quickly fill your battery – up to nine hours in 15 minutes (although the battery must be ‘substantially depleted’). We charged it for this length of
time and the battery charged from 12- up to 25 percent.
Cameras
While the Moto Z has a 13Mp main camera with OIS, the Play comes with a 16Mp snapper with slightly larger pixels (1.3- vs 1.12μm). However, the aperture isn’t as good at f/2.0 compared to f/1.8.
Another downside is that it has electronic stabilisation only, though this also works when shooting video, which can be shot at up to 4K at 30fps. 1080p records at 30fps too, but you can increase framerate to 120fps by lowering the resolution to 720p.
By default, the camera shoots in 16:9 and 11.9Mp, so you’ll have to switch it to 4:3 to get the full 16Mp. We’re impressed with the Z Play’s camera, which offers good quality images for the price point. Video is also nice and sharp, but we found some odd errors where the roof of St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel was pixellated, which isn’t good.
Around the front is a 5Mp camera with a ‘wide-angle’ 85-degree lens that has an f/2.2 aperture. Selfie fans will also appreciate the Z Play’s front-facing flash, so you needn’t stop shooting once it’s dark.
With the Moto Mods system, photographers may be tempted by the Hasselblad True Zoom. This costs £199, but brings a 10x optical zoom to the party. The difference this makes is enormous: we’re all used to a phone’s fixed lens and the inherent limitations of digital zoom. The True Zoom has a 12Mp sensor and optical stabilisation. During testing, it worked seamlessly with the Z Play’s camera app. It has its own power button, which launches the app, and a dual-stage shutter button with a zoom lever in front. Just remember to switch it off before pulling it off the phone otherwise the lens remains sticking out.
You can shoot both photos (in RAW and JPEG) and video, and the zoom – plus stabilisation – works in both modes, although it’s electronic rather than optical when shooting video. The main disappointment is that it only records video at 1080p at 30fps, not 4K or 60fps.
Software
The Moto Z Play has an almost-stock Android interface with little tweaks and additions here and there. It comes preloaded with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, though an update to 7.0 Nougat is reportedly due before the end of the year.
The Moto app is where you can enable the enhancements such as the ‘chop, chop’ motion to switch the LED flashlight on and off; the double-twist to launch the camera app and the ‘approach’ gesture, which shows the time when you wave your hand over the screen.
Others include being able to place the phone face down to put it in silent mode, and to stop ringing when you pick it up (it switches to vibrate rather than declining or accepting a phone call). There’s also a gesture to swipe up from the bottom of the screen to make the image smaller so it’s usable with one hand. You can find details of all the different gestures in the app itself, which is also where you can switch features on such as voice commands and a hands-free mode that reads out text messages.
Verdict
The Moto Mods accessories are the main reason to buy the Moto Z Play, but it’s a decent mid-range phone regardless. For an affordable price Lenovo offers premium design, good specs and a well-rounded software experience. You only really need to splash out on the Moto Z for the Quad HD screen, Snapdragon 820 and OIS camera should you feel the need for those features, though it’s missing a headphone jack and has a smaller battery. Chris Martin