Moto Z Play (unlocked dual sim version) review

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I have been using the Moto Z Play for more than a month now. I have the dual sim unlocked version, bought it in the Netherlands, where I live.

 

I have spent enough time with this phone to be able to write a review. 

 

Price

The price of this phone was 430-450 euro at the time in my country. It's on the high side, especially considering you can get a OP3 for about 400. (though shipping and possibly customer service are that phone's achilles heels)

So the price could definitely be better, I however was enthralled by the supposed battery life this phone had. I had the Moto X Play in the past and that battery was the best of all phones I had, though the SoC was lacking. The price on the X Play was very good though.

 

Availability 

The Moto Z Play was available relatively quick here, though I know that in the US it was first only available at Verizon for a good while, this is resolved now I think and you can buy an unlocked version there.

 

Packaging and unboxing

Nothing special, but not bad either, it's a white box with the Moto Z logo in silver on it. In the box you get the phone, a sim-card removal tool and a USB-C charger, only wall adapter though, so you will have to buy a cable yourself to transfer files to and from your pc. It also came with a Style mod. The charger it came with is a Turbo Charger however.

 

Design

The phone has  aluminium (aluminium looking?) edges, I am not sure if it actually is but I am guessing so. The phone has a headphone jack on the bottom, as well as a USB-C Port on  the bottom as well. The USB-C port-part seems to have a sort of rubbery plastic around it, which is quite handy and prevents scratching around the port which you perhaps could get if it was aluminium like the rest of the edges. (not that I have a single scratch on the edges) The phone is a little bit thicker than most phones but not too much.

 

The back is a glass back, with a camera hump. Yes, it can get annoying to have the phone lie on the hump, but the Style mod flattens out the back if you use that, so there is a remedy. The glass back can scratch a little easily as well. On the lower bottom of the glass back is also an array of golden little magnets, these are for the Moto Mods which this phone can be used with. I will expand on this later.

 

The front has a fingerprint scanner on the bottom and a single speaker on the top, the Moto logo is under the speaker. The front cam is on the right of the speaker and the front-flash is on the left of the speaker.

 

The buttons are all on the right side of the phone. The power button is a bit above the 'middle' region of the edge and above that are the volume buttons. The volume buttons are not combined into 1 button, but rather are buttons by themselves. The volume buttons are also entrenched slightly into a subtle 'groove' that is part of the design, I quite like it. In this picture the 'groove' is slightly visible. There are also microphones on the top edge, one on the front left of the fingerprintscanner and one on the back, on the left, beneath the magnet-array.

 

The simslot(s) and micro-SD card slot (both in 1 compartment) is on the top.

 

 

Screen

The screen is a 1080x1920 AMOLED screen at 5,5 inches. I must say, the colors are quite good. (however I am not an expert to be a good judge on that) Everything is plenty sharp, and while very, very occasionally I can see the 'downgrade' from QHD (nexus 6p) to FHD it doesn't bother me at all. It is still plenty sharp and this has never hindered me.

 

Speaker and sound

The speaker on the Moto Z Play really isn't bad at all. I did a side-by-side comparison when i still had my previous Nexus 6p. While the 6p had slightly louder and stereo sound the clarity was also worse on it than on the Moto Z Play. The lone Z Play speaker almost reached the loudness of the 6p for some reason. I did this test multiple times and it wasn't my imagination. When plugging in my earbuds I didn't notice any better or worse sounds. But I am not an audiophile by any means, so I am the wrong person to ask. To me it sounds just fine, I got a feeling it did sound a little bit better than the 6p for some reason, but this is just a gut feeling.

 

Fingerprint scanner

Leaps and bounds better than the 6p. Not only is the scanner on the front of the phone, which means I don't have to pick it up to get at the back where the scanner is like with the 6p, the scanner is also undoubtedly much, much faster. 

I can't see fingerprint scanners getting much faster than this. The only downside is that the scanner doesn't react to water or dirt very well, it will deny access if you have a wet finger. I just wipe my finger and the scanner quickly and it's working again.

 

Performance

The Z Play has 3GB of RAM, now this might sound like little compared to the 4GB standard of flagships (or the OP3's 6GB) but I haven't found any problems here. This might be because I don't leave much apps open. Mostly Chrome with a couple of tabs, Whatsapp, a music player, a different app in addition and Google Fit. I rarely have to reload an app as far as I can remember.

 

I had the Moto X Play before and that phone had a Snapdragon 615. It was lacking a little, I have to admit, not something dramatic, but it was just those hiccups here and there. The Snapdragon 625 in the Z Play has abolished the performance problems however. I have no problems browsing, scrolling, playing games. Even Hearthstone works without a sweat, while playing music in VLC at the same time. So the SoC won't give you any worries here.

 

In fact, the SoC is what helps in large part to make the batterylife so extremely outstanding.

 

Battery life
I am going to come right out and tell you I am one to overhype things. But this phone's battery life is not overhyped. in fact, I I can not overstate how good it is. The capacity is 3510 MaH, which in theory is pretty big, but nothing that will make you say 'wow'. And you're right. But the Snapdragon 625, with some help of the AMOLED screen and Doze make for an absolutely magical battery life. I have no qualms with saying an average user can easily get through 2 days of use before having to recharge again.

 

I often top my phones off, whether it be 70%, 80% or 90%. To be more 'full' is to be more prepared in my mind. However, with the Z Play these worries have just gone out of the window. My screen on time is on average 10 hours, at the minimum. And that is with most things off, except for 4g/LTE and my phone signal of course. 12 hours can easily be reached if you stretch it and some users have reported a good amount above that on other forums such as AndroidCentral and XDA, with evidence and all. For battery life this phone is easily one of the best out there, WITHOUT skimping on performance like it did with the X Play.

 

The charger it comes with is a Turbo-Charger and this allows for the phone to fast-charge. It is really good at this as well, and fast-charging is the only time the phone overheats.

 

Software

The Z Play comes with Marshmallow 6.0.1 out of the box. At the time of writing I still have this version. Motorola/Lenovo has promised that the phone will get a update to Nougat in this year. It is basically stock android accompanied with the slight changes here and there from Motorola/Lenovo and their usual Moto apps and gestures. 

 

The gestures are really useful for me, like the chop-chop motion to turn on the flashlight or the wrist-twist to turn on the camera. There are several others, one which allows you to make the window/screen where Android is displayed on smaller (for people with smaller hands who can't reach so easily) but I don't use these. There is also a Moto Mod app to use the Moto Mods. This software regularly gets updated.

 

Storage

The storage on the Moto Z Play starts and as far as I know ends at 32GB. Now for me this is more than enough, I don't put all that much on my phone and am an avid streamer anyway because I have a 20GB plan. For people who want to expand storage there is a micro-SD card slot however so you can put your programs, movies or other media on there. 

 

Camera

The camera on the Moto Z Play is serviceable and you can get some nice shots with it. But it was definitely a step down from the Nexus 6p camera. It is firmly in the 'average' section. I am not a photographer and thus can not comment much more on the quality, but for everyday use it is definitely serviceable. It can also shoot videos in 4K on 30fps, and is also capable of shooting in slow-motion.

 

Moto Mods

This year Motorola/Lenovo decided to introduce the concept of Moto Mods, these are add-on 'mods' that you can attach to the back of your Moto Z phone. The Z Play may be the lowest priced Z phone, with it's big brothers the Moto Z and Moto Z Force being the flagships, but it also has the same access to the Moto Mods. In other words it is the entry level model for Moto Mods.

 

I personally only got the battery-pack mod. The Incipio Off-Grid Powerpack at 2200 mAh capacity. Now you might be thinking 'why, the Z Play has incredible battery, right?'. Well, that is true, but I got the mod with the thought of 'more battery never hurt anyone'. 

 

It is certainly a nice concept, you take of the Style mod (if you have it on in the first place) and just click the Powerpack mod on, all done in under 10 seconds. It is much, much more portable and easier than a powerbank despite it making the phone much thicker.

 

The Powerpack adds considerable heft and thickness to the phone in exchange for even more battery life, one added benefit however is that the thickness makes the camera hump completely recessed. The Moto Mod software allows you to choose between 2 modes for this PowerPack mod, Normal and Efficiency mode. The Normal mode charges the Z Play as a normal powerbank would. Efficiency mode starts acting when the phone battery is at 80%. When it reaches 80% the powerpack will constantly top off the phone to remain at 80% all the time.

 

I have found that the Powerpack with very heavy use made me able to get through a short schoolday, 1 hour commute there and 1 hour back, until right when I got home. My phone was still at 80% with Efficiency mode on.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

The Moto Z Play is an unusual phone in that it has access to Moto Mods, has a somewhat 'premium' design, but is still priced a bit on the high side for a midranger.

 

For people who value batterylife above all else this phone is absolutely one that must be considered. The Snapdragon 625 is a midrange SoC but is also what makes the batterylife what it is for a large part. It's efficiency is outstanding.

 

For several other questions:

 

- The phone does not overheat, except when Turbocharging. Otherwise I have never even felt something remotely close to a heat problem.

 

- I am not certain if single sim versions can be modified with firmware to work as dual sim, this was definitely possible on the X Play, I assume with the Z Play they have the same thing going on considering the simcard slot's layout.

 

- Some items that come in the box may vary between countries, like the Style Mod.

 

- Feel in the hand is a varying one. Without anything on the back it can feel a little off, considering the glass back. With the Style Mod it feels absolutely great. (I got the black fibre Style Mod with it) With the battery pack the grip is also great like with the Style Mod, but it makes the phone weigh more considerably.

 

 

- Does not have radio, I checked multiple times.