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Moto Z Play review: The modular smartphone king

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £380
inc VAT (SIM-free)

It faces strong competition from the OnePlus 3, but the Moto Z Play's stupendous battery life and modular design still makes it a great buy

Pros

  • Incredible battery life
  • Flexible modular design

Cons

  • OnePlus 3 is faster and cheaper

Specifications

Processor: Octa-core 2.0GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625, Screen Size: 5.5in, Screen resolution: 1,920 x 1,080, Rear camera: 16 megapixels, Storage (free): 32GB (23.8GB), Wireless data: 3G, 4G, Dimensions: 156 x 76 x 6.9mm, Weight: 165g, Operating system: Android 6.0.1

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Display

The Moto Z Play’s display has been downgraded, too. It still has a 5.5in AMOLED panel like its big brother, but its resolution only stretches to 1,920 x 1,080 rather than 2,560 x 1,440. In its defence, I was hard-pressed to tell the difference in terms of overall sharpness. The Moto Z Play’s vanilla version of Android 6.0 looked just as crisp as it did on the Moto Z.

More importantly, the quality of the Moto Z Play’s display hasn’t diminished in the slightest: it still covers a fantastic 100% of the sRGB colour gamut, produces perfect black and has superb contrast. Again, its maximum brightness only peaks at 355cd/m2, but this will only be a problem on the very sunniest of days.

Camera

As for the rear camera, you might be forgiven they’re exactly the same given their identical, raised design, but the Moto Z Play actually has a higher resolution camera than the Moto Z, producing 16-megapixel images  rather than 12. You won’t find any optical image stabilisation here, sadly, but you do get a hybrid laser and phase detection autofocus, a wide f/2.0 aperture and a colour-balancing dual LED flash.

Now I wasn’t hugely impressed by the pictures I took on the Moto Z, as many of them came out quite soft and lacking in detail. Luckily, the Moto Z Play once again seems to have the upper hand here, as each shot was sharper and more defined. There was perhaps a fraction more grain and noise present, but I’d rather have a bit of grit than have everything smoothed over.

Colour reproduction was top notch, even in gloomy, overcast weather conditions. Enabling HDR had a tendency to make pictures look a little artificial, exhibiting strong halo effects around objects and buildings on the horizon, but on the whole it did a great job of brightening up muted scenes.

Indoors, shots were once again a little grainy and mottled in places, but there was very little noise and artefacts at the edges of our still life subjects were kept to a minimum. Colours were pleasingly punchy and contrast levels remained solid across all lighting conditions. I’d recommend sparing use of the flash, however, as this ended turning everything rather warm and orange rather than correctly balancing out white.

Verdict

As with last year’s Moto X Play and Moto X Style, it’s Motorola’s mid-range phone that takes the crown here. The Moto Z might be faster, slimmer and have a higher resolution display, but the Moto Z Play is better value. You not only get stonking battery life, but also a great camera and equal access to Lenovo and Motorola’s new Moto Mods.

The other only phone you might want to consider at this sort of price is the £329 OnePlus 3. This is faster than the Moto Z Play and still has a pretty decent battery life, but if you’re looking for something a bit different that can turn its hand to any task required, then you certainly won’t be disappointed with the Moto Z Play. It wins a Recommended award.

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Hardware
ProcessorOcta-core 2.0GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625
RAM3GB
Screen size5.5in
Screen resolution1,920 x 1,080
Screen typeSuper AMOLED
Front camera5 megapixels
Rear camera16 megapixels
FlashDual LED
GPSyes
Compassyes
Storage (free)32GB (23.8GB)
Memory card slot (supplied)microSD (up to 2TB)
Wi-Fi802.11n
BluetoothBluetooth 4.0
NFCYes
Wireless data3G, 4G
Dimensions156 x 76 x 6.9mm
Weight165g
Features
Operating systemAndroid 6.0.1
Battery size3,510mAh

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