Motorola Moto Z3 announced: Specs, price and UK release date rumours
Motorola's third-gen flagship has just been announced – here's everything you need to know about the new Moto Z3
On 1 August, Motorola unveiled the new flagship at a previously teased press event at the company’s Chicago headquarters. The smartphone doesn’t have a UK release date or price just yet, but it will be hitting US stores from 16 August.
The new offering is, on the face of it, an update to the Moto Z2 Force (there won’t be a Moto Z3 Force variant this year), but shares many of the same specs as its predecessor. Read on to find out more about the new Moto Z3.
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Motorola Moto Z3 UK release date and price: When is it out, and how much does it cost?
There are no firm details about the possible UK pricing of the Z3 at the moment. The Z2 Force, released in August 2017, cost £550 at launch, so we expect its successor to cost around the same. However, with the Moto Z3 launching at $460 in the US, it seems that Motorola’s latest smartphone might cost less than its predecessor.
As we’ve already said, the Moto Z3 will be released in the US on 16 August. Sadly, there are no firm details about the Moto Z3’s release in Blighty.
Motorola Moto Z3 specs and features: What does it do?
Well for a start, the Moto Z3 isn’t the most high-powered or flashy smartphone to launch in 2018. Starting off with the display, it boasts a 6in FHD+ Super AMOLED screen. That’s not up to the quality of say, Samsung’s Galaxy range, and the resolution is actually lower than its predecessor, the Z2 Force – though that did come with a smaller 5.5in screen.
The Z3 is also slightly larger than the Z2 Force and it weighs more at 156g. It’s slim, though, measuring just 6.75mm – slimmer than the Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus or the iPhone 8 Plus.
Elsewhere, the version of the Z3 we know about has 64GB of storage (though we expect a 128GB option too), 4GB of RAM and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset – not the new 845. You’ll find an 8-megapixel camera on the front and two 12-megapixel lenses on the back. All in all, then, there’s not a whole lot to differentiate it from the Z2 Force.
New Moto Mods, the clip-on attachable accessories available for Motorola’s Z series, were expected with the Moto Z3 announcement, and one has been announced so far. It’s an interesting one – a 5G mod, making the Moto Z3 technically the first 5G-ready phone on the market.
The 5G mod will provide super-fast data speeds, but doesn’t release until 2019, and even then will only be available in four US cities. Mobile operators are trialling 5G networks around the world this year, but it might be some time before such networks are widely available.
Included with the 5G mod is a 2,000mAh battery, a nice addition to the phone’s own 3,000mAh power source – impressive considering how thin the actual phone is.
The dimensions of the Moto Z3 – and thus the connection pin position at the back – match the Moto Z3 Play. This means that the 17 already-available Moto Mods (which include stereo speakers, a projector, a 360-degree camera, a Polaroid-style printer and a gamepad, among others) will be compatible with the Moto Z3.
Motorola Moto Z3 design: What does it look like?
As expected, the Moto Z3 looks identical to the Moto Z3 Play. The dimensions are the same, the screen size is the same and the body is glass and metal. Motorola played it safe with no notch, while the bezels at the top and bottom are pleasingly narrow.
Of course, these similarities are necessary to ensure cross-compatibility with the Moto Mods. Still, it would’ve been nice to have had a bit of a flourish so we could tell the two apart.
