Moto Z Play 64GB

Coming to the actual design of the phone, the Moto Z Play has more girth than the Moto Z primarily because it includes a bigger battery. However, thanks to the additional size you get a 3.5mm port, something which the Moto Z lacks. Also, at 7mm thickness, we think the Moto Z Play is pretty comfortable to handle and use with one hand even more so than its thinner, more expensive sibling. At 165g, the Moto Z Play is also is one of the heavier smartphones out there but the weight is evenly distributed and therefore it feels more stable in the hand. The metal and glass finish actually makes it feel and look premium. The metal frame has rounded edges and is neatly chamfered ensuring that the phone doesn’t don’t dig into your palm either. The phone also comes with a water repellant nano-coating, which is a staple in most Motorola smartphones these days. Don’t expect this coating to make your phone waterproof but in case of an accidental spill you can be ensured that it won’t affect any internal components.

Now we've taken a look at the design and aesthetics of the Moto Z Play, let’s take a look at how Moto Mods work. There are 16 golden contact points arranged neatly in two parallel lines at the back of the phone. The Moto Mods connect to these contact points using very strong magnets. It is pretty intuitive and the established physical connection is pretty strong too. This is quite possibly the best implementation of modularity on a smartphone yet. Lenovo is selling four feature-rich mods in India: a JBL-made speaker attachment, a projector, Incipio offGRID Power Pack, and a Hasselblad camera. Also, more Moto Mods are incoming. Furthermore, there are a variety of fashionable back plates that can be used to add some flair to your device. Our review unit came with a wooden backplate in the box, and we also got to play around with the speaker and projector mods. 

The Moto Z Play has a 5.5-inch (14 cm) Super AMOLED full HD display that is tuned for colour accuracy and vibrancy. The pixel density of the display is a very high 403ppi and as a result we are pretty sure that you will find it crisp and detailed at all times. The deep black levels also ensure that videos look very good on the display. The one thing that plagues AMOLED panels is a slight discolouration that happens when you view it from an angle, and it is present even on the Moto Z Play. This is not too bad to break your viewing experience though. The one thing we have no clear information on is if the Moto Z Play’s display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass or any other type of screen protection, though.

The Moto Z Play runs Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 out of the box. One thing to note is that the phone is expected to get an upgrade to Android Nougat soon, which is an advantage on Lenovo’s Moto phones. However, the bigger advantage of owning the Moto Z Play - at least with respect to its software - are the really cool Moto Actions. For example, doing a double karate chop to start the torch or twisting your wrist twice quickly to capture a picture never gets old.

The Moto Z Play comes with a 16MP primary camera with an f/1.8 aperture, and laser and phase detection autofocus (PDAF) technologies. It is also supported by a dual-LED flash for low light situations. On the front you get 5MP f/2.2 camera with a wide-angle lens and a front flash as well.

The Moto Z Play uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC, which also includes the Adreno 506 GPU. It has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, which can be further expanded by up to 256GB using the microSD card available in the SIM tray. On paper, the Moto Z Play pales in comparison to phones like the OnePlus 3, Xiaomi Mi 5, and the Lenovo Z2 Plus - all of which offer much better specs, sometimes even at a lower price. However, if you’ve read our reviews in the past you’d know by now that at 91mobiles we believe in the new-age adage: only specs don’t maketh a smartphone.