Motorola Moto X Play 32GB

Dimensions: 148 x 75 x 10.9 mmWeight: 169 gramsPhablets have been growing prodigiously, and while Motorola managed to keep itself away from the mushrooming category with the previous two editions of the Moto X, it gave in to the trend this time. Both the versions of the latest Moto X, the Moto X Play and Moto X Style (first impressions) feature large screens. The Moto X Play is slightly smaller than its bigger sibling as it's built around a display panel measuring 5.5-inches. The smartphone features minimal design attributes up front, with the screen being the centrepiece and sandwiched between the two metallic grilles above and below (only the bottom one is a speaker vent). This uniformity is offset by a front-facing camera along with the speaker mesh above the display. Similar to all Motorola offerings, there are no hardware keys since those are available as part of the software interface.The second iteration of the Moto X was a premium device with a metallic encasing, but sadly the Moto X Play only features a metallic rim running along its edges. That’s not to say that the device doesn’t look nice, but it lacks the classiness we were expecting from it. The edges curve towards the back and are met by a rubberised rear panel.In terms of buttons and port placement, you’d find familiar implementation – both the power button and volume buttons are on the right spine, with the left edge completely bereft of any controls. One nice thing is that the power toggle has a textured pattern, making it easier to find it by feel and instantly differentiate it from the volume keys. The top hides the SIM tray and a 3.5mm audio socket, whereas the micro-USB port is available at the base.  Motorola has continued with its design philosophy of dual curves at the back, making the Moto X Play extremely ergonomic to hold even for long periods. The rubberised texture with tyre-like treads also adds to the handling factor as the phone doesn’t slip easily. In the middle of the rear panel, you’ll find a metallic vertical strip that sports the primary camera followed by a dual-tone LED flash and a dimpled Motorola logo.The Moto X Play has a beefy battery unit that’s not removable, yet the back cover of the phone can be pried open. This is because the manufacturer has offered users the provision of changing the rear panels to colours of their choice. While our review unit flaunted a violet hue, you can also purchase it in a multitude of options such as green, blue, etc. apart from the default white or black colours.Thanks to the curves, the Moto X Play doesn’t feel thick with its 10.9mm frame, and the ergonomics also offset its weight of 169g. The device also features a nano coating, making it splash-proof, though it can’t withstand a dunk in water unlike its sibling, the third-gen Moto G (review). However, it’s still better than most devices at this price point as you don’t have to worry about spilling liquid on it.

Size: 5.5 InchResolution: Full HD (1080 x 1920 pixels)Display Type: IPS LCDPixel Density: 401 ppiMotorola has been upping the screen size with each model of the Moto X. While the first-gen offering was ideal for one-handed usage with a 4.7-inch display, its successor breached the phablet territory thanks to its 5.2-inch screen, and now, the new Moto X Play flaunts a large 5.5-inch display panel. The IPS screen offers brilliant colours and crisp visuals thanks to its resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. It’s worth mentioning that previously, the brand used AMOLED panels for the Moto X series, which are punchier when it comes to the colour reproduction. Brightness levels are also adequate as we found no problems in reading the display outdoors.In case you don’t find the colours to your liking, then you can change the colour mode as the phone offers two options – Normal and Vivid. While the former displays true-to-life colours, the latter enhances colour and saturation levels.For protection against scratches and minor knocks, the display has a layer of third-gen Gorilla Glass.

Operating System: AndroidOS Version: 5.1.1, LollipopOne of the best features of Motorola devices is their software, and same delightful experience continues with the Moto X Play. The device offers a pure version of Android Lollipop 5.0, though there are some value-added features from the brand. There’s not much to write in terms of the basic software interface, but one interesting thing is that during the course of our review, Google updated its search app, which resulted in a slight change in the layout of the app launcher. Instead of horizontal listing of apps, they are now present as a vertical list with a search bar and four most recently-used apps on top.The hallmark of the Moto X series is a dedicated chipset that’s always on listening mode and you’ll find the same capabilities on the Moto X Play. The voice features get triggered by a hotword even when the phone is on standby. Voice can be used for things like the ability to set up an alarm, call or message anyone, or shoot a picture among many more. The option which we like the most is the option to say 'what’s new' to know the latest notifications, something which would definitely appease the FOMO generation since they can get to know about the updates without even touching the phablet.  This feature can be configured via a dedicated app called Moto, which also offers other useful functionality like Assist and Display. In simple words, Assist is like an intelligent assistant which automatically changes the settings on the phone based on the situation. For example, you can specify your bed time, and the phone will automatically switch to silent mode during the defined period every day. Similarly, you can define how the phone should behave while you’re driving or in a meeting.  Moto Display is another signature feature of the Moto X Play, subtly showing you time and missed notifications at a glance, whenever you remove the mobile from your pocket or pick it up. It's shown when the display is off, with only a select area of the screen lighting up. The notifications appear as icons of the respective app, and placing your finger on them lets you see more info. Swiping the icon upwards would take you directly to the app, or you can remove it by swiping left or right. We love this feature since you don’t need to unlock the device just to check if you have missed anything.

Primary camera: 21 MPFlash: Dual-color LED FlashSecondary camera: 5 MPIf there’s one complaint we had with most Motorola offerings till about last year, it was the sub-par camera experience delivered by them. While the smartphones sported decent specs, the image quality left a lot to be desired. However, the brand seems to be improving on this aspect, as the third-gen Moto G comes across as a sharp shooter, and we also found the Moto X Play to be impressive on most aspects. This is possible due to a powerful 21-megapixel snapper with an aperture of f/2.0 mounted on the back of the phablet, which is accompanied by a CCT (Colour Correlated Temperature) flash unit comprising of two LEDs. For selfies, the device features a 5MP front-facing camera.Ensuring that you can capture the moment in an instant, the camera app on the phone offers bare minimum features upfront and allow you to take the picture by clicking anywhere on the screen. The only thing you see when you open the app is the option to switch to video recording or use the front camera. If you swipe from the left, then you can see various options such as turning on the HDR mode, flash, focus ring, night mode, etc., along with the ability to change the size of the images or videos. Like previous Moto X’s, you can access the camera on the Moto X Play by flicking your wrist twice. Here’s a look at the images captured by the Moto X Play.  As can be seen from the pics above, the Moto X Play’s camera scores high on details and is also able to reproduce lovely colours. For most scenes, be it landscape imagery or close-ups, it did a good job, though the same can’t be said for images captured in low light. The front snapper too, failed to impress us, especially considering that it has become an important criteria for choosing a handset these days. Overall, the Moto X Play’s camera performance is definitely a step up from the previous offerings from the brand, although it’s not the best in its segment considering solid handsets such as the OnePlus One and Xiaomi Mi 4. You can read our detailed review of the X Play’s camera performance for more info.Unlike many phones these days that can capture videos at 4K resolution, the Moto X Play records video in the standard full HD mode. It also has a slow-mo mode, but it captures video at a lower 540p resolution. The front camera is also capable of taking videos at 1080p resolution.

CPU: Octa core, 1.7 GHz, Snapdragon 615GPU: Adreno 405RAM: 2 GBMemory: 16 GB + Up to 128 GBSIM Slots: Dual SIM , GSM+GSM

The X Play seems to be a spritual successor of Motorola’s Moto Maxx, which was launched as the Droid Turbo in India. The new Moto X sips juice from a generous 3,630mAh battery, which is considerable since most mobiles offer just a ~2,500mAh unit. Not just in terms of the capacity, the phone also astonishes us in terms of its runtime as well. With moderate usage, it can easily last a day and a half and even with heavy tasks such as GPS, Wi-Fi hotspot and gaming, it managed to go on for an entire day. There’s also a battery saver mode to extend the battery life slightly, which can kick in automatically when the juice drops below a certain threshold.For reference purposes, we ran our standard test on the handset, which involves playing a 720p video on loop while keeping both the brightness and volume at 50 percent levels and turning off everything except cellular networks. The device clocked a little below 11 hours and 30 minutes, which is pretty impressive and much more than the competition.Thanks to the Turbo Charging technology, the handset can be charged from zero to 50 percent within 30 minutes. Sadly, you’ll need to buy the Turbo Power charger separately to make use of this facility, as Motorola bundles a regular charger in the retail pack of the Moto X Play.