[Review] Moto Z Play – The Well Connected Workhorse Phone

Performance & Camera
In terms of hardware, the Moto Z Play has a set of specifications that pins it squarely as a midrange workhorse though the phone is a means of getting access to their growing range of modular add-ons like the impressive Hasselblad True Zoom Moto Mod and the surprisingly loud JBL Speaker mod. For the price of entry, you get a Snapdragon 625 2.0GHz octa core processor, an Adreno 506 GPU paired with 3GB RAM and 32GB of expandable storage crammed into the Moto Z Play. It’s not the fastest phone around the block but it does rather well as midrange workhorses go.

When subjected to benchmarking, Geekbench yielded a single core score of 793 and a multicore score of 3865. On the Sling Shot Extreme test in 3D Mark, it got a score of 465 while PC mark served up a score of 4867.

As far as pixel crunching performance goes, it won’t complete everything tossed at it with alacrity, but it will still sort out most of what is required of a phone of its stature and price point without too much fuss. Apps open after a few seconds and there’s a bit of loading time on demanding games like Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade or Asphalt 8 but they’ll run all the same. Browser windows and sites flowed along smoothly in a competent fashion.

The large 5.5-inch AMOLED display offers vivid colours with good viewing angles and served up vibrant films like the Fifth Element with lusciously rich hues. Films with challenging shades of black like the Dark Knight Returns were handled in a competent fashion. Clarity under sunlight was passable if unexceptional and you may have to dial up the brightness to maximum for low contrast content. If the colours onscreen don’t appeal, you can opt to go into Colour Mode and swap it for a more colour accurate if drab Standard mode. Audio on the built-in front-facing speaker was perfunctory in volume and quality though its frontal position helped with audio clarity for videos and calls.

While the phone ships with Android Marshmallow 6.0 out of the box, you can immediately upgrade it to Nougat 7.0 the moment you crack it out of the case. With Nougat running the show, the Moto Z Play feels fast and nimble and there’s a minimum of bloatware on the phone. What is irksome is that the fingerprint reader on the phone is just that and lacks functionality as a home button. They made up for it with a couple of interesting functionality tweaks to get at important stuff on the phone in a jiffy. Waving your hand over the display lets you see the time at a glance. Shaking the phone with a wrist-twisting gesture launches the camera.

In terms of the integrated rear camera, the Moto Z Play sports a 16-MP rear camera with an F/2.0 aperture and a dual LED flash. Video capture is maxed out at 4K.

Snaps are of sufficient quality for the usual family photos, food pics, holiday shots and the like though a steady hand is needed for best results. Low light shots fare somewhat poorly with quite a bit of noise.

The front has a 5-MP sensor and a dedicated LED flash with an F/2.2 aperture. Videos for the front camera are capped at 1080P. Selfies are on par with most other cameras in its price range though there are better performers out there. On the imaging front, the phone is like its other salient aspects – satisfactory.