Motorola Moto Z Play... In 2019

I love Motorola phones. Since leaving the iOS camp two years ago, our house has become full of them and my latest purchase is a Moto Z Play. This is a first gen one released in 2016.


Specs

Spec wise, the Moto Z Play packs in Octa-Core 2.0Ghz Snapdragon 625 processors, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, 5.5” screen, 16mpx camera and 5mpx front camera and a whopping 3510mAh fast charging battery. It shipped with Android Marshmallow and received Nougat and Oreo.

It is the only version of the original Z range that has a headphone socket (essential to me), which is located on the bottom next to the USB-C socket. The right side houses the very tiny volume and power buttons. The top holds the pull out SIM (dual SIM in my case) and MicroSD card tray.

The back features a shiny naked glass back. The Z range takes advantage of the Moto Mods accessories which includes a snap on interchangeable back cover. This would cover the Moto Mod pin connector, protect the back of the phone and ensures the camera doesn’t stick out.

This is my first experience of USB-C, and what an improvement it is. The socket and cable just seem a stronger fit over Micro USB.


Feel

A new phone always feels special, but I was so surprised how gorgeous this Moto Z Play looks and feels. The large screen looks great and the metal frame around the edges of the phone give it a solid feel. The naked glass back seems a bit vulnerable - something I will have to address with a Moto Mod Shell. It is a very slippery phone to handle. Even the metal side make it slide in your hand.

The volume buttons and power/lock button on the side are very small and will take a little getting used to.


Battery and Performance

This phone has a massive 3510mAh internal battery and boy does it perform. I got 2.5 days use out of a single charge. I haven’t had the phone long but it has broken that ‘charge every night’ cycle I have been used to.

The 2.0Ghz Octa Core processor and 3GB RAM give this phone superb general performance. The whole phone is a joy to use and amazingly quick. I certainly noticed a huge performance increase from the Hexa-Core processing in my Moto X Style.


Screen and Audio

The 5.5” screen is very bright and crisp, even when the brightness is turned down.

As a phone it works perfectly and call quality was superb. It has a single speaker on the front which has decent sound - as decent as you get on a phone. The Z Play is the only Z range phone that kept the headphone socket, something I need and listening to music through it was great. I listen to a lot of music and bluetooth audio just doesn’t cut it for me.


Camera

The main camera is a 16mp that takes great photos in the right light but it can let in a little too much white at times. The dual-LED dual-tone flash does a good job of low light areas. Without a shell on, the camera module sticks out and means the phone doesn’t sit flat when laid down.

The front camera is a 5mpx 1080p ’selfie’ camera, which does its job and is great for videos, which I take a lot of for uploading online.

It seems to take more of a cue from newer Motos. It doesn't have double tap power button to open the camera but a twist of the phone does. The Motorola camera app has the same layout as the G4.


Storage

I would never go back to a phone with less than 32GB internal storage. The breathing room this gives you and the amount of apps you can install is fantastic. The addition of a MicroSD slot to house all my music is superb - this is something that put me off looking at a Pixel.

Oreo

This is my first experience of Oreo (my two previous phones stopped at Nougat). It certainly is fast and has a few changes over Nougat that I am still getting used to. It houses more app icons on screen, the swipe up to open the app drawer and the soft press on some app icons will give you shortcuts within these apps before opening it. I love the new incoming call screen too, it is much neater looking.

Moto Additions

Motorola phones are praised for their near stock Android, but it is nice to have a few additional tweaks. The twist to activate camera and chop action to turn on the flash light are great as well as the way the screen will wake with a simple wave of the hand over it.

Fingerprint Sensor

OK, so this might not be a new thing but it is the first time I have had one. I never saw the appeal of one, but within hours of using it, it has made unlocking the phone and signing in to apps so much easier. It is a fantastic addition.


Conclusion

I am loving this new (to me) Moto. Another fantastic phone with near stock Android and insane battery life. The design and look of it is superb, with my only concerns being the slippery feel to it.

Motorola really seem to pack a lot in to their phones for the price. Even though this phone is a few years old, it doesn’t feel like it. It still packs a punch and outperforms anything I have used or seen recently.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

Moto Mods... Add-Ons For The Motorola Moto Z Range

I have just bought a Motorola Moto Z Play (first gen 2016 model) and one thing that grabbed my interest were Moto Mods. The back of the Moto Z range is flat with a 16 pin connector which enables a range of accessories to be added to the back of the phone via a magnet.

There was a huge buzz around upgradeable phones in the middle of this decade, with Google taking the limelight with its Project Ara modular upgradeable phone. Others jumped on this and Motorola came out with Moto Mods.

There are a range of different mods covering a variety of features.

You have a simple back cover, which protects the pin connector and gives your phone a different look and a newer version which includes wireless charging.

There are three additional batteries, the Power Pack and the Turbo PowerPack as well the incipio OffGRID Power Pack which includes wireless charging.

You have two camera mods. The Moto 360 camera is a full HD 360 degree camera and the HasselBlad True Zoom, an optical zoom camera.

The JBL SoundBoost and SoundBoost 2 add stereo speakers to the back of your phone and drastically increase the sound quality, both include a kickstand too.

The Insta-Share Projector turns your Moto Z into a screen projector so you can share and watch your phones screen on a wall. Interesting.

Three new mods which I didn’t know about until recently are an instant Polaroid Printer (yes, a mini printer mounted to the back of your phone), a Alexa smart speaker and a gamepad which turns your phone in to a portable gaming machine with physical buttons.

You have to applaud Motorola for not only breaking the mould and creating a unique take on expanding your smartphone, but also for keeping it compatible with any of the Moto Z range including the Z Play and Z Force range and covering the oldest to the newest release.

However the downside to these mods are the price. While the simple Style Shell wont set you back too much, some of the fancier Moto Mods can end up costing over £100.

Some of them interest me and if I could find some second hand ones at a good price I probably would grab a battery pack or a speaker.

Its a fun and innovative idea and if you have a Moto Z and upgrade to a Moto Z4 all your existing Moto Mods will work which is a great idea, but it hasn’t really taken off as well as it should have done.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

From Moto Z Play to Google Pixel XL

Although I liked my Moto Z Play, I was never quite satisfied with just a 'good' camera, And it had to be stock or close to stock Android. I really wanted a great camera, so when I had the opportunity to upgrade this year, I chose the best I could afford, a device that was top of the DxOmark list when it was released, the Google Pixel XL. And although they both came out in 2016, the Pixel XL had a faster, newer gen CPU, its screen has Gorilla Glass 4 instead of 3 and 4GB RAM instead of 3GB RAM. It really is a flagship whereas the Z Play was more mid-range.

I managed to find a 32GB XL fairly cheaply secondhand. It has a few marks on the body, has no box, and it came with a Samsung charger, but everything seems to work well. The screen has no obvious marks on it.

First impressions

When I first picked up the Pixel, the weight of the device was the first thing I noticed. It feels heavier than my Z Play was, even though it actually weighs only a few grams heavier, and generally feels much more like a premium device than the Moto. The screen is the same size but has double the resolution and looks more vibrant. The Volume rocker and Power Button both feel reassuringly firm, no wobble in them. It's easy to see why this was a more expensive device.

Software

My Pixel arrived with the Android P beta, so I upgraded it to Pie. The Z Play was on 8.0 (rather than 8.1) and I wasn't confident it'd get another OS upgrade. One main change from Oreo I had to get used to was the app switcher shows apps side by side, rather than vertically. I've installed Nova Launcher as I'm not really much of a fan of the stock launcher, I like a bit more customisation and I still prefer having a button for the app drawer. It's also easy to backup and restore my config between phones. As with the Z Play, I love having an AMOLED screen with Ambient Display as it uses minimal power to display notifications. It too has Lift To Wake but no hovering over the screen to wake it up. Instead you can double tap the screen to wake it. I've also set Nova to lock the screen when I double tap again.

Although my Moto Z Play had a fairly clean, close to stock Android experience, it had 4 or 5 Moto specific apps added. The Pixel of course comes with bone-stock Android out of the box. I have not had a Google branded device since the Nexus 5 and as expected, the Pixel XL is buttery smooth in usage. I also like that you can make some of the UI dark themed now, though it would still be nice to have a proper dark theme for the entire OS (without rooting). Google has introduced a dark mode for YouTube and Android Messages, and I think they should have a dark mode for all their apps.

Camera

The camera on the Pixel is just amazing compared with every phone I have had previously, it takes such pin-sharp photos, and far quicker than the Z Play could do. The Moto used to sometimes have trouble focusing on the right area and it struggled in low light, I had HDR mode on all the time to try compensate. The Pixel is fantastic even in fairly low light and the Auto HDR+ mode works very well.

On my Z Play I used Moto's own camera app but also had Google Camera installed via an APK, and it would not run the very latest version. I am impressed enough with how much better the current version is on my Pixel that I'm not even bothering with any third party camera apps. Google Camera also recently started supporting external microphones.

All first gen Pixel devices get unlimited uploads to Google Photos at full resolution forever, unlike gen 2 and 3 devices which get until 2021/2022.

One thing I miss from the Moto is gestures - double twist of the wrist to open the camera from the lock screen (although that was often hard to get right) and double-chop motion to open the flashlight. However, you can still get the camera to open from the lockscreen by double tapping the power button. I'm also still getting used to the rear fingerprint sensor, as opposed to the front sensor on the Moto.

The front facing 8MP 'selfie' camera is very good too. Here's an unedited photo I took the other day, just as the sun had gone behind a cloud.

Google have recently unveiled the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL along with a new version of Google Camera with some neat features such as Night Sight for low light shots which will be officially coming to first gen Pixels like mine. If you would like to try Night Sight early, there's an APK for that thanks to XDA Developers. I tried it out and the results are quite impressive. The first image below is without and the second is with Night Sight:

Update: Google Camera in the Play store now has Night Sight for the first gen Pixels. However to get Tracking Autofocus and Motion Metering in Night Sight in the Pixel 1 and 2, there's now an APK available on XDA Developers.


Every time I get a new phone, I worry that it won't cope with loud volumes at gigs, but thankfully there's no issues with the Pixel on the audio front. I recorded videos recently of a classic rock covers band called Inertia, and they were quite loud but on the recordings it's nice and clear, no distortion. And it coped reasonably well with the awful lighting of the gig.

Here's a video in bright sunshine - I've been sticking to 1080P as I find 4K isn't worth the hassle of having to upload such a large file size. Also I recommend not using 60fps at all as the video quality is awful - all blocky and looks like low resolution.

Battery Life

One area where my Pixel XL seems to lack slightly, at least currently with Android Pie, is with battery life. And at first I was worried that my battery was dying as I went out on one of my very long walks and took over 200 photos, 3 videos and used Google Maps with GPS a lot and it ran out stone dead 7 hours into the walk. If I had had my Z Play with me I think it would have lasted until I got back. However, since I had only just updated it to Pie stable, I decided to cycle the charge from full to flat a few times and it has since improved. Battery life has since improved somewhat and I've been monitoring how well it's been doing with Accubattery over the last two months, I'm currently averaging around 14 hours with around 4 hours screen on time on average usage days, though this is still not as good as the Z Play.

I've done a couple of 4 or 5 hour walks with lots of GPS and videos/photo taking and had around 30% left on getting home. I'm not the only one that's had shorter battery life on their Pixel devices after upgrading to Pie.

I think part of the reason the Z Play could get such amazing battery life, apart from not running Pie (and probably never will get Pie!), is it had a slightly bigger battery, a lower resolution screen, older slower CPU, and was really quite aggressive in killing background apps.


Conclusion

Other than the lesser battery life, I've had no real issues so far. I had a slight issue with Google Maps Timeline not working but it seems clearing it's cache and settings seems to have fixed it. My only other issue is when I needed a case ASAP. I bought a cheapo £10 flip wallet style case and I have had to cut back some of the material around the camera area so it did not intrude on photos. I'm still looking for a better flip case but it's hard to judge what they are like from listings on Amazon.

So unless something catastrophically goes wrong with the hardware, I think I will be keeping this phone for at least a few years, as it has a great camera, unlimited Google Photo uploads at full quality, forever, and it still has a headphone jack!

Oreo just landed on my Motorola Moto Z Play

Well I have been waiting quite a while but now I've finally got the official Oreo update on my Moto Z Play, which is better late than never! It was around an 1150MB update and I did a wipe and set it up again, since the launcher would not start after the update. Sometimes it's best to do a fresh start anyway.

I am also now using this version of Google Camera which is a bit more up to date than the one I was using. It's a bit annoying that you cannot just install Google Camera from the Play store, since I like using it for Photospheres. The updated Moto lockscreen and Moto widget looks nicer than it did on Nougat.

I also love the way the music Notification blends with the album cover, I've missed all the little things from Oreo since that brief time I had a Nexus 6P in October last year.  Another little change I like is the new incoming call screen, looks much neater. Notice from the screenshot above that Ampere now sits in the dropdown to remain open, it never used to be there in Nougat. I think I'd probably notice even more changes if I was using the Moto or Google Launchers but I prefer Nova Launcher Prime. once I had all my apps back i restored Nova from a backup on my SD card so i had it back to how I had it before. As you can see, i prefer the old style Google search box on my Home screen and I'm currently using "Pixel Icon Pack" from the Google Play.

My favourite feature introduced in Oreo is Autofill API, a system wide store of form data, which is like the way Chrome remembers your email and password for sites, this remembers them for apps and all around Android. It made setting up my phone again a lot quicker and easier. I'm sure I'll continue to find other new little things here and there, there's lots of things introduced in Oreo I haven't tried such as Picture in Picture in apps, Instant Apps etc. Overall my Z Play feels just as smooth as it did under Nougat and hopefully battery life will be just as good too, I'll see it how it goes over the next few days and weeks. 

A Moto Z Play Camera issue meant a replacement device for me.

Just the other day i was looking through the photos from my Moto Z Play and noticed in every photo that there were 3 little black splodges, two of which were about a few pixels wide and one a bit larger. Once you notice them, you cannot unsee them in almost every rear camera photo. I looked back through my photos and found that it started happening on December the 4th last year. The last time I had an issue like this it was with the Sony Z3 I had ever so briefly before returning it. I had my Z Play since late November. I had to go through all my photos on my hard drive and edit out the spodges. It's harder to do this in Google Photos or Flickr since you essentially have to end up replacing the images, so I mainly resorted to cropping the marks out, as they are all fairly close to the edge of the photos. There's still a few on both that I have not replaced or fixed yet.

Today I returned my Z Play to CEX and luckily they had a white Z Play in the shop window to replace it with. Though I'm not keen on white usually, it is growing on me, it reminds me of the white front of the second gen X that I had a while back. The back doesn't matter since I always keep my phones in a case.

It is the dual SIM version, and in better condition than my old one. No massive scratches on the glass back on this one, and unusually has the original unused earbuds in a bag in the box. Not that I would use those, I much prefer either my AKAI Bluetooth/wired ones or my LG buds. It didn't have the original charger but they helpfully swapped it with the original one from the one I returned.

Once I got home, I restored all my apps and settings from Google, (apart from Google Camera since the latest version is Oreo only, so I had to find an older version on APK Mirrror) and restored my Nova Launcher settings from a backup off my SD card, along with the Google Now Companion. I have tried lots of launchers but always end up back on Nova. I also paired and setup my Pebble and Bluetooth headphones. Oh and I also had to download and install 3 security updates to get it up to the December Security Patch level. So far it has been trouble free, hopefully I shall keep this phone for awhile, for as long as it gives me no problems.

Update 22/006/2018 - I've just got the official Oreo update on my Z Play

From Moto X Play to Moto Z Play

I decided this year to replace my Moto X Play with something better and after a couple of brief and disastrous attempts at getting a secondhand Nexus 6P, I decided to fall back to plan B, good old reliable Motorola, specifically a 32GB Moto Z Play. It was in budget, (slightly less money than the 6P) has a decent camera, good size battery and close to stock Android. I went for the Play over the Force or plain Z because the Z Play is the only one of the Z series to still have a headphone jack. I ordered a Grade B example from CEX using the voucher I got back from them for returning the last 6P. My budget could not quite stretch to a Z2 play but I have heard that is a bit of a step down from the Z Play in some ways, particularly battery life and price.

Unboxing

Well today I received the Z Play and I am amazed how great this device looks and feels. It certainly looks and feels better than the white Moto Z I handled in the shop a few weeks ago. The sides feel of reassuringly cold aluminium and the grippy textured back cover stops it slipping out of your hand. I will however be putting it in a case as soon as possible to protect that nice 5.5 inch 1080P Super AMOLED screen. The only scratches on the device are on the glass back, which is hidden by the back cover that is held on by magnets, covering up the pins used for Moto Mods. It does look much better with the cover on than with the back naked. The Power and Volume buttons take some getting used to as they are equidistant from each other and all the same size so I sometimes hit the wrong one when not looking, they do feel solid though. Despite being the budget model of the Z range, it still feels premium, more so than my X Play did.

It came with the original box, instructions and original charger. The only thing I would have liked in the box would have been a USB data cable, because the charger has a fixed cable. There is even a SIM tool in the box too. It was also already charged to 100%, which saved some time, and I installed a couple of security updates that were pending. It currently runs Nougat (7.1.1), with the 1st September security patch level, and Motorola promises it will get Oreo at some point.

Screen

Being AMOLED, the screen only powers lit pixels and has motion sensors so you can wave your hand over the screen to wake it up, unlike with the IPS screen of the X Play. The last time I had the feature was on my old 2014 Moto X a while ago. I really like having Moto Display (which replaces Ambient Display from the old Moto X days) and Raise To Wake for quickly checking notifications. And when I want to get something done quickly, the front fingerprint sensor beneath the screen is very fast to unlock and lock the phone. At 1080P on a 5.5 inch display it might not have a particularly high pixel density but it still looks decent for a budget flagship.

Software

As with every Android device I have had for a long while now,  I installed Nova Launcher Prime and have a simple setup of clock widget (this time Motorola's own Z widget) and Ampere widget on the Home screen, Google Now to the left and a second screen with Google Play Music and BBC Weather widgets. I like being as close to stock Android as possible so I have replaced the Motorola Contacts app with Google's own and installed a Pixel Nougat icon pack, mainly because the Motorola dialer icon is very ugly. This is how my Home screen looks now:

Cameras

After setting up the Z Play, I went into town and took some photos and videos, and I was impressed, it took photos just as quick as the 6P and even quicker than my old X Play. However I have found some shots had blurry edges with a sharp centre section, I think I may need to give it longer when using Auto HDR. Also having 4 less Megapixels than the X Play (and the others in the Z range) means not being able to enlarge them as much. The only slight puzzling thing is why Motorola have seemingly removed the shortcut where you double tap the power button to open the camera, but at least twisting your wrist can also quickly open the camera. The rear camera has phase detection and laser autofocus (which the X Play did not have), dual-LED (dual tone) flash, which the same as the Nexus 6P but with 16MP instead of 12.3MP. It’s also nice having 32GB of internal storage and SD card storage, particularly as it can take 4K videos. I used to bump up against the 16GB of internal storage on my X Play far too often due to having plenty of apps that refuse to use (slow and unreliable) SD storage. I still managed to get some decent photos despite it being such a dull overcast day.

I also took some videos too, to make sure everything worked and it seems to handle high volumes like a road drill better than my old X Play did. I also tried the 4K mode out too.

For the first time on one of my phones, there’s a flash for the front (or "selfie") camera, though I tend not to use flash if I can help it. It's still 5MP, the same as the X Play.

It also has a gyro and compass which the X play didn't which means I can finally take Photospheres again.

Battery

The battery life from the 3510mAh battery is amazing, I have managed over 5 hours screen-on time and over 17 hours of quite heavy usage! And over 6 hours screen-on time and 23 hours on light to medium usage. This is even better than I got with my Moto X. I've no idea what the Nexus 6P would have got given I did not find one with a decent battery. Of course I could add a battery Mod to this to get even more battery life, but I don't think I need to.

Conclusion

Overall I am very pleased with the Moto Z Play, it is a worthy successor to my old Moto X, and my only real criticism is photos are not quite as pin sharp as on the X Play, but it takes better videos at higher audio volumes. It also feels much more like a premium device. I am most impressed with the performance, nice AMOLED screen, close to stock Nougat and the absolutely amazing battery life. Hopefully it will last me a long while, and should be even better when it receives Oreo. Only time will tell.