The slim and sleek Motorola Moto Z2 Play has a thin and light design and makes handling effortless. It is an impressive 5.2mm thick, and arguably the thinnest smartphone in the market. Under Lenovo, Motorola has been producing quality phones and the Motorola Moto Z2 Play is no exception. With a 2600mAh battery, at one charge the phone is enough to get you through the day.
The Motorola Moto Z2 Play weighs exactly 145 grams and has a dimension of 76.2 x 156.2 x 5.99 mm. When it comes to operating system, the Motorola Moto Z2 Play runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat.
That’s not all, the Motorola Moto Z2 Play has Gorilla Glass covering its 5.5-inch, quad HD AMOLED display which assists in preventing the screen from receiving cracks or damage if the device is dropped. The Moto Z2’s body is crafted entirely of metal and has a shatterproof display. The full HD display makes viewing the screen a pleasant experience. The device has a Snapdragon 820 processor, 4 GBs of RAM, and comes with 32 or 64GBs of storage space.
Moto Mods
Motorola introduced four modular add-on accessories, which the parent company Lenovo dubbed Mods namely, an extended battery developed by Incipio, a more powerful camera with Hasselblad’s name on it, a speaker from JBL, and a projector that seems to have been created in-house. The mods attach effortlessly to the magnetics at the back of the Motorola Moto Z2 Play. We reviewed the phone with the JBL speaker.
Armed with the JBL SoundBoost, the device has an extra added touch which is a plus in that it offers much-needed volume when watching videos or listening to music. The speaker is a selling point and the fact that no Bluetooth connection or pairing is required is a bonus. The device is great for music and movie lovers. The Moto Mod has its own power supply and produces 80 dBSPL sound.
With the speaker attached, the phone has a new personal touch to a somewhat minimal design. It becomes a whole new phone altogether. The Moto Mod is designed to be compatible with other future Moto Z phones, therefore, it is an investment when planning to buy a Motorola in the future. The phone can be used without the mods but they certainly do give it an extra touch.
The Camera
The protruding camera from behind gives the simply designed phone an extra touch. It is good that the camera sticks out so that when the speaker is attached, the camera can still be visible.
The Moto Z has a 13MP rear camera sensor, laser autofocus, and f/1.8 aperture. The front camera has a more modest 5MP sensor, which is pretty great for taking selfies. The camera is decent and takes good pictures especially when the lighting is great.
Fingerprint Sensor
The sensor is not a button, so it’s triggered as soon as you touch the surface. It is great at unlocking the phone with reliability and speed. It works interchangeably with a pattern or a password making it safer to lock your phone. The phone requires the password or pattern every 72 hours.
Moto Gestures
There are some gesture and voice controls. The device allows you to launch the camera app, even from standby, with a double-click of the wrist. The voice feature lets you set your own phrase to trigger a Google voice search, and can also read out messages text messages if you let it. You can flip the phone if you don’t want to be disturbed. These gestures make your life much easier unlike having to scroll to settings everytime you want to set a feature.
Conclusion
The Motorola Moto Z2 Play is a pretty great device for its price range. It’s a durable phone at an affordable price. The Motorola Moto Z2 Play’s design is innovative and appealing to the eye, it is a perfect example of “less is more.” Complemented with the Moto Mods, the device offers fantastic performance. The battery life is impressive, it can last just over a day with only one charge. The Motorola Moto Z2 Play’s screen is a beauty, it offers a display of 1080p resolution. The camera quality is not bad either, it has a resolution of 12 megapixels which offers decent pictures and you get both laser and phase detection autofocus.
Overall, Motorola has created a fantastic smartphone when it comes to the Motorola Moto Z2 Play. All in all, this is an impressive phone with great features at a very affordable price.
By Fundisiwe Maseko
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