The Moto Z Play is the cheapest Moto Z phone from Lenovo, and features the same Moto Mod compatibility as the other Moto Z phones available, meaning you can add extra functionality to your smartphone, including an extra battery, a projector, stereo speakers, or even a 10x optical zoom Hasselblad True Zoom camera! The Moto Z Play is available for around £340-360 sim-free.
Moto Z Play Features
The Moto Z Play features a large 5.5inch screen with a FullHD (1920x1080) resolution, and there's a fingerprint sensor built-in to the bottom front of the phone. It's available in white / gold as shown here, and also available in black. The phone is large, but thin, being just 7mm thick, and features a high power 3510mAh battery. The phone runs Android v6, with reports of Android v7 rolling out to the phone in some areas of the world. It's known as the Moto Z Play Droid in the US.
The Moto Z range can be expanded with Moto Mods:
- Hasselblad True Zoom (adds a 10x optical zoom and Xenon flash)
- JBL Soundboost Stereo Speaker (features a 1000mAh battery)
- Insta Share Projector (features a 1100mAh battery)
- Incipio offGRID Powerbank (adds an extra 2220mAh)
These mods can only be used with the Moto Z range of phones, so if you upgrade your phone at some point, you're tied in to buying another Moto Z smartphone if you want to continue using the mod with it. Read our Hasselblad True Zoom review here.
The rear camera has a 16 megapixel sensor and the f/2.0 lens has an anti-relective coating applied to the protective glass, and underneath you can find the colour balancing dual-tone LED flash. Focus is fast, with both phase detection focus, as well as laser autofocus. There's a professional mode that gives you more manual controls, however the camera doesn't feature a raw shooting mode. The camera can record 4K video at 30fps, as well as 120fps slow-motion at 720p. The front selfie camera uses a 5 megapixel sensor, and has an f/2.2 aperture. It has an 85 degree view, making it wider than most, and it also features an LED flash to help illuminate photos.
The screen is protected with Gorilla Glass 3 and the phone has metal sides. Whilst the back of the phone (according to some websites) is made out of glass, it feels more like plastic, and scratches just as easily as plastic. Luckily the phone comes with a textured cover to protect the back, for when you don't have a Moto Mod attached. In comparison, the Moto Z features a metal back. While on the subject, let's have a quick look what the difference is between the three different Moto Z models:
| Moto Z | Moto Z Play | Moto Z Force |
| 13mp f/1.8, OIS | 16mp f/2.0 | 21mp f/1.8, OIS |
| 5.5inch QuadHD | 5.5inch FullHD | 5.5inch QuadHD |
| 2600mAh battery | 3510mAh battery | 3500mAh battery |
| No headphone jack | Headphone jack | No headphone jack |
| 5.2mm thick | 7mm thick | 7mm thick |
The Moto Z Play is water repellent (not waterproof!), with a water repellent nano-coating. You can use gestures to quickly get into the camera app, simply by twisting the smartphone back and forth.
The processor is an octa-core 2 GHz Snapdragon 625, so not top of the range, but still very good, and there is 3GB of RAM built in, and 32GB of storage built-in, which you can expand with a MicroSD memory card. Everything else you come to expect from a mid-range smartphone is included, with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, and a headphone socket.
Key Features
- 16 megapixel sensor, 1.3micron pixel size
- f/2.0 aperture, wide-angle lens
- Laser and Phase detection autofocus (PDAF)
- Dual LED flash
- ISO100 to ISO3200
- 5mp, f/2.2 aperture, wide-angle 85° lens, front camera
- Front Flash, Auto Night mode, Beautification software, Professional mode
- 5.5inch Super AMOLED screen, 1080p, Corning Gorilla Glass 3
- 4K (30fps), 1080p (30fps), 720p (120fps), Video Stabilization, Slow Motion video
- Wi-fi, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS
- Water-repellent nano-coating
- Auto HDR, Panorama, Burst mode
- 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, MicroSD slot
- Fingerprint sensor, USB-C
- Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow)
Moto Z Play Handling
The metal edge is quite harsh, particularly without the rear plastic cover fitted, and the phone definitely feels better with the rear cover in place. The front of the smartphone has a slightly curved edge towards the metal edge, making it feel a little more comfortable. The phone feels very well built, with the metal surround giving it a tough construction.
By quickly rotating the phone back and forth you can enter the camera app, and this makes it quick and easy to start taking photos. Once you're in the app, you can rotate the phone again to switch between the rear and front cameras. You can use the volume controls to take photos.
Using the camera app is straightforward, and you simply press the camera icon to switch to the different modes, which includes: Professional, slow-motion, panoramic, video, and auto. The Professional mode can be used with both the rear, and front cameras. To view the photos or video you've taken, you swipe from right to left, and to change additional settings you swipe from left to right. When you take a photo, it swishes off the screen, and doesn't appear as a thumbnail anywhere on-screen, which can be a little concerning if you're used to other smartphones, but is easy enough to get used to.
There aren't any physical home keys, which is a shame, and means that the screen is used up by the on-screen home, back and option buttons. It's a shame that the fingerprint sensor can't double up as a home button. The screen looks bright and colourfull, with good viewing angles making it a great screen to view photos on.
Shown above, is the Hasselblad True Zoom Moto mod, which snaps on to the back of the Moto Z Play, to add a 10x optical zoom lens and Xenon flash camera.
Battery life - The battery life of the Moto Z Play is impressive, by using a processor that's not a top of the range, power hungry processor, but rather a more modest processor, and combining that with a large 3510mAh battery. This means you can get at least a day, and often a day and a half out of the battery, which is much better than most smartphones these days.
Moto Z Play Performance
The performance section is where we look at the image quality performance of the camera. Additional sample photos and product shots are available in the Equipment Database, where you can add your own review, photos and product ratings.
Speed - We took a number of shots to test the camera's responsiveness, from switch on to first photo, shot to shot, focusing speed etc. We take a number of shots and then use the average to ensure accurate and consistent tests, making it easy to compare with other cameras.
| Shutter Response | -0.3secs |
| Wide - Focus / Shutter Response | -0.3secs |
| Switch on Time to Taking a Photo | 2.2secs (from standby) |
| Switch on Time to Taking a Photo | 39secs (from off) |
| Shot to Shot (without Flash) | 0.4secs |
| Continuous Shooting - JPEG (shots before slow down) |
5fps (unlimited shots) |
The camera promises "Zero shutter lag" which is the time between you pressing the shutter release button, and the camera taking the photo. However, in our tests, the Moto Z Play actually takes the photo from 0.3 seconds before you press the button. This is the case whether using the on-screen shutter button, or the volume control.
Motorola Moto Z Play Sample Photos
Sample Photos - Photos taken with the dual-tone LED flash aren't as good as photos taken with a true Xenon flash, as the flash isn't as bright, and some photos show red-eye. There's also a noticeable yellow tint to images. Images have good colour in good light, and detail is quite good, but images aren't as good in low-light. The HDR mode does a good job giving images with better dynamic range in the shadows, and can be left on Auto in the Auto mode with good results.
Motorola Moto Z Play Lens test images
Lens Performance - Exposure is reliable, and colours are bright and saturated. Dynamic range can struggle at times, unless you use the HDR mode, and when using the HDR mode you need to make sure you hold the camera as steady as possible for a sharp shot. The front facing selfie camera performs reasonably well with a 5 megapixel sensor and an f/2.2 aperture, and the LED flash helps with selfie shots. Detail is quite good in the centre of the frame, and out to the corners, although some noise in visible in most shots when viewed at 100%. You need to be careful of camera shake as the camera doesn't have built in optical image stabilisation.
Motorola Moto Z Play ISO test images
ISO Noise Performance - Noise is lowest at ISO100 and ISO200, becoming more noticeable at ISO400. ISO800 images show more noise, but photos should still be usable. At ISO1600 and above images become softer as detail is lost to noise, and these settings are best avoided.
Motorola Moto Z Play White-balance test images
White Balance Performance - Auto White Balance (AWB) performs well under both tungsten and fluorescent lighting, with the presets giving a slight colour cast to images.
There aren't any filters or effects built in to the standard camera app, and instead you need to apply filters after taking photos. Alternatively you can download any number of alternative camera app to take photos with effects, including Instagram, Snapseed, VSCO, Lightroom, and others. The camera has a decent panoramic mode, although the images aren't very high-res.
Video - Video resolutions available include 4K UHD, FullHD, 720p, and VGA, all at 30fps. There's also an option to record HDR video as well. The front facing camera can record FullHD video. Slow-motion video is recorded at 120fps, at a resolution of 720p. When recording 4K video, the lack of image stabilisation becomes quite noticeable, and switching to the FullHD video mode enables the electronic stabilisation which helps. Video quality is good, and the camera does reasonably well under low-light conditions.
Value For Money
The Moto Z Play is available for between £340 and £360 depending on what colour you go for. This makes it quite good value for money. Although, there are other smartphones available around this price, with optical image stabilisation (OIS), such as the LG G4 (< £300, 5.5inch), OnePlus 3 (£329, 5.5inch) and Samsung Galaxy S6 (£369). You could also have a look at the LG G5, which has a modular system as well.
Have a look at more smartphones in our Top 10 Best Smartphone Cameras. You may want to buy a memory card and a case or bag to keep your smartphone safe and protected - have a look at our complete guide to camera bags.
Moto Z Play Verdict
The Moto Z range is possibly one of the best solutions available in terms of giving the consumer a "modular" smartphone, where you can choose additional mods that fit your smartphone. Others offer a similar feature, for example the LG G5 lets you plug in a camera grip with additional battery, speakers etc, (but for specifically the LG G5 only). But these also tie you in to a fairly closed system, for example, the Hasselblad True Zoom can only be used with Moto Z phones, and can't be used seperately. Other accessories, for example camera add-ons, like the DXO One and Sony QX range can be used seperately to the smartphone, as well as with the smartphone, and aren't specific to a limited family of phones.
If you love Moto Z phones, then the Moto Mods may make sense, in some regards, particularly if you're fed up of carrying around external USB chargers and cables. The Moto Z Play offers impressive battery life, and this could be reason enough for choosing this phone over other smartphones, particularly if you're tired of "battery anxiety" that has become normal for most people. The camera is good, in good light, but the lack of optical image stabilisation means it can struggle to give good results in low-light.