Moto Z Play review: The modular smartphone king

Display

The Moto Z Play’s display has been downgraded, too. It still has a 5.5in AMOLED panel like its big brother, but its resolution only stretches to 1,920 x 1,080 rather than 2,560 x 1,440. In its defence, I was hard-pressed to tell the difference in terms of overall sharpness. The Moto Z Play’s vanilla version of Android 6.0 looked just as crisp as it did on the Moto Z.

More importantly, the quality of the Moto Z Play’s display hasn’t diminished in the slightest: it still covers a fantastic 100% of the sRGB colour gamut, produces perfect black and has superb contrast. Again, its maximum brightness only peaks at 355cd/m2, but this will only be a problem on the very sunniest of days.

Camera

As for the rear camera, you might be forgiven they’re exactly the same given their identical, raised design, but the Moto Z Play actually has a higher resolution camera than the Moto Z, producing 16-megapixel images  rather than 12. You won’t find any optical image stabilisation here, sadly, but you do get a hybrid laser and phase detection autofocus, a wide f/2.0 aperture and a colour-balancing dual LED flash.

Now I wasn’t hugely impressed by the pictures I took on the Moto Z, as many of them came out quite soft and lacking in detail. Luckily, the Moto Z Play once again seems to have the upper hand here, as each shot was sharper and more defined. There was perhaps a fraction more grain and noise present, but I’d rather have a bit of grit than have everything smoothed over.

Colour reproduction was top notch, even in gloomy, overcast weather conditions. Enabling HDR had a tendency to make pictures look a little artificial, exhibiting strong halo effects around objects and buildings on the horizon, but on the whole it did a great job of brightening up muted scenes.

Indoors, shots were once again a little grainy and mottled in places, but there was very little noise and artefacts at the edges of our still life subjects were kept to a minimum. Colours were pleasingly punchy and contrast levels remained solid across all lighting conditions. I’d recommend sparing use of the flash, however, as this ended turning everything rather warm and orange rather than correctly balancing out white.

Verdict

As with last year’s Moto X Play and Moto X Style, it’s Motorola’s mid-range phone that takes the crown here. The Moto Z might be faster, slimmer and have a higher resolution display, but the Moto Z Play is better value. You not only get stonking battery life, but also a great camera and equal access to Lenovo and Motorola’s new Moto Mods.

The other only phone you might want to consider at this sort of price is the £329 OnePlus 3. This is faster than the Moto Z Play and still has a pretty decent battery life, but if you’re looking for something a bit different that can turn its hand to any task required, then you certainly won’t be disappointed with the Moto Z Play. It wins a Recommended award.