Moto Z2 Play

What is the Moto Z2 Play?

Moto has been through turmoil recently, but nevertheless it’s continued to churn out surprisingly excellent phones. The Moto Z2 Play is another device that it can add to the list.

Despite this, the Moto G5 remains the default choice for anyone wanting to spend less than £200, and last year’s Moto Z Play has only been beaten in the battery life stakes by the Lenovo P2.

However, unlike the Moto Z Play – which boasted stunning battery life but not much else – the sequel is slimmed down and sleeker. It’s fully compatible with a range of the company’s modular accessories, known as Moto Mods, and sits at an affordable price SIM-free.

There’s plenty to like here, but also plenty of areas that need improving.

Moto Z2 Play – Design

Moto’s design choices for the Z line can be seen as being a little erratic. The original Z Play is a chunky device, built mainly from plastic, but the Z2 Play is far nicer. The plastic is replaced with metal and the unit is marginally thinner – although when you take into account the prominent camera hump the Z2 Play is far from the thinnest phone around.

Eagle Magpie

Like the other Moto Mod-compatible phones, a row of visible pins can be found on the rear, lower portion of the phone, and while they’re obviously a necessity for Mod functionality, they’re hardly good-looking. In fact, the overall design choices appear to have been made to accommodate the Mods, with numerous oddities as a result.

It’s difficult to find a comfortable way to hold the Moto Z Play 2, as the sharp, chamfered edges often cut into my palms. The phone’s rear lacks even a slight curve, which has become something of a norm with phones, since it makes a device fit nicely in the hand.

In addition, Moto has chosen to use three very tiny buttons for volume up/down along with the standby controls. The latter might be slightly bevelled, but I often found myself hitting the volume keys when I actually wanted to turn the phone off.

Flip the phone over and what you see is far more attractive. The 5.5-inch display is surrounded by a fairly slim bezel and has a fingerprint sensor on its bottom. Like the Moto G5, this sensor can act as a gesture pad for replacing the on-screen buttons, but it doesn’t function simply as a home button.

My review unit is mostly black, with a contrasting grey back, but the Z2 Play is available in white and gold models too. Motorola claims the Z2 Play is ‘splashproof’, which means it will survive – allegedly – a water spill, but don’t go dunking it in the bath.

In the box, Moto includes a Style Shell, which is a thin fabric backplate that covers the Mod pins, reduces the camera hump and adds a minor curvature to the handset. The phone is so much more usable with the shell attached that I’ve made the decision to keep it on all the time. The only downside to this is that the shell wobbles and often comes off completely when I pull the phone out of my pocket.

In my opinion, the Moto Mods don’t offer enough extra functionality to warrant being at the centre of this phone’s design choices. They’re nice ‘modules’, but in most cases there’s a better option available that doesn’t tie you to a single phone. For instance, the battery pack Mod could easily be replaced with a regular battery pack, and the JBL BoomSound 2 sounds worse than an £80 Bluetooth speaker. The idea of attaching something directly to the phone is neat, but I just don’t see the long-term appeal.

Moto Z2 Play – Screen

A 5.5-inch, 1080p display is common at this price and the display included on the Moto Z2 Play is perfectly fine. It’s sharp – unless you get super-close – and since it’s an AMOLED panel, blacks are deep and colours bright.

There are two screen modes to choose from, Standard and Vibrant, and I’d suggest sticking with the default Vibrant. Switching to Standard renders everything slightly washed out and dull.

Viewing angles are fine, although colour banding can be an issue, plus peak brightness could do with an extra few nits. This is me being a little picky, though: for phone costing £379.99, this is still a decent display.

One of Moto’s best ever software features, Moto Display, is present and makes use of that AMOLED panel. It lights up only the pixels it needs to display notifications when they come in, and you can reply directly without unlocking the phone.

Moto Z2 Play – Performance

To fit in with its mid-range price, the Moto Z2 Play has a mid-range SoC running the show. The Snapdragon 626 is a new chip, and one that focuses on efficiency while still being able to handle the most common day to day tasks with ease.

The Moto Z2 Play is a fast phone, and unless you push it really hard you won’t notice much slowdown. Games run well, although graphically intensive titles such as Injustice 2 do take longer to load and run at a lower frame rate than phones with an 835 processor. But, realistically, this phone feels fast.

The phones comes with 4GB of RAM and an impressive 64GB of storage, with the option of adding more through a microSD card. That’s generous storage for the price.

However, the real advantage of the 626 is efficiency and how it works to get as much battery life as possible out of the cell without sacrificing performance. Considering the impressive battery life stats, which you’ll discover in the Battery Life section, it’s clear that it delivers on the promise.

The mono speaker sits on the front of the device and it isn’t capable of getting very loud. Since it’s on the front, it pushes the sound towards you, rather than down into your palm – but it’s a better speaker than the one included in the Samsung Galaxy S8.

Normally I would run a suite of benchmark tools to gather some synthetic information, but neither Geekbench 4 or Antutu worked on the Moto Z2 Play.

Moto Z2 Play – Software

I love the software on the Moto Z2 Play, and it’s exactly what I expect from a Motorola phone. The majority of it as it is on Google’s Pixel, complete with the swipe up app drawer and a focus on circular icons.

Motorola has also added a couple of apps for tweaking its own features and for updating the Mods, but they don’t get in the way. The general ‘Moto’ app deals with customising Moto Display and the gesture-based Moto Actions. These Actions range from shaking the phone to open the camera, to chopping to turn on the flashlight.

The rest of the software will be familiar to anyone who’s used a Pixel or other recent Moto phone. Split-screening multitasking is handy for having two apps open side by side, but the lack of an in-depth battery-saver mode is annoying.

Moto Z2 Play – Camera

Sub-£400 phones have seen improvements in many areas, but they still sit comfortably below their pricier counterparts when it comes to camera tech. The Moto Z2 Play is no different. It promises plenty with its impressive camera specs, but it fails to consistently deliver decent pictures in varying conditions.

The 12-megapixel sensor and f/1.7 lens capture detail well, especially in macro shots where the subject is close. That wide aperture gives a lovely, natural bokeh effect and portraits are especially sharp. As you can see in the camera samples below, focusing on a plant accurately blurs the background and leaves the foreground in focus. You can capture some excellent shots in this manner, and it’s the one area where this camera really shines.

However, it struggles when the light isn’t perfect. Even daylight shots produced very dark images, without there being an obvious reason why. This was particularly noticeable in landscape photos, where the sun isn’t directly in view, leaving an image that’s lacking both colour and dynamic range.

Even though the camera has a wide aperture that should let greater light into the sensor, night-time shots were generally terrible. Noise becomes an issue, exposure is way off and the focus slows right down. If you’re looking for better night shots at a similar price, I’d suggest the Honor 9. The lack of OIS, something still rarely seen at this price, also becomes noticeable in lower light and when trying to capture 4K video.

Colours are nice, but not especially accurate

The wide aperture gives a nice, natural bokeh

It struggles when the light isn’t perfect, even in the day

There’s enough detail in the shots

The camera sensor isn’t the only part of the phone where I have suffered serious performance problems. The app can take an age to start up, is prone to crashing and sometimes stutters when switching modes. These problems aren’t constant, but they appear often enough to be noticeable.

The 5-megapixel camera on the front of the device is fine, but nothing special, and it even has a flash next to it.

Moto Z2 Play – Battery Life

The original Z2 Play was Trusted’s battery life champion until the Lenovo P2 came along. Which is why I had high hopes for the Z2’s stamina. Despite the fact Motorola has swapped the original Z’s 3510mAh battery for a smaller A 3000mAh cell to accommodate the new, thinner body. Despite the mAh drop, battery life remains fantastic.

I’ve averaged between seven and eight hours of screen-on time, with the phone consistently lasting a full day. There were days when I could easily go from a morning to after work the following day without having to reach for the charger. That’s impressive, and much better than what’s offered by flagships such as the HTC U11 and the Samsung Galaxy S8. It charges up quickly too, thanks to the included Turbo Charger.

Should I buy the Moto Z2 Play?

The Moto Z2 Play offers great value for money, and has enough going for it that I’d be happy to recommend it to anyone who values battery life and a clean software experience.

It’s far from perfect, though, and I don’t feel the Mod support is worth the slightly uncomfortable design. The camera is a mixed bag, that’s often great, but at times terrible. You can get better photos from the Xiaomi Mi 6 and Honor 9, both of which are cheaper than the Moto Z2 Play. Still, there aren’t many sub-£400 phones that can match what the Moto Z2 Play offers.

Verdict

Moto can’t quite dominate the mid-range like it does with its G5, but the Z2 Play is a solid device with plenty going for it. I just wish it didn’t feel compromised by Moto Mods.

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