Moto Z Play with Hasselblad module – Optical zoom on your smartphone

If you hold the Moto Z Play next to the Moto Z, you immediately notice the difference in thickness. The Moto Z is therefore the thinnest smartphone we know, so that a snap-on module makes the device smaller than you would expect. The Moto Z Play is a bit thicker and if you click another module on it, the smartphone is difficult to squeeze into the average pocket. Yet the Z Play is a device that is just as beautifully built as the Moto Z, with exactly the same design elements. The finish is completely high-end, with metal and a glass back, which, like Samsung smartphones, is a bit sensitive to finger swipes.

The buttons are also not too easy to press and not too large, so that the screen does not turn on unintentionally in your pocket, for example. It is a bit inconvenient that all three buttons are next to each other and are the same size, so we sometimes pressed the lower volume button instead of the power button, which is below it. This despite the relief on the latter button.

The Moto Z Play also has a fingerprint sensor under the screen. We tested that and it was reasonably fast, although we certainly experienced faster unlocking after a fingerprint. We think that the fingerprint sensor does not also serve as a home button is a missed opportunity. You can turn off the screen when you tap the sensor, which is very handy. The Moto Z Play also has the advantage over its more expensive brothers that it still has a 3.5mm headphone output, which is a nice feature for many.

All in all, it’s quite nice to look at the Moto Z Play, but that’s not just because of the looks. It has an OLED screen, which means, among other things, an almost infinite contrast. The screen also has good viewing angles, but the color reproduction looked somewhat saturated as far as we could judge. We have also seen nicer OLED screens, but we still find it more pleasant to look at than an LCD.

The Moto Z Play is focused on endurance and less on high-end specs. The smartphone is equipped with the slower octa-core Snapdragon 625, which is clocked at 2.0GHz. The phone also has the slower lpddr3 memory, instead of lpddr4. All in all, we didn’t experience much lag in our usual stress tests, but it can get quite warm under heavy load.

The camera has also been cut back. It’s not a bad camera, but the images we took during the hands-on session didn’t immediately impress us, especially when we shot some dark areas of the presentation complex. It also takes a bit long for the camera to print in those conditions. To really say something meaningful about the camera, we will of course have to test it more extensively. The camera software is otherwise quite spartan, as we are used to from a Moto device, and in the software as a whole we have not discovered any striking new functions in the time we had with the smartphone.

Furthermore, the battery capacity of 3510mAh is a specification that stands out. We tested the Moto X Play with 3630mAh last year and it lasted a very long time in our battery tests. Although the Moto Z Play has a different soc, we also expect excellent battery life with the Moto Z Play. And if it is empty, you can quickly fill it up again thanks to the support for fast charging.

The Z Play will be released in September and will cost 449 euros for the 32GB version, making it cheaper than the other members of the Moto Z series. How much is not officially known yet, as we do not yet know what the Z will cost. There are rumors that the regular Z will be released for 659 euros and the Moto Z Force is certainly more expensive than the Moto Z.

Optical zoom module

Just like the Moto Z and Moto Z Force, the Moto Z Play has connectors on the back, which the Moto Mods make contact with. In addition to previously announced modules, such as a projector, battery pack and JBL speaker, Lenovo presented the Hasselblad True Zoom module at IFA. With that, there is finally another option to optically zoom with a smartphone, the first option where you don’t have to walk around with a huge smartphone permanently. In essence, you turn a Moto Z phone into a compact camera with the Hasselblad module, but the best part is of course that it can also be removed.

Just as Huawei introduced the dual-camera P9 with Leica earlier this year, the equally renowned photography brand Hasselblad has been working with Lenovo on the camera module for Moto Z smartphones. The camera brand has a rich history, with one of the highlights being the Apollo moon missions, where Hasselblad cameras were used to photograph the moon.

It is difficult to say to what extent there has actually been collaboration and which brand had the biggest say in developing the module, but the finish of the True Zoom is impressive. Especially if we compare it with the camera module that LG released with the G5. The zoom button feels as it should, only the print button is a bit loose and could have given a little more counter pressure. You can, however, press it halfway to focus first and then push it through to print.

While we felt like we were holding a compact camera with the True Zoom module on the Moto Z, there’s one gripe in the handling that takes us out of the flow of shooting. For example, we have the habit of checking whether a photo has been successful with a compact camera, and then exiting playback mode and continuing to shoot by pressing the shutter button halfway. That does not work with the True Zoom module, so you will have to go to the camera yourself via the smartphone screen.

This is not an insurmountable point and fortunately there are also plenty of positive points to report compared to a compact camera. For example, it is often difficult to see on a small screen whether a photo is beautiful or sharp. You won’t be bothered by that on a 5.5-inch smartphone screen. The operation is also a lot more intuitive and finer than with most compact cameras. And if you want to edit photos and send them immediately, a smartphone is of course much more convenient than a compact camera.

The most obvious advantage is that it is very easy and convenient to remove the rather thin module from the device and store it separately from your smartphone. Especially when traveling, it is ideal not to have to take a complete extra device with you if you need a little more zoom and better quality photos.

Of course, that depends on the quality of this camera, which varies. For example, the image stabilization does not seem to work well, so we had a lot of trouble getting a sharp image at maximum zoom. You can see that from some of the sample photos we took at Lenovo. The minimum focus distance is also quite large if you zoom in on an object that is relatively close. Focusing at maximum zoom at longer distances went reasonably well for us.

All in all, it is difficult to form a good judgment about the image quality of the sensor in a demo room, but our impression is not entirely positive. The photos in the gallery below show a lot of noise and sometimes the camera chooses a too fast shutter speed in auto mode, resulting in blur. However, these are difficult conditions for a camera and most photos are zoomed to the maximum. For a real judgement, we would like to test the camera much more extensively.

Furthermore, the True Zoom can shoot in RAW, which also saves a jpeg. There’s also a manual mode where you can adjust exposure, ISO, focus, white balance and shutter speed. This mode works simply and intuitively, as we are used to from Moto phones.

Another noteworthy feature of the Hasselblad True Zoom module is the xenon flash. Unfortunately, we see these less and less often on smartphones in recent years, because such a flash takes up a lot of space. A xenon flash requires a voltage of 4,000 to 10,000 volts to ionize the xenon gas in the flash tube. That’s not easy and also requires other hardware to make it possible, such as a DC converter and a large capacitor with high voltage. The advantage of a xenon flash is that the light is very bright and is quite close to the color temperature of natural light. The first was especially noticeable when we took pictures with the flash of the True Zoom. The last photo from the gallery below was taken with the xenon flash.

Lenovo seems to be on the right track with the Moto smartphones. While we are not always happy with the results of the Hasselblad camera, Lenovo shows guts and creativity with the modules. The magnetic system is nice and handy, and there’s not much wrong with the build quality.

The Hasselblad True Zoom will be sold from mid-September with included Phocus editing software for 250 euros.