Moto Z2 Play Review – Stagnation means decline
The Moto Z2 Play is a great device, but a less good deal than its predecessor. The battery life is still excellent in practice and we are happy with the OLED screen, although it is a bit difficult to read in direct sunlight. Distinctive from other devices is that it supports modules that expand the possibilities of this smartphone. The software is also nice and clean, and you can store two SIM cards and a micro SD card in the Z2 Play. We expected a little more from the camera and the performance is also no more than reasonable for its price range.
Pros
- Supports Moto Mods
- Space for micro SD card and second SIM card
- Software is clean
- Great OLED screen
- 64GB storage memory and 4GB RAM
Cons
- Soc only marginally improved
- The camera is disappointing in low light
- Moderately readable screen in bright sunlight
The predecessor of the Moto Z2 Play, the Moto Z Play, is a successful device in our opinion. The system with the clickable Moto Mods works well, it has a nice OLED screen, the battery life is very good and the bare Android software with some useful additions is also fine. However, the device has some drawbacks. For example, it has a somewhat chunky design and it is difficult to read in the bright sun. The Moto Z2 Play should change that, with a slimmer casing and, according to Motorola itself, still good battery life.
The Moto Z2 Play also supports the Moto Mods, which is perhaps less obvious than it seems. After all, LG got rid of the system with modules as soon as possible, despite previous promises not to do so. LG is somewhat forgivable, as the system worked much worse than the Moto Mods. Motorola is sticking with the Mods and guarantees that if you buy a Moto Mod now, it will fit the next two generations of Motorola smartphones. This means that if you buy a Moto Z2 Play now and switch to the latest Moto Z phone in two years’ time, the modules will still fit, according to Motorola. That’s quite a long time when you consider that smartphones are in a phase where the shape changes to allow for smaller bezels, but it’s a nice promise if you decide to purchase a module.
Let’s start with the new modules. Motorola says it releases about three new mods every quarter, and it’s been successful so far. We received four new ones with the Moto Z2 Play for testing: the new JBL Soundboost 2, the TurboPower Pack, the Moto Shell with wireless charging and the Moto 360 Camera.
JBL Sound Boost 2
The most important feature of the JBL SoundBoost 2 is of course the sound quality, which is very reasonable for a speaker of this size. Sound benefits from a larger sound box, especially the low frequencies, and this Moto Mod manages to strike a good balance between size and sound quality.
We listened to it next to last year’s JBL SoundBoost and alternated with the same piece of music. The difference in sound quality and volume is minimal. Version two, when judged with the naked ear, has a marginally higher maximum volume. The new Moto Mod also sounds a bit warmer and a bit neater as standard, but we wouldn’t opt for version two if last year’s version is a lot cheaper, for example. It is, however, somewhat rounder and covered with fabric, instead of a metal grill. The design looks a bit more modern. The leg on which the speaker can rest also works well with the JBL SoundBoost 2 and if you click it on the Moto Z2 Play, it is immediately functional, just like any Moto Mod. The JBL SoundBoost 2 can be charged separately or on the back of a Moto Z phone, which is handy.
In the accompanying JBL SoundBoost app you can change the sound settings of the Moto Mod. You can set an equalizer with different presets, although it is a pity that you cannot adjust the different frequency ranges yourself. You can also set Dirac Panorama Sound, which makes the sound sound more spacious.
The price of the JBL SoundBoost 2 is 99 euros and that is quite a bit, because you can buy a pretty good Bluetooth speaker for it. Nevertheless, the module has the great advantage that you do not have to connect with Bluetooth and all the associated disadvantages. You click the module on and the sound from the smartphone sounds a lot better in no time.
Turbo Power Pack
The Turbo Power Pack is the successor to the Incipio Offgrid Power Pack. This time, Motorola makes the Mod itself. It has a significantly larger battery capacity than the Incipio, namely 3,490mAh and with fifteen watts it charges the Moto Z2 Play about as fast as the included Turbo Power charger. Although the battery capacity is larger than that of the Moto Z2 Play itself, which is 3,000mAh, you can’t fully charge the phone with the extra battery juice. In practice, you can go ahead for another day with the Moto Z2 Play, even if you use the device quite a lot. You can also charge this Moto Mod separately from the device and you can press the button on the back to see how full the battery is. The back is made of a kind of hard rubber and has grooves, which gives a lot of grip. The phone does get a lot thicker, which is not very strange with so much extra battery capacity. All in all, it is a very handy Power Pack, which has a lot of capacity and is also fast.
The module costs 69 euros and that is pricey for a battery pack. However, the convenience and charging speed of the module is a big plus and it is a lot more convenient to take with you than most power banks.
Moto Shell with wireless charging
This Moto Mod does not have a separate battery, but simply makes it possible to wirelessly charge Moto Z phones with the PMA or Qi standard. With a Qi charger, the phone charges with a maximum of 10 watts, which is very nice for wireless charging. For example, the iPhone 8 charges with a maximum of 5 watts, which should later become 7.5 watts. The Moto Shell has a gray fabric back and it feels luxurious. The fabric is tightly woven together and will not easily fray. We feel that this Moto Mod is a bit thicker than strictly necessary, as it is about twice as thick as a normal Moto Shell. That should be thinner, we think.
You pay 49 euros to add wireless charging to the Moto Z2 Play. Just like in the case of the other Mods, that is not cheap, but the convenience of wireless charging can of course be worth something and who knows, it might be on offer one day.
Casing
The Moto Z2 Play is very similar to the Moto Z Play, with the nice difference that it is a bit thinner, although that is at the expense of the battery capacity. With the Moto Z Play, we found it a disadvantage that the fingerprint scanner could not serve as a home button and that there were no Android navigation buttons in the sizeable bezel. That has been partly resolved because you can now at least set the fingerprint scanner as a home button. You don’t have navigation buttons in the bezel yet, but you have to swipe to the left over the scanner to go back and to the right to bring the multitask screen forward. In our opinion, that does not work as well as the usual Android navigation buttons, but it does give you a bit more screen.
Of course, not everyone knows the Moto Z Play, so we’ll take a closer look at the casing. The biggest difference with other casings is, just like with other Moto Z devices, that modules can be placed on the back. That’s why there are connector pins on the back. To protect it, it is wise to have the supplied Moto Shell on the device if you do not use any modules. The device is therefore 2mm thicker, so that is useful to know if you are going to compare the thicknesses of different devices.
| Smartphone | Moto Z2 Play | Moto Z Play | LG G6 |
| Height | 156.2mm | 156.4mm | 148.9mm |
| Width | 76.2mm | 76.4mm | 71.9mm |
| Thickness | 6mm | 7mm | 7.9mm |
| Weight | 145g | 165g | 163g |
| Relative screen size | 70.1% | 69.8% | 78.3% |
In addition to the Moto Z2 Play and logically its predecessor, we have included the LG G6 here, because it is one of the most interesting devices and is closest to the Z2 Play in terms of price. With Moto Shell, the Moto Z2 Play is about as thick as the G6 and that is not a thin device. With its large bezels, which are only slightly smaller than those of the iPhone Plus models, this is by no means a compact phone for its screen size.
A smaller drawback to the Moto Z2 Play are the small buttons on the side. These are all the same size and are equidistant from each other. Despite the relief that should distinguish the power button from the volume buttons, you can easily mix them up. We sometimes made mistakes during our review period.
At the bottom of the device are a USB-C connection and the 3.5mm output. The SIM tray is located on the top, which can also hold a micro SD card in addition to two SIM cards. That is an advantage over many other devices. The LED flash on the front of the device also stands out. This allows you to take reasonable selfies in the dark.
Screen
The 5.5″ OLED screen of the Moto Z2 Play is one of the advantages of the device. The Moto Z Play also had that and the screens do not seem to differ much from each other. An OLED screen like that of the Note 8 is something more beautiful than this panel, but OLED means an incredibly high contrast value and that largely determines how beautiful a screen is.
The resolution of the screen is 1920×1080 pixels and the pixel density is 401ppi. That’s sharp enough, although it doesn’t cut it. A higher resolution would be at the expense of battery life, so we don’t see this as a downside. We measured the screen as usual with our SpectraCal C6 colorimeter and Calman 5 software.
It turns out that the screen cannot be very bright and we already realized that somewhat when we tried to read it on a sunny day. You soon have the tendency to shield the screen with your hand, so that you can see it better. The minimum brightness is on the high side, but we didn’t have much trouble with it. In a completely dark room, the screen is just not too bright for the eyes.
You can set two color modes on the Moto Z2 Play: standard and vivid. Standard should have the most realistic color reproduction, so we measured the screen with that. The adjustment is still on the blue side, but in practice it is probably only disturbing for people who do something with colors on a professional level. The contrast is much more important for the beauty of a screen and that is of course good with an OLED screen like this. After all, the pixels can be turned off for an almost perfect black display.
Battery
The battery capacity of the Moto Z2 Play has declined compared to that of its predecessor, presumably to make the device a bit thinner. From 3,500 to 3,000mAh is a significant loss and not everyone will appreciate that. However, the screen still has a not too high resolution and the soc should be quite economical.
Our battery tests show that the Moto Z2 Play no longer distinguishes itself positively from its direct competitors, and that is a pity. On Wi-Fi, the Moto Z2 Play lasts no less than two and a half hours less than its predecessor, and on 4G, the SOC is not so economical in practice. In the more practical PCMark test, in which a whole series of operations is performed and which includes web browsing, for example, the Moto Z2 Play scores very reasonably and fortunately, we can report that this is in line with our practical experience. We usually have more than a quarter of the battery left on a day when we use the phone fairly intensively.
The Moto Z2 Play charges fairly quickly, although we can’t get it up to the speed of the predecessor Z Play, which technically should be possible. Our initial results were pretty mediocre, and that’s probably because we connected the phone to a charger other than the included Turbo Power Charger when charging it for the first time. After recalibrating the battery, holding down the power button for about seven to ten seconds and releasing it when the screen turns off, we got the above results and they’re not bad, but the Moto Z Play charges its larger battery still faster with us in the test lab.
Hardware and performance
The Snapdragon 626 in the Moto Z2 Play is almost the same soc as the Snapdragon 625 in the Moto Z Play and a lot of other devices. It does run a maximum of ten percent faster than the SD625, at 2.2GHz, and it now has Bluetooth version 4.2. In that sense, the Moto Z2 Play offers little progress compared to its predecessor and that is quite a shame, although at the time of the Moto Z Play it was a good soc compared to the contemporary competition. We’ve run our usual benchmarks to see how the Snapdragon 626 stacks up against the rest of the hardware.
In terms of raw processing power, we generally see that the Snapdragon 626 is indeed slightly faster than the Snapdragon 625. Furthermore, the high-end SOCs are clearly faster than the mid-range SOCs. So far no surprises.
The PCMark test is a bit more hands-on and here the Z2 Play narrowly scores the best of the phones with mid-range SOC. However, the difference with, for example, the Snapdragon 625 in the friendly priced Moto G5 Plus is so small that this hardware is not an obvious reason to choose the Moto Z2 Play.
The storage memory of the Moto Z2 Play is clearly of the same caliber as that of the cheaper Moto G5 Plus and predecessor Moto Z Play. That’s a shame, because you would actually expect a bit more, given the price.
In practice, the Moto Z2 Play is fairly smooth. The frame rate sometimes goes down and if you come from a high-end smartphone, you notice the difference in the start time of apps, but the device is certainly fast enough for most people and tasks at the moment. We do wonder how that will be in a year or two because the Snapdragon 626 is really just a mid-range SOC from last year that has been stepped up a bit. In terms of flash memory speed, we haven’t seen any gains over the Moto Z Play either, so hardware performance isn’t really a reason to go for this new variant.
We also looked at the graphics performance of the Moto Z2 Play. Since it has the same Adreno 506 as its predecessor, it is also just as slow compared to devices with high-end socs. Most devices in this list are therefore somewhat more expensive, although in some cases it does not make much difference. Still, the Snapdragon 625-soc is simply not ideal for gaming, although like many other low-priced devices it can handle most games just fine in practice.
Camera
As far as specifications are concerned, you would think that this camera can achieve a very reasonable result. It has a wide aperture of f/1.7, which is equivalent to the Galaxy S8, which performs well in low-light conditions. A twelve-megapixel sensor has been chosen instead of a sixteen-megapixel sensor, so that the pixels at 1.4µm are slightly larger than those of its predecessor. That all sounds good, but the results are not rosy in low light. This is mainly due to the lack of optical image stabilization. The Moto Z2 Play leaves the shutter open for quite a long time, making it extremely difficult to produce a photo at night without motion blur. We did our best and you can see the results below.
In the third photo you can also see that the HDR function is certainly not at the level of the more high-end smartphones, although they are usually a bit more expensive. There is also a lot of shutter lag in moderate lighting conditions, so you often just miss the moment. The camera is not really bad either, because in good lighting conditions the colors are reasonably accurate and the photos can generally be called reasonable. Yet we often miss some sharpness there too.
Nighttime selfies can be made with the double dual-tone LED flash on the front of the device. The five-megapixel front camera makes your head look quite natural when you use the flash, but you soon see very little in the background when it is very dark.
Software
The software of the Moto Z2 Play can be described as simple, but effective. It looks a lot like stock Android, so without frills, but there are a number of handy features built in and they work well. For example, you can make a kind of slapping movement with the phone to turn on the flashlight or turn your wrist to go directly to the camera app. That goes quite quickly and is very useful in practice if you want to take a photo quickly.
Another nice function that is not standard in Android is the night screen, which allows you to filter the blue light. That’s nice for the evening, because you can sleep better in principle. Moto Display is the always-on screen and this function is also as good as it is simple. When you wave across the screen or pick up the phone for a moment, you will see the time and app icons that you have a notification about. If you press an icon, you will only see the content.
In practice, a little less convenient is that the screen rotates a bit too quickly if you haven’t locked it. During the review period, we often had the screen suddenly switch to landscape mode, while we really didn’t hold the device very diagonally.
The software on the Moto Z2 Play is nice and clean, free of annoying bloatware, and fast. That is a valid reason to choose this phone.
Conclusion
Stagnation means decline. Unfortunately, that’s kind of the story of the Moto Z2 Play. Not much has changed compared to predecessor Moto Z Play and that is a pity. The Moto Z Play had a lot to offer, including the rock-solid battery life and excellent Android performance. Those two benefits are gone. The software is still clean and fast, but the Moto Z2 Play’s soc is only marginally better than the one in its predecessor. The performance remains okay, but it is not particularly fast for a device of 450 euros. The soc is also graphically weak.
The battery life has decreased a step and we think that disadvantage outweighs the advantage of the slightly thinner casing. In practice, we can last another day with the Moto Z2 Play, but its predecessor more than outlives it. Still, even without a huge battery, it is a fairly large device for its screen size, so it is still not compact.
Fortunately, the Moto Z2 Play also retains a number of advantages from its predecessor. For example, the compatibility with Moto Mods is a nice bonus and that system works great, although the Mods are generally a bit expensive. You can also still store two SIM cards and a micro SD card in the Moto Z2 Play, which is not possible with every competitor. Finally, the OLED screen is beautiful, but it is not very easy to read in the bright sun.
There is also progress, because the Moto Z2 Play has 64GB of storage memory and 4GB of RAM. That is more than most direct competitors. In addition, you can now also use the fingerprint scanner as a home button, if you find it useful. The camera will suffice for many people, but we expected more from the Moto Z2 Play on this score.
Motorola, in a sense, gets in the way with the Moto Z2 Play. At the time of writing, the Moto Z Play is available for 300 euros and the Moto G5 Plus for around 250 euros. These are devices with a comparable soc and the Moto Z Play in particular is still an interesting choice on many fronts, although you will in principle receive fewer updates for a year. However, you can also go to the LG G6 for almost the same money and then you have a smartphone with a somewhat older high-end soc and, for example, a better camera in a more compact casing. We are therefore not entirely convinced of the competition that the Moto Z2 Play can offer, unless it drops a bit in price.
That does not alter the fact that it is a great device on many fronts, especially if you consider clean software, a good OLED screen, sufficient memory and expansion options important.