Moto Z2 Play design
The Moto Z2 Play has a similar design to the Moto Z Play, and it also supports the Moto Mods ecosystem. To ensure that the new phone supports the older Moto Mods, Moto has launched the new phone with the same height and width and the connector pins are also placed in the same place as before. The only change would have been to reduce the thickness of the phone, and Motorola has made the phone thinner by a millimeter. The original Moto Z Play was 6.99 millimeters thick while the Moto Z2 Play is 5.99 millimeters wide. And this is probably the reason why the battery has been made smaller and the new phone has a 3000 mAh battery, while the previous phone had a 3510 mAh battery. On the other hand, due to the smaller battery, the new phone weighs 20 grams less than the Z Play i.e. 145 grams.
The Moto Z2 Play sports a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1080×1920 pixels. Corning Gorilla Glass is provided for protection. The display is versatile and viewing angles are also quite good. Reading on the phone in sunlight can be a problem as we had to use the brightness control while using the phone in daylight. There is a fingerprint sensor below the screen, which Moto says is designed to recognize gestures better on the edges.
Moto Actions offers an alternative to the traditional three-button Android navigation. Users can use the fingerprint sensor as a gesture, which gives more space for more content on the screen. To go back, one can swipe left on the fingerprint sensor, while swiping right can launch the app switcher, and one can tap to go to the home screen. Apart from this, there is also an option to long press the fingerprint sensor to lock the phone. And it doesn’t take much time to learn how to use this whole process and we soon got used to it.
To keep selfie lovers happy, the Moto Z2 Play has a 5-megapixel front camera with a dual-tone LED flash. The phone also has a beautification mode, which helps in taking better selfies. The Moto Z2 Play does not have a notification LED. At the bottom of the rear, there is a large camera bump. Due to Moto Mods, a similar design has been seen in all the smartphones of the Moto Z series. The 12-megapixel primary camera sensor comes with 1.4 micron pixels and dual-tone LED flash. Apart from this, aperture f / 1.7 has been given for better photography in low light. The pictures taken from the camera were good, but we will reserve our decision on this till the detailed review of Moto Z2 Play.
There is a metal ring around the camera bump so that the lens doesn’t get scratched when placed on a rough surface. Motorola will also be offering a Mod Shell with the Moto Z2 Play which adds to the bulk of the phone but makes the camera bump look less prominent.
The frame of the Moto Z2 Play is made of aluminium, which makes the phone look premium. Interestingly, Moto has provided antenna lines all around the body of the phone, which is a unique and useful feature. The phone has power and volume buttons on the right side while there is a SIM tray on the top that can be used for two nano SIM cards as well as a microSD card. The Z2 Play has a USB Type-C port at the bottom and it can also be used as a loudspeaker.
The biggest change in the Moto Z2 Play compared to the previous Z Play is the specifications. The phone has a 2.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 octa-core processor which is an updated version of the Snapdragon 625 processor. The phone has 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of inbuilt storage which can be expanded. Talking about software, the Z2 Play runs on stock Android Nougat. Moto has pre-installed some Google apps.
In the limited time we spent with the phone, we enjoyed using the Moto Z2 Play. The fingerprint scanner works well and unlocks the phone quickly. There was no lag while multitasking. The good thing is that the phone supports quick charging. A 15-watt turbo charger comes with the phone in the box.
The Moto Z2 Play smartphone seems to follow the same path as the previous Z2 Play smartphone. The internal specifications of the phone have improved but the competition has also increased. The Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro smartphone is the closest competitor to the Z2 Play. Although it does not have the modular design of the Moto Z2 Play, it is priced less. Stay tuned to Gadgets 360 for a detailed review of the Moto Z2 Play.