- [Voiceover] Last year's Moto Z Play
was a smartphone with legendary battery life
that didn't break the bank.
So for the sequel, Motorola decided to shrink the battery
and bump up the price.
- Wait a minute, I'm sorry, is that?
That can't be right.
Is that true?
- [Voiceover] Yep, you heard me right.
So you don't exactly need to watch
til the end of the video to know that I think
this is a pretty weak sequel,
but what might surprise you is that the Moto Z2 Play
is still a really good phone
and a pretty great deal for some people, at least.
Like a lot of phones, the Z2 Play looks better
in person than in photos.
The matte metallic back plate is a much better choice
than last year's scratch-prone mirror finish,
and the whole package just looks and feels
a lot classier.
Now a big part of that is the millimeter
Motorola managed to shave off the chasse
and if you're already skimming the comments,
you'll probably see some phone geeks shouting "heresy."
See, the popular feeling is that most people
would rather have a thicker phone that lasts longer,
and dumping 15% of its battery capacity
to hit a smaller waist size, the Z2 play breaks this rule.
And then it goes on to break another one
by sticking a huge camera lens out the back.
But you know what surprised me?
This phone is still an endurance champ.
I routinely have 20% left after a 16-hour day
of heavy use.
Not that I'm making excuses for Motorola,
whose thought process here seems to have been
well, having a phone famous for its big battery is nice,
but getting people to spend more money
on accessories is way nicer.
That's where the Moto Mods come in.
Spend an extra 80 bucks and you can pick up
a Turbo Power Mod that roughly doubles
your battery capacity, and yeah, this thing
is no joke.
After a Fourth of July that included an hour
of Google Maps driving navigation, two hours
of browsing the web, and a whole afternoon
shooting almost constant photos and video,
at the end of 14 hours I still had 80% left
on the phone and 35% left in the Mod.
In fact, Mods are such a big part of the story
of this phone that I shot an entirely separate review
video just on the new Moto Mods.
Check it out on the Mr. Mobile channel on YouTube
and subscribe while you're there.
I'll share some of those Fourth of July photos
in a second, but first, a quick word on software.
Motorola is just so good at improving Android
where it can and leaving it alone where it can't.
If you wanna see what you missed since the last time
you looked at your phone, Moto Display flickers to life
with a wave or a pocket pull, and now it lets you
take quick actions, too, like replying to text messages
without unlocking the phone.
The new fingerprint sensor is super fast
and it's been enlarged to accommodate
Motorola's one-button nav, which lets you use
swipes and taps to navigate the OS.
I know it looks weird, but I've come to prefer it
over the standard soft keys.
In the same vein, once you get used to chopping
and torquing your way into the flashlight
and camera, going back to a boring old button
just seems dull.
If the Moto features don't flip your pancake,
you can turn them off, and what you get then
is a nimble, near stock Android 7.1.
Lots of folks still think a processor that starts
with the number six instead of eight
somehow guarantees you'll be on the slow boat
to sluggish city, but that wasn't true for the Z Play
or the G5 Plus, and it's not true here either.
Whether you're talking regular day-to-day usage
or high-intensity gaming, this thing flies.
Where you'll start to feel the pinch
of that mid-tier processor is in areas
like network connectivity, mainly for future-proofing,
and in the camera.
The Snap Dragon 626 doesn't have the same
image processing prowess as its 800 series betters,
so although the camera in the Z2 Play is very capable
in terms of hardware, its performance fades rapidly
once the sun goes down.
(crowd chatters)
(children chatter)
So I wouldn't call the Z2 Play my first choice
when it comes to phone cameras, but as you know
if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram,
I rarely post a photo without tweaking it a little first.
And this camera usually gives me a good enough
starting point for that.
The front-facing camera has a flash next to it
which is handy for those tricky backlit selfies.
Also, for reasons I'll make plain at the end,
I put the Z2 Play camera up against the OnePlus Fives,
and I was surprised how well it kept up
in side-by-side shooting.
It wasn't the slam dunk I expected
and here too, Motorola sneaks in some of its
signature conveniences, a full manual mode
and a built-in barcode scanner that usually works.
A couple seconds for the loose ends here.
Nothing to complain about on call quality
or network performance.
The display, while only full HD,
is vibrant with a wide brightness range
and night mode, and yes, there's a headphone jack
even on this super-slim chasse.
Some letdowns too, though.
Even though Motorola calls it a Turbo Charger,
the 15-watt adaptor in the box is anything but.
You'll need to budget two hours to go from dead to 100%.
Also the casing is only treated for splashes.
It's not truly water resistant.
And under Lenovo, Motorola's track record
for timely Android updates is bad.
Don't buy this phone expecting new software
on the regular.
Whether the Z2 Play will be worth it for you
comes down to where you get it.
Verizon Wireless is the exclusive U.S. carrier partner
and if you're buying it to use on big red's network,
it'll cost just over 400 bucks for the phone.
Early buyers also get the new Sound Boost Two Mod
for free.
For that price, I'm gonna say yeah.
The phone is totally worth it.
But when it debuts in unlocked form later this summer,
Motorola's planning to charge about a hundred bucks more.
That doesn't sound like a big bump
but it has the effect of putting it up against
the excellent OnePlus Five, which offers much more
compelling specs and the LG G6, which brings
a much more versatile set of cameras.
So at the price Verizon's asking, I say go for it.
But if you're planning to buy the Z2 Play unlocked,
well I'd hold out either for a discount
or to see if there's a more forceful Motorola
offering later in the year.
Don't forget to check out that Moto Mods video
if you wanna see how those modular stick-ons work
and don't miss the next video.
There are two landing every week on the Mr. Mobile
YouTube channel.
Until next time, thanks for watching,
and stay mobile, my friends.