- Almost no battery.
(click)
Full battery.
(upbeat electronic music)
What I have here is the Moto Z3 Play
and I've been playing around with it for a couple of weeks.
As it's name implies, it's the third model
of the Z series of Motorola's modular phones.
The whole concept of this phone is built
around amplifying its capabilities via mods.
Most of the mods are sold separately
and they add features to the phone
that go from extra battery to a screen projector.
It's a cool concept that sets this phone apart
from the rest, but it depends heavily on the functionality
and added value of the mods.
So with that in mind, let's take a look at this Motorola.
The Moto Z3 Play makes a very good first impression.
If you were to bring it home to meet the parents,
it would do just fine at first.
The design on this phone feels premium.
You wouldn't automatically think it's a mid-range phone
even though that's what it is.
It's composed of glass and metal.
The materials give it a really nice feel.
On the other hand, it's hard to get past the camera bump
on the back.
I think that more and more we're getting used
to cleaner, more smooth looking devices,
but the camera design and the magnetic piece
at the bottom are there for a reason.
They're there so you can fit the mods for the phone.
More on that later.
The display on this phone is actually great.
It's a super AMOLED screen.
Like all AMOLED screens, it shows true blacks
and vibrant colors.
The display didn't struggle when I put it
under direct sunlight, which is a big plus,
but now for more practical functions,
I think that's where the Moto Z3 is less impressive.
It's not water resistant, but it's water repellent.
That means it will survive rain,
but not a dive in the sink.
The button placement is all over the place.
So first you have the power button on one side.
Then you have the volume buttons on the other side
and below that, you have a fingerprint reader.
And I'm sorry, but that's just a weird place
to put that feature.
The phone is really thin.
It's really think because you're meant to beef it up
with extra stuff.
Enter the Moto Z3 Play most particular characteristic:
the mods.
That's this phone's unique selling point
and also what's gonna make you do a lot more buying.
There's 14 mods available and they're meant
to expand this phone's capabilities one way or another.
The phone comes with a power-packed mod,
the most essential, if you will.
It's an extra battery that packs enough juice
for a full charge on the phone.
Other more gimmicky mods include a stereo speaker,
a game pad, and even a Polaroid printer.
Several of the mods are redundant.
Two of them are battery packs and a couple
of the other ones are basically plastic protectors.
Although the modular idea is pretty cool,
you really have to be into what these mods offer
because they don't come cheap.
They cost from $40 to $80 a pop
and you also have to keep in mind
that if you want to swap them around later,
you'll have to carry them around with you.
The Z3 Play comes with a USB-C port.
It supports turbo charging through Motorola's fast chargers.
It also has some Micro SD slots
so you can expand the storage beyond the 64 gigabytes
that come with it.
This model comes with a pretty clean version
of Android 8.1 Oreo.
The software that Motorola added is, first of all,
optional and, second of all, it's not intrusive.
If anything, it might add to your experience.
Like if you want to take a screenshot,
there's an easier way to do it.
So you just have to place three fingers
on the screen and you'll have your screenshot,
which is a lot easier than pressing the volume down button
and power button at the same time.
As far as power, the Z3 Play comes
with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636 processor,
a mid-range chip for a mid-range phone.
But the phone makes full use of it
because it never felt sluggish.
The battery should last 40 hours according to Motorola,
but it didn't go beyond one day of regular use.
That's where the Power Pack Battery mod comes in handy.
Maybe Motorola claimed the 40 hours of battery life
of the phone counting the Power Pack.
The cameras on this phone are average,
nothing special about them.
It has a jewel camera on the back at 12 and five megapixels
and the front camera is eight megapixels.
All of them fall a bit short on sharpness
and color accuracy, no matter the lighting conditions.
There's an auto HDR feature,
but it over saturates the images.
Motorola tried to amp the status of these cameras
by adding a pile of features to the camera app.
They're interesting, but none of them mind blowing.
But the novelty of these features wears off really easy
and the cameras, they're not bad,
but they're not great either.
(upbeat electronic music)
This Motorola has very solid characteristics.
The display is definitely top shelf
and despite having a second tier processor,
it works really well.
Sure, the modular phone idea is interesting
and kind of fun, but we've already seen the concept
with previous models and the new mods aren't mind blowing
so they don't even justify the prices.
This is Motorola's last entry
in it's modular phone's trilogy
and like in the movies, maybe they created it
to give the story an ending.
It's not a bad ending, but it's not a good one either.
(upbeat electronic music)
That was it for the Moto Z3 Play.
I'll see you next time here on Power Up
with another cool gadget
and don't forget to catch us every Tuesday
in our technology segment on Telemundo's morning show:
Un Nuevo Dia.