The Moto Z3 Play's stunning cyan exterior and ecosystem of mods dress up average performance, battery life and photography. While other companies have given up on the modular smartphone dream, Motorola remains committed. With the Moto Z3 Play, we've reached the third generation of Moto Mods — a platform that has given rise to a variety of snap-on accessories that work with every model in the Moto Z family, even dating back to the original phone released back in But none of those advantages quite excuse the Z3 Play's shortcomings, which keep it from being on our list of the best smartphones — though it gets awfully close.
Unlike the devices from OnePlus and Honor, though, the Z3 Play is wired to work on every major carrier. You can add up to a 2TB microSD card if you need even more space for media and apps.
Amazon Prime members can do even better than that, though. Sprint and regional carrier U. Cellular will eventually offer their own versions of the Z3 Play locked to their respective networks. Motorola tells us these variants won't come with the Power Pack, but they may also be cheaper as a result. The impact of Moto Mods can be felt, even when you haven't attached one to the Z3 Play, simply because of how Motorola had to design its phones to accommodate them.
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To ensure compatibility with previous Mods, the footprint of the Z3 Play had to stay precisely the same as its predecessor's though the frame is a hair thicker. So, too, did the flat back, which still digs its semisharp edges into your palms when you use the Z3 Play. It's not a deal breaker by any stretch, though it does lend an unusual feeling that isn't found in more curvaceous handsets.
The Z3 Play looks very familiar, right down to its large camera hump — another cue returning from Motorola's earlier modular phones. But turn the slab over and you'll notice a few key changes. At 6 inches, it's much larger than the Z2 Play's 5. Then, there's the fingerprint sensor — a casualty of those trimmed-down bezels. It's now on the right edge of the device, a spot some will recognize from past Sony smartphones.
The problem with this approach is that it's never quite as natural as you'd think. It involves awkwardly curling your thumb to meet the fingerprint sensor in the proper spot. At least the scanner is easy to locate, with pronounced edges on either side, and in practice, it was as accurate as any conventionally placed one. In an ideal world, the sensor would have doubled as the Z3 Play's power button, which, curiously, has migrated to the left side of the device.
The back of the Z3 Play is clad in glass rather than metal, but it looks so good that you're not likely to care. Oddities aside, the Z3 Play is nevertheless attractive, sturdy and light. The phone only comes in one color — Deep Indigo — though it's an elegant shade of murky blue-green that classes up the product.
Not to mention, the hue complements the exposed brass pins used to connect Mods really nicely. The phone's back is now clad in glass rather than metal, but it looks so good in its mirrored finish that you're not likely to care. Like previous Moto Z handsets, the Z3 Play isn't IP-rated for water resistance — probably a consequence of the Mod system — though once again, the company says it should at least withstand splashes and spills, thanks to a hydrophobic nanocoating.
We can live with that, though the omission of the Z2 Play's headphone jack — even though the new model is thicker — is harder to justify. Unfortunately, being AMOLED alone isn't enough to make the Z3 Play's screen the best in its category, and brightness — or lack thereof — is the reason why. At a peak of nits, the Z3 Play's 6-inch, x display is well below the nit average for phones. And it's even further away from the OnePlus 6, which reached a whopping nits.
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The brightness issue is a shame, because the Z3 Play has an otherwise fine screen, with excellent color reproduction and a choice of realistic and vivid display profiles. The trailer for the upcoming Predator film provided an excellent showcase for the AMOLED tech's ability to render murky, deep blacks and juicy reds. Brightness aside, the viewing experience was just as invigorating as what I saw on the OnePlus 6's screen. In its standard display mode, the Z3 Play achieved a Delta-E score of 0. Numbers closer to zero are better. The panel also covered percent of the sRGB spectrum, which is on point for realistic color tuning.
The iPhone X achieved 0. Just don't expect to be very comfortable using the Z3 Play in direct sunlight. Interestingly, Motorola refers to that 5-MP rear shooter as a "depth sensor" and not a camera in its own right. That's somewhat disappointing, but when the Z3 Play's two lenses work together, they still yield decent results. Motorola's handset produced a portrait every bit as crisp as OnePlus,' albeit with stronger contrast and more vivid color.
Unfortunately, that depth sensor did an inadequate job of separating the foreground from the background, resulting in strange pockets of focus interspersed with messy blurring around the model's shoulders and hair.
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A photo using just the Z3 Play's main MP lens produced more consistent results. The Z3 Play couldn't capture quite the same gradation of purple hues that the OnePlus 6 provided, and the fringes of the foreground exhibited some haziness — a common fault of all but the very best phone cameras. Still, the Z3 Play put in an effort that's better than we're typically used to seeing from Motorola's handsets, like the Moto X4 Android One.
Indoors, the Z3 Play's noisy and borderline grayscale, low-light attempt was worlds away from what the OnePlus 6 achieved. It's really no contest; Motorola's effort is vaguely fuzzy, with significantly darker shadows that completely obscure the left half of the frame and very little color. This is an area the company really ought to work on.
I came away a little more impressed with the results from the Z3 Play's 8-MP front camera.
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You do get some of that painterly splotchiness that tends to afflict low-resolution cameras on phones, though the OnePlus 6's version is overly soft, which doesn't help, either. The Moto Z3 Play's shooter is not the kind of camera you can depend on to consistently punch above its weight. At best, like when taking shallow, depth-of-field portraits outside, the Z3 Play rivals value leaders like the OnePlus 6.
At worst, like when snapping dim stills indoors, there's absolutely no contest.
Motorola's latest phone isn't averse to occasional flashes of brilliance, but it's not the kind of camera you can depend on to consistently punch above its weight. The Z3 Play has the same 3,mAh battery its predecessor employed, but this iteration seems to be a bit more efficient on a charge. Our unit surfed websites on T-Mobile's LTE network for 10 hours and 3 minutes, good for a half-hour improvement over the Z2 Play and slightly better than the average for smartphones. The Z3 Play may not be able to match the long battery life of the original Z Play, but Motorola looks like it's quelling that complaint by including a Power Pack mod with the purchase of the device from participating retailers.
The Power Pack adds 2, mAh of charge to the existing 3, mAh, for an impressive total of 5, mAh when both batteries are topped up.
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That's even more than the Moto E4 Plus and Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom — the longest-lasting, highest-capacity handsets we've encountered since the beginning of Using a mod isn't necessarily a replacement for a long-lasting, built-in battery, though throwing in a mod as a pack-in is something Motorola probably should have done last year.
Besides, just about everyone who buys a Z3 Play should find a use for the extra battery life at one time or another.
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The extra Power Pack quells Moto Z3 Play battery life concerns a bit, but then a larger battery to begin with would have done the same. Motorola's Turbopower rapid-charging tech returns with the Z3 Play, and once again, it guarantees half a day's worth of power in half an hour. That translates to about 60 percent in 30 minutes when connected to the wall, though our unit fell just short of that in testing, only hitting 53 percent in that time.
The Z3 Play does move promptly when you ask it to. The phone is even capable of recording slow motion video. Each of those aforementioned devices shoots better photos and record better videos, and even offer more advanced slow motion recording features. That subject of cost is made all the more flagrant when one considers that the Moto Z3 Play is compatible with the full suite of existing Moto Mods.
An impressive smartphone at a disappointing price. While the Moto Z3 Play might be the best Z-series smartphone ever released by Motorola, its hefty price tag makes it a difficult device to recommend to anyone looking for a new phone.