Gadgetory

what's up guys wand here from andrew authority and the successor to the Moto Z play is here and it brings along some new friends and some new improvements but are all of these changes for the better and is it still one of the best mid-range phones that you can buy this is the Moto Z to play the biggest change with this year's v2 play that you'll notice right off the bat is the design is a little bit different it's a little thinner one millimeter thinner to be exact giving it a much sleeker feel in the hand and the back is now all-metal which is a huge improvement over the fingerprint prone glass back of the original Z play otherwise the overall design and form factor is practically the same as last year and it sort of had to be for one simple reason the Moto mods motorola has refreshed the Moto mods with the release of the z2 play but if you have last year's moto mods these will all fit and work perfectly fine just like Motorola promised motorola is guaranteeing compatibility of the Moto mods with their phones for three years so you could probably save yourself some cash by buying last year's mods if you're looking to invest in them for the first time despite shaving off an entire millimeter there's still plenty of space for a headphone jack so nothing to be worried about there but the thinner body did come with one compromise the battery capacity has dropped from 35 10 milliamp hours on the original Z play to 3000 milliamp hours the z2 play is not going to get you the two days of battery life that the Z play did but it can still last a solid day to a day and a half that's well above average and more than what you typically get on most other Android phones I've never struggled to get through a full day even with heavy use and I would usually end the day with anywhere between 25 to 40% battery left so battery life was your main concern there's nothing to be worried about here it's still exceptionally good and it supports Motorola's Turbo Power charging which can quickly get you a 50 percent charge in only 30 minutes you won't find a whole lot of bells and whistles on the z2 play after all this is a mid-range device it's not IP certified against water and dust in any way but it does have a water repellant nano coating so it is at the very least resistant to the occasional splash audio also isn't all that great on the V to play at least not without resorting to a moto mod there's only one speaker embedded in the earpiece and while I do appreciate that it is a front firing speaker it doesn't get very loud and because it's just a mono speaker you get a very lopsided listening experience when using the phone in landscape the fingerprint sensor has been redesigned with the same oval shape that we initially saw earlier this year on the g5 plus it works great unlocking the phone with reliability and speed but in addition to that you can use various different gestures to move around the OS in place of the on screen navigation buttons this is great if you want to maximize the screen real estate but there is a bit of a learning curve to using one button for everything just like last year's motorcy play you've got a 5.5 inch 1080p screen and it is an AMOLED screen so colors are vibrant with deep dark blacks viewing angles are also quite nice and in most situations it looks pretty good its spacious enough for comfortably browsing the web and playing games but it's not that bright so it is tough to see under direct sunlight even at max brightness inside it's got the newer Snapdragon 626 processor with either three or four gigabytes of RAM depending on storage and there is a micro SD card slot if you need more than what the phone offers internally the Verizon model is currently only being offered in the three gigabyte version and that's the one I've been using for the past week it performs well with general everyday tasks like opening apps browsing the web and checking emails it does tend to drop frames from time to time when playing more graphically intense games it's not something you'll notice very often because for the most part the experience is very smooth and I never found the occasional drop frame to be much of a distraction of course software plays a huge role in the way this phone performs you'll find Android 7.1.1 nougat on board but what I love most about Motorola software is that they keep everything very close to stock while only adding in a few software tweaks that enhance the experience you still get all Motorola software additions like the double chop to turn on the flashlight risk twist to launch the camera and the ever so useful battery friendly notifications that fade in and out with the Moto display if you get this phone on Verizon you will have to deal with Verizon's entire suite of bloatware applications and a few other pre-installed third-party apps like NFL Mobile and slacker radio this won't be a problem on the unlocked model but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense why Verizon still insist on bogging down their phones with extra bloatware when pretty much all of it is already being offered by google for free another improvement that motorola has made to this year's e to play is with the camera they have reduced the number of megapixels down to 12 in favor of larger pixels and the camera now has a much wider F 1.7 aperture this certainly helps with brighter images in low light but the camera still has to resort to the slowest shutter speed possible and high ISO s that are typically around a thousand or higher which results in a lot of noise the camera is slow to capture in low light especially when using HDR and without optical image stabilization don't expect the photos to have very much sharpness or detail colors are also very washed out and highlights are overblown with a lot of JJ Abrams lens flares photos and good lighting conditions are certainly better with better color accuracy and detail but they still lack sharpness and properly exposed highlights it's just as problematic as it is in low-light the camera is sufficient but the results are definitely nowhere near as good as what you would get from a more expensive flagship the front-facing camera on the other hand pretty much remains unchanged from last year it's a 5 megapixel F 2.2 lens with a front-facing flash and the front-facing flash does a decent job of illuminating your face without being overly harsh but it does cause a lot of the details in the background to get crushed that you're almost better off without it currently the Moto Z to play isn't exclusive to Verizon and if you buy between now and July 26 the JBL sound boost moto mod is included for free if you're not on Verizon there's an unlocked version coming later the summer for $500 that's a $50 increase over last year's model and that's pretty high considering this is a mid-range phone at this price you might be thinking why not buy the oneplus 5 instead and you wouldn't be wrong to think that way it's being offered for roughly the same price and it's a much more powerful smartphone so in a lot of ways it is the better purchase especially if you're looking purely at just the phones themselves the real differentiator of course is the moto mods and that's what it boils down to it depends on how much you value the Moto mods and potentially how invested you already are in the Moto mod ecosystem if you're coming from a previous Moto Z that it wouldn't make sense to switch to another device that didn't support them another thing to consider is the fact that the Moto mod still aren't cheap and most of the things that the modal mods do you could find third-party accessories that are not only cheaper but also work with all of your devices there's still nothing out there that's quite as sleek or unique as the moto mods but what you're really paying for here is the convenience factor don't get me wrong the z2 play is a great mid-range phone that does a lot of things well on its own but in order to truly make it worth your while you need to invest in more than just the phone itself as always thank you guys so much for watching this video I hope you enjoyed this review of the Moto z2 play if you did please give a thumbs up down below we definitely appreciate it subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and hit that notification bell while you're at it so don't miss out on future videos and check us out on social media instagram twitter snapchat google+ all that good stuff will be linked down below and check the website as well and Jordan thorny calm because we are your source for all things Android