Gadgetory

hey how's it going guys this is Dave - Dee and this is a video on the moto Z and the Moto Z force so what makes these phones special are the fact that they're modular phones they have detachable components that you can switch around to make the phones do different things but these aren't the first modular phones we've seen this year LG had the g5 which was a bit of a Miss but these phones the Moto phones are a completely different take on the whole modular phone concept so let's take a look at how they are as a regular smartphone first they're currently both Verizon exclusives but the Moto Z will eventually come in an unlocked version of contract they're around $600 for the Moto Z and $700 for the Moto Z force they're pretty expensive so thankfully the build quality is on point everything just feels super solid the machining on the metal is great the seams are tight and there's next to no material flux because it is an aluminum body even the back it's actually one of the best built phones I've seen from Motorola and the Moto Z is super thin it's five point two millimeters one of the thinnest you can get on the market right now the bigger one the Moto G force is a bit thicker and heavier but when you use them individually they're actually both comfortable to use the buttons on the side are all the same size they're kind of small and they're positioned a little higher than the Moto X buttons but because the power button is still textured I got used to it quickly the camera hump on the back is one of the bigger ones out there but these humps are so common out they've kind of stopped bothering me if you're wondering about phone wobble from the hump it's not an issue if you're in portrait mode but if you're in landscape yeah there is a bit of a wobble both of the cameras have an aperture of 1.8 with oh is and laser focusing it can't take the crown from the Samsung phones right now but it takes some very respectable photos accurate colors good dynamic range the one on the Z force has a higher resolution at 21 megapixels instead of the 13 megapixels on the Z but aside from having higher resolution the image quality looks very similar between them both in low light and brightly lit environments the photos that I took in low lights aren't amazing they have quite a bit of noise and even if I'm on HDR the image doesn't look great I did notice that the Z Force has more reliable focusing for macro photos probably because it has phase detection the regular mode is you would hunt for focus a bit more but yeah pretty good cameras overall I wouldn't say that they're strong in low-light but for an everyday shooter I'm happy with it it also shoots 4k video the displays are both five and a half inch quad HD AMOLED panels colors are vibrant and the viewing angles are good like all ammo LEDs but they aren't super bright in a brightly lit room the screens can feel a little dim at times there's standard Gorilla Glass 4 on the Moto Z the Z Force has Motorola's shatter shield which is guaranteed to be shatterproof and we've seen that stuff before it's really durable the voice quality on the mic seemed good and earpiece volume is appropriately loud it doubles as the mono speaker doesn't sound amazing and I definitely miss the stereo speakers from the Moto X but it's not bad the square fingerprint sensor works well but it's not a home button I pressed it so many times this week trying to use it as a home button I don't love the square shape I feel like it doesn't really go with the design aesthetic of the phone but it gets the job done there's now a three-and-a-half millimeter audio jack you need to use the included adapter to use headphones there's still a jack in the phone it's not in the adapter cable but it's in the phone itself and the audio sounds very standard for a smart phone it's not a super special deck and there anything the dongle is super easy to lose if you leave the dongle attach to your headphone it can help but I did this and I still lost one so maybe use some tape system performance is fast they're both running a Snapdragon 820 so you expect it to be fast but it does get pretty warm it's not uncomfortable to hold or anything but it throttles down when you're running long benchmarks or sometimes when you're playing more demanding games basically if you push the processor hard it heats up and once it hits 39 or 40 degrees the CPU throttles down and amp up the problem if you're using a modem odd that covers the back of the phone like a battery something now there is another object on the back that also puts out Heat and it makes it more difficult for the processor to dissipate the heat so if you're a hardcore gamer and you want maximum frame rates I would just keep the phone naked on the back to let that CPU cool off the Moto Z runs a relatively small battery and using just the built-in battery I had a tough time getting it to last a full day it's doable but it's not easy the Moto z-force has a significantly bigger battery and last thing a full day is pretty comfortable but for both of these because they have turbo charging the battery mods most users should be okay it's running android 6.0.1 the standard motorola tweaks are still there and as much as I love stock Android I also like Motorola's version because it's so close to vanilla with some useful things like the twist for camera and this year the twist for camera is really fast a few months ago when I was trying to use the LG g5 as my daily driver I remember thinking that maybe modular phones aren't for me the phone is really cool and fun to play with but the modular pieces didn't have that polish that I needed in a daily driver the moto mods are really different they're well made and super simple to use a few magnets securely hold them in place and when you touch them there's no rebooting or any kind of user requirement it automatically gets recognized whenever you place them on the style covers are pretty basic there's just various covers of different materials this one's made with real wood it doesn't have any functionality other than aesthetics but if you've ever said hey phone companies please give me a thicker phone with a bigger battery well now you can do that a bunch of companies are bringing out battery options this one's from incipio it has wireless charging capabilities and packs a 2200 milliamp battery in there and with all of these you can straight up hot swap the battery in the middle of a phone call there's no need to turn it off when you connect it the modal model actually fill up the internal battery I really like these and I think these are the first hot swappable batteries I've seen on a phone now if you've ever wanted some proper speakers and didn't want to bring an external Bluetooth speaker you can do that so at first I thought why would I want this thing when I already have a good Bluetooth speaker that I really like but after using it for a while I'm sold even though it makes your phone pretty thick when it's attached having only one thing to charge and one thing to carry is really nice it doesn't sound as good as some Bluetooth speakers but compared to anything on a phone this thing is fantastic when you're using moto mods there's a widget that shows the battery level of the mod itself some mods can be charged separately or you can attach the mod to the Moto Z plug in your USB C cable and that will charge up the phone first and then charge up the mod once the phone is full now if you want to use mods you probably won't be able to use a bumper or a case the device looks good naked but if you ever want to change it up you can easily put on a D brand skin the mod still work perfectly this one is concrete it's linked ville okay the moto Z and Z force phones they both have an aluminum chassis with great build quality five and a half inch AMOLED screens that have vibrant colors but they could be a little brighter there's a single speaker up top so no stereo sound they have square-shaped fingerprint sensors that are fast they both have 5 megapixel front facing cameras the moto Z has Gorilla Glass 4 the Moto G Force has shatter shield on the back of the device we have a 13 or a 21 megapixel camera both they're solid shooters there's also a series of connection points and magnets for all the cool modal mods on the inside we have 32 gigs of storage upgradeable by micro sd a Snapdragon 820 that is fast but it can throttle on benchmarks and heavier games especially if you have a modem I attached powering them our batteries that are a little short on the Moto Z but comfortable on the Moto Z force and lastly they both have a water-resistant nano coating that should protect it from the rain so I think Motorola did a really good job on these phones I've always been interested in modular phones and I've often been disappointed by them these are the first ones that have been very impressed by it they're really well executed the mods themselves are really well done the mechanism of how everything works is really intuitive and simple to use and the best thing is that Motorola wants these mods the ones that exist today they want them to be able to work on future Motorola phones they wanted to have like an extended life like that that is awesome that shows commitment from Motorola for like a long-term investment in this whole modular phone thing if you're interested in modular phones take a look at the Moto Z might like it hope you guys enjoyed this video thumbs have you liked it subs if you loved it it's been nice see you guys next time Oh