Gadgetory

the next evolution of mobile Internet is on its way however Motorola and Verizon are still providing a phone right now that will get that capability sometime later via a moto mod but is the prospect of 5g enough to make you buy this phone today well this is PocketNow and I am Joshua Vergara what's going on everybody welcome to my full review of the Moto Z 3 all right full disclosure I have used the moto Z 3 for a little while now but I haven't used a moto Z phone in a little while so there are a few things that have changed here that might be familiar to you but or brand-new to me and on top of that I actually didn't have any of the modal mods for my review of this which I kind of preferred actually because I have used plenty of the mods in the past and they haven't exactly changed in terms of their architecture and in this case I wanted to make sure that I use the moto Z 3 and see what it would be like as a standalone device after all the nature of the Moto mod hasn't exactly changed a whole lot and Motorola has stated that there are going to be three generation supported of the mods and with the z3 we're coming up on that third generation and I can see why that needs to be the case the moto mods do require a specific design language and after three generations of it Motorola doesn't want to back themselves into a corner in terms of how they build their phones you still get those pins over on the bottom third on the backing and the backing itself is really a fingerprint magnet and then there's that bulbous camera hump at the top that kind of requires you to have at least a style cover so that you can keep that thing flush with the back without anything on the backing the phone is pretty thin and it's so thin in fact that there is no headphone jack on here you have to use an adapter with the USB C port and speaking of saving space there's no fingerprint reader on the front or the back anymore it's embedded into the right side but not in the power button there's still a dedicated power button over on the left side just opposite the fingerprint reader and everything else about this phone screams reliable but not necessarily exciting the six inch super amoled Full HD plus screen does its job quite well and even if it's not as spectacular display some of the features that moto baked into eight are ones that we want to see in plenty of other phones see the Moto display in particular makes it clear that you don't really need an always-on display but you do need a good ambient display that's exactly what this is you can wave your hand close to the phone and the sensors will know it and it will show you the clock and any notifications underneath you can press and hold on any of those notifications and swipe in any direction depending on what you want to do moto display also includes its own brand of night mode and then from there moto includes plenty of the gestures that are returning from previous moto devices with a couple of additions but in keeping with the trend that we've been seeing in Android lately the navbar can be replaced by one singular button or bar that you swipe in either direction or press upon in order to do the back recent apps and home key function it's just I going to the different recent apps that I want to require that little swipe and it just doesn't feel as intuitive or as easy as having an actual button dedicated to it with that said multitasking between applications and all the ones that I have installed is still good with the snapdragon 835 which is last year's processor now that's not a dig at the 8:35 it's more just a way of saying that this phone doesn't necessarily have the best specifications to go up against the high-end flagships the 835 is still going to be compatible with the modem that is inside the 5g mod so you're still going to get that evolution and otherwise you get four or six gigabytes of RAM with 64 or 128 gigabytes of storage with microSD card expansion and finally to round out the specifications there is a 3000 milliamp hour battery unit in here that is not exceptional it's definitely not spectacular but the Moto z3 still manages to get through a full day of work and play with in my case four and a half hours of screen on time so we can talk about the cameras the front-facing shooter is an 8 megapixel shooter that does come with a portrait mode so even if it's not an exceptional performer that portrait mode might be nice to use if you can get the effect right and get that bouquet tout background the portrait mode is also used on the rear camera which is a 12 megapixel dual lens array where one of the 12 megapixel shooters is a monochrome sensor I kind of like that there's a true black and white mode for both photo and video because it's using that dedicated 12 mega pixel monochrome sensor and the result can be some pretty cool looking very contrasting and very artsy looking black and white photos and videos I found the camera quality to be just fine there could be a punch to the colors in these photos and also in video even when you're recording in 4k resolution my main gripe with the photos is that with an F 2.0 aperture you're not going to get a whole lot of depth of field behind your subjects without having to resort to using the portrait mode but for people that are looking to this phone as their next purchase mainly because of its lower price point I don't blame them for going for it and they will still get a camera that is usable in general daily let's say social media usage so again this is a phone that you might be familiar with because a lot of it is something you've seen before so what is this actually four well the obvious answer is that it's going to be a conduit for that future 5g moto mod and it's going to prove that 5g is going to be the next evolution of mobile Internet assured in by Verizon what I will admit is that while this phone doesn't exactly get me too excited just as a standalone device what it does remind me of is that sometimes I have carrier Envy no matter how you slice it Verizon is a reliable and probably the fastest network we have in the US but here's the thing you're kind of gambling on 5g actually being amazing from the outset if you're going to get this phone and then wait to pay the potentially hundreds of dollars for the 5g mod somewhere down the line and I'm not saying that the 5g mod is not going to fulfill its promises but it's not something that we can really guarantee especially at this point in the game but there are people out there who are really spec hungry and would require the snapdragon 845 require the latest processor probably there's going to be one that we're going to see coming out the woodwork by the time the 5g mod even comes out so you have to pick and choose where you want to be on the bleeding edge do you want to be on the bleeding edge in terms of mobile internet or do you want to be on the bleeding edge in terms of general everyday device performance as by the time 5g becomes a reality this phone might be up to two generations behind all of the phones that we're getting in that point in time there's really only one other person I can think of that would really want to get this phone that is the Verizon user that is budget minded and needs to do an upgrade without breaking the bank you can get a really good specification combination in the Moto z3 even if it's not the absolute best one and if you are not hankering for the latest and greatest then the Moto z3 is kind of a bargain and finally if you happen to be an avid user of the moto mods then this is going to be the last time that you can use what actually has been one of the better innovations in our recent smartphone history and by the time the Moto z4 comes out things will be radically different as always thank you very much for watching and I hope you enjoyed my review on the Moto Z 3 my first review here at pocket now I'll be chiming in from time to time with reviews like this and other pieces of content and I wanted to review the Moto Z 3 because I hadn't touched the Moto Z in a little while so subscribe to pocket now for reviews and comparisons and the daily of course hosted by Jaime Rivera and you can do so by hitting that subscribe button and consider hitting that bell over on the side if you want to keep up with all of the that comes out on this channel you can also follow what I'm up to over on my personal channel youtube.com slash and Joshua Vergara where I do other pieces of content on stuff like the Moto XIII but right now I'm working on that Galaxy Note 9 of which you can look forward to both here and on my channel in the coming days so once again thank you so much for watching and I'll see you on the next one look forward to even more from myself and all of the guys here at pocket now