Motorola went out on a limb a few years ago with the introduction of the Moto Z phone line and the Moto Mods. Although they have not taken the world by storm they have been quite successful but the question this year was how Motorola could update the design while still maintaining backwards compatibility with these Moto Mods. It seems they have done it with the official unveiling of the Moto Z3 Play overnight.
Via their blog Motorola have announced the Moto Z3 Play confirming that the new design will still be compatible with Moto Mods of previous years. To do this Motorola have shrunk the bezels down and moved the fingerprint sensor to the side of the phone so that the mods sit on the same backing but the front is entirely redesigned to match current (or 2017?) trends.
The front of the device now houses a 6.01 inch 1080P 18:9 aspect ratio Super AMOLED display (giving 13 percent more screen area), the Motorola branding and that’s it. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 636, 4GB of RAM and has either 32GB or 64GB of onboard storage which can be increased via the microSD slot (up to 400GB). The battery is 3000mAh and supports Motorola’s Turbo Charging.
The camera setup is a dual rear camera (12MP and 5MP) while the front camera is an 8MP shooter. Like all other manufacturers Motorola have added their own AI smart features to the camera software helping to improve the shooting parameters for each image.
The Z3 Play once again features the always listening voice detection and they have added a gesture-based One Button Nav bar”” at the bottom to improve usability of the larger screen. The phone will run Android 8.1 Oreo at release with Motorola’s slight (in a good way) modifications to the operating system.
At this stage local availability is unknown but it will be retailing the the US for US$499 with a battery mod included in the box. Hopefully the price of the phone is kept at this mid-range price here in Australia, and just as importantly, the Moto Mod prices are also kept in check.
We will of course keep you posted when we hear anything regarding local availability and pricing.
Available for pre-order in Australia from today!
Nice, I just can’t make my brain say Moto ‘Zee’ 3 like in that video.
Headphone jack?
They removed it 🙁
What Mod has that kickstand?
I know the JBL SoundBoost has a kickstand.
Yes. Turns out this image is off a Digital TV mod that was only released in Brazil…
I’m really disappointed by the display in direct sunlight, judging by the hands on video at The Verge. Otherwise I’d be into this :/