Motorola just announced the first update to its modular smartphones from last year. In an event in Goa today, the company made the Moto Z2 Play official, a mid-range offering. You also have four new Moto Mods to choose from now, but the Moto Z2 Play is a pretty able phone on its own as well, at least on paper. At Rs. 27,999, the Moto Z2 Play will be a tough contender.
It competes against phones like the The Samsung Galaxy A5 (review) and the presumably the upcoming Nokia 6 as well. The Galaxy A5 is an interesting device, meant for premium buyers. Like the Galaxy A5, the Nokia 6 also puts design over specifications. Let's put the Moto Z2 Play against these two devices to see what we could come to expect.
We're including the Moto G5 Plus (review) as well, so one can gauge what kind of an update/upgrade they can expect.
Modularity
With the announcement of its new Moto Mods, we also see a very obvious vulnerability in Motorola’s strategy with its phones. The modular concept is innovative indeed, but the magnetic connector on the bottom also means Motorola can’t change the design of its smartphones drastically. And that is why the Moto Z2 Play looks almost exactly like its predecessor.
To be clear, Motorola has made changes to the design, adding metal instead of glass and redesigning the antenna bands. However, the basic look of the phone remains the same.
Camera
On the other hand, the dual-pixel camera on the Moto Z2 Play may be just what we needed in this segment. In our experience, phones in the sub-30k segment don’t have very good cameras, and that’s a hole the Moto Z2 Play may fill. Going by what we saw on the Moto G5 Plus recently, this is shaping up to be the best camera in this segment.