Motorola Moto Z

The ultra-thin Moto Z comes with a rare feature – modularity. Priced at Rs. 39,999, with some extra to purchase the attachments, you can transform it into your favourite, self-designed phone. Modularity is for those who think differently than regular smartphone users.

Killer design, fantastic performance and great display – Moto Z is a considerable upgrade over Moto X. While it does not come with a headphone jack, the mods like a boom box and pico projector will not keep you bored.

Moto Z takes thinness to a whole new level with a  stainless steel frame. It weighs just 139g and feels thin like wafer at 5.19mm. The main feature of Moto Z is its modular design. You can attach your choice of mods and transform the phone as per your wish.

It does not come with the 3.5mm headphone jack. The fingerprint sensor is placed at the bottom of the screen under the ‘Moto’ logo, and it is convenient though it shifts from the standard back-centre location of the fingerprint reader. The reason for it is the special back which has a wide strip of metallic contact points at the bottom where the magic of the modular assortments takes place.

The fingerprint sensor is snappy and quite accurate. The front glass and stainless steel back make this phone a fingerprint magnet attracting finger smudges now and then which is not very appealing. While the phone is handsome, the camera bulge at the back makes it look unattractive.

Moto Z comes with a standard 5.5-inch screen, but it has a killer resolution of 1440×2560, which is one of the features which gives it the competitive edge against most other flagship rivals which come with 1080×1920 resolution. The Quad HD screen does not come with AMOLED, but it is as rich as most of the high-end flagship rivals with AMOLED display. At a pixel density of 535pp, it produces sharp images and can bring out vibrant colours.

Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with adequate RAM making this phone a power-packer. It boots up quickly and flipping between menu and camera app is quite smooth and snappy. Benchmark scores place it at 5,167 points, beating HTC 10 at 4,962 points and just trailing behind OnePlus 3’s 5,425 points. It can run graphics-heavy games with a slight lag but can smoothly pick up any average games without any frame drop.

Moto Z has a 13MP with an f/1.8 aperture and is equipped with optical image stabilisation and laser autofocus. It is quite a modification from Moto X series. It can good details pictures in daylight, holding on to the sharpness and texture of the image.

The quality of low-light photographs goes down a bit but remains above average. In low-light, the images can get blurry despite having the image stabilisation feature and zero shutter lag.

It does not capture enough details like its flagship rivals Galaxy S7.  The front 5MP selfie camera with an f/2.2 aperture has an LED flash to perform well in low-light situations. It also comes with a wide-angle lens which is capable of capturing group selfies, but it cannot bring too many people in the frame.

Having an ultra-thin design has its cost, and it comes as a weak 2,600 mAh battery. It cannot last through the entire day. Moto Z Force does a much better job at keeping its 40-hour promise. An HD video loop test that ran for 90 minutes saw that the phone was down to 77% from a full battery while Moto Z Force dropped only to 86%. Thankfully, the TurboCharger that is supplied with Moto Z comes to the rescue. It provides fast charging, and 27% of battery life could be replenished within 15 minutes, and a 74-minute charge can get you to full power.

Moto Z is a stylish and powerful modular smartphone which breaks the limits imposed by all modular smartphone making it a phone for the creative people. It is super-thin which comes at the cost of the battery, but other than that, this phone is a capable one to sail you through the essential functions and moderate to heavy games. Both the innovator and power-seeker within you will be pleased while using this phone. However, if none of the mods is appealing for you, then it is a rather expensive set, and Samsung Galaxy S7 becomes a much better choice.