Moto X Play Review: Specifications, Pros, Cons & Price

Motorola is here with another wonderful mid-range smartphone in Moto X series, the Moto X Play. They have launched the product few hours ago into the market through the ecommerce giant Flipkart. The first official sale is going to start this (14/09/2015) mid-night on Flipkart and thanks to Motorola for not bringing up a flash-sale system.

This Moto device looks way better than the Moto G3 (3rd generation) and has some exciting features compared to it. Let’s take a peek through of specifications of this product and see if it is worthy to buy at the price point.

Design

Moto X Play looks as same as Moto  X (2nd generation) on the front side but on the back it reminds me One Plus Two with a camera position connecting the groovy logo. The flash was engraved on the connecting strip only. The body is made up of hard plastic with a textured back panel and a bezel around the perimeter.

The volume rockers and power button are placed conveniently for right(thumb) hand users and the headphone jack on the top. Overall, the design looks great and the textured body would give good grip in hand.

Carved 8.9-10.9mm thinner, with 75mm horizontal width and 148mm length, Moto X Play weighs 169gms i.e., 5.96oz. It feels lighter than some other mid-range phones in the market.

It is available in two colors, black & black and while & winter white as for now.

Display

Moto X Play sports a 5.5. inch full HD 1080p display with 403 ppi and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. It could have been Gorilla Glass 4 just like Asus Zenfone 2 Laser’s but, it seems like Asus got it up to its sleeve all through the production time.

The screen quality would be great as it is bigger, sharper and hope it would be non-yellowish unlike Moto G3.

Performance

Moto X Play comes with 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor supported by 2 GB RAM and Adreno 405 GPU clocking at 550 MHz. This amazing combination is delighted with Natural Language Processing and Contextual computing Processing capabilities.

Multitasking would be great and the gaming with 405 GPU would be nut cracking. But the specification of 615 Snapdragon processor reminds the fear of over heating issues that were happened with Xiaomi Mi4i and other few devices.

Point to be noted: Carl Steen, the director of product management himself had faced some voice recognition issues while demonstrating Moto X Play.

Storage

Moto X Play comes with 16 GB & 32 GB internal memory on board of which user can use only 8.2 GB & 23 GB respectively and the rest is occupied by the operating system. Memory can be expanded through microSD card up to 128 GB.

Operating System

Moto X Play comes with latest Android 5.1.1 Lollipop operating system on board. This helps in conserving the RAM and battery better than the previous 5.0 Lollipop version. Motorola always encourages pure Android experience on their devices and so they would be in the first row to take the upgrades.

Camera

Moto X Play has got a great camera. It comes with 21 MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture and dual tone flash with color-correlated temperature sensing ability. It supports 1080p HD video recording with video stabilization. The features of camera include closed loop processing, tap anywhere to capture and so on. The front camera is 5 MP shooter and it can take decent selfies.

Network & Connectivity

X Play comes supports 4G LTE SIM in both the slots. It comes with common connectivity features like Bluetooth v4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/g/b/n, 3G HSPA+, micro USB, USB and Wi-Fi Tethering and GPS (A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, with Google Maps). It also have NFC unlike many other mid-range smartphones in the market today.

Battery

Motorola took the concerns over the battery life seriously with Moto X Play. They’ve added 3630mAh Li-ion battery that lasts long almost 2 days on moderate usage. The operating system, Lollipop 5.1.1 helps in managing the battery juice well.

Pros

+ Great design
+ Big and sharper screen
+ Very good camera
+ Amazing processing hardware
+ Memory expandability
+ Pure Android experience
+ Dual 4G support, NFC
+ Great battery

Cons

- Processor might heat up
- No 4K video recording
- Non-customized android
- 8 GB dedicated for operating system among 16 GB

Price

Moto X Play is announced at the price of 18,499 INR for 16 GB version and 19,999 INR for 32 GB version.

Buy Moto X Play (16 GB) from Flipkart now (opens in new tab)

Buy Moto X Play (32 GB) from Flipkart now (opens in new tab)

Verdict

Motorola has brought a great device this time under this budget range. The processor is little doubted with heating issues but the supporting hardware combination looks promising. The operating system and camera are a great asset to this version. I’d buy this Moto if I have to or suggest to any of my friends. It’s your time to make choice now.