Today, Lenovo announced the third addition to the Moto Z family, in the Moto Z Play Droid Edition. That name denotes that this will be a Verizon exclusive, at least at launch. It will be available unlocked throughout the rest of the world (and hopefully the US) as well as China. The Moto Z Play is almost identical to the Moto Z and Moto Z Force, although there are a few differences in terms of design. With the back being just one color instead of dual-toned. Internally is where things are much different from the other Moto Z family members.
Powering the Moto Z Play is a lower-powered octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor (yes it does support Quick Charge 3.0). This is paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. If that’s not enough storage for you, don’t worry, as there is a micro SD card slot that can support up to 256GB of storage, and it does support Adoptable Storage, for those that may have been curious. The display is slightly lower resolution, coming in at 1080p, but this is a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED panel, instead of an AMOLED panel found on the Moto Z and Moto Z Force. This is all backed up by a 3510mAh battery, which is just slightly larger than the Moto Z Force’s battery, but should last much longer due to the more power efficient processor and lower-resolution display.
On the back-side of the Moto Z Play, there is a 16-megapixel camera with an f/2.0 aperture which appears to take pretty decent pictures. The front-facing camera is a 5-megapixel shooter with a front-facing flash. Speaking of cameras, the Moto Z Play is being announced with the heavily leaked Hasselblad Camera Moto Mod, which means two things. You now can get a Moto Mod with 10x Optical Zoom and a Xenon flash, as well as the fact that the Moto Z Play works with Moto Mods. This means that the JBL, Incipio and Pico Projector Moto Mods still work with the Moto Z Play. Lenovo says that this is “Moto’s longest lasting smartphone battery ever”. They quote that you can get up to 50 hours on a single charge. Now that’s always going to depend on how you use the smartphone, but given the specs, it does seem pretty likely. The Moto Z Play DROID will be available from Verizon and the Motorola website starting September 8th, and can be picked up for either $408 at full retail or at $17 per month for 24 months. The Moto Z Play will also be available unlocked in the U.S. at $449 in October, with the presale beginning on September 15th. The Moto Z will also be available in he U.S. unlocked at $699 with presales beginning the same day as the Moto Z Play, with full availability in October.
