Motorola is one of the few companies to be betting big on modular smartphones. So much so that the Lenovo-owned smartphone brand introduced three such devices earlier this year – the flagship Moto Z Force, the premium Moto Z and the mid-range Moto Z Play. The smartphones come with different hardware, with the Moto Z and the Moto Z Force featuring cutting-edge specs and predictably higher price-tags when compared to the more humble Moto Z Play. The one common aspect of the three devices, however, is their support for third-party modules, which include a Hasselblad True Zoom Camera with 10X optical zoom, an Incipio offGRID 2,220 mAh battery case, a JBL SoundBoost speaker and a custom Insta-Share projector that projects up to a distance of about 70-inches.
The Moto Z and the Moto Z Play were launched several weeks after the Moto Z Force was announced back in June, and have already been on sale in the U.S. for about a month as the Moto Z Play Droid and the Moto Z Droid respectively. The two smartphones were also launched in India earlier this week at prices ranging from $375 for the former to around $600 for the latter. The same two devices are now going on sale in Canada, with a number of carriers in the country starting to sell the handsets at prices ranging from CAD 150 for the Moto Z Play on a two-year contract to around CAD 900 for the Moto Z at full retail. Rogers, Bell, SaskTel and Wind Mobile have all priced the Moto Z at CAD 400 on a two-year contract, with Wind Mobile and Bell also offering it at CAD 900 off-contract.
As for the Moto Z Play, the device is up for grabs at Rogers for CAD 150 on a two-year term, which is a discount of about CAD 500 on the phone’s full retail price of CAD 649. The greatest attraction for Motorola’s all-new Z-series devices are the Moto Mod add-ons, which as is to be expected, are also going on sale simultaneously. While the aforementioned Incipio offGRID 2,220 mAh power pack comes with a price-tag of CAD 100, the JBL SoundBoost speaker costs a cool CAD 350. The Insta-Share projector, as expected, sports the biggest price-tag of all, costing as much as CAD 400.