Quick Look at the Lenovo Moto X Play

The Moto X Play is Lenovo’s new mid-range offering, sitting between the Moto X Style, and the Moto G. The name Moto X Play suggests that this should be closer to its larger and pricier kin, but does it really live up to the Moto X name?

The short version? Nope. 

For the long version? Keep reading.

The Moto X Play feels like a pretty substantial device when you pick it up. The plastic sides, and removable back panel are reminiscent of older Moto G devices rather than Moto X devices. The buttons are nice and tactile, and overall, I would say the phone is pretty well built for a plastic phone.

The design is somewhat subjective though. While the front is relatively clean looking, the rear has these huge bezels surround the back panel, making it look kind of rugged. Perhaps that's exactly the look that Lenovo was going for, but I'm not a huge fan of it. 

The front houses a 5.5” Full HD LCD panel that looks decent, but not great. Also, since it's an LCD panel, Moto Display now lights up the whole panel instead of just the small icon in the middle of the screen. The display has deep enough blacks in daylight to make it still look decent, but in dimmer lighting conditions, the whole panel lighting up is kind of distracting and obtrusive.

Looking at the front of the device, you'll think that, “Nice! Front facing stereo speakers!”. Nope. It's just a single firing speaker on the bottom like the Nexus 5X. While it does sound better than the Nexus 5X to me, it doesn't take away from the fact that the cheaper, and older 2014 Moto G has stereo speakers, and the X Play doesn't.

Being a Moto device, it comes with some features I’ve come to enjoy. Like the double twist to activate camera feature, or the ability to activate voice commands hands-free, or the ability to preview notifications via Moto Display. But that's about it. It's a similar feature set to the first gen Moto X. There is no IR sensors on the front so you can wave your hand over to wake the phone. No double chop to open the LED flash (something the Moto G 2015 has by the way). 

It runs pretty much near stock Android too which should mean it runs lean, and clean. But unfortunately I noticed stuttering, and sluggishness more frequently than I would have liked. The Snapdragon 615 processor while mid-range, should have been sufficient to power through most tasks. 2 GB of RAM isn't a lot by today's standards, but considering it's running a near stock version of Android, should be more than adequate. But, somehow it just isn't as smooth.

Playing graphically intensive games like Need For Speed: No Limits really strains the phones. I can see stutter every now and again, and touch responses in the in-game UI becomes sluggish. Perhaps that's down to the game's optimisation. The only Android device the game ran relatively smooth on is the Galaxy Note 5, and even then you can tiny pauses every now and again.

Keeping the phone powered is a non user removable 3,630mAh battery, which is pretty sizeable considering the phone size. On paper, the less powerful processor, the lower resolution screen, the big battery,  all seem to work in tandem with the goal of extracting the most out of your device in a single charge. Sadly based on my estimate, I would say it would last at most a day of heavy use, perhaps a day and a half for my normal use. Decent, but a bit short of Lenovo’s claim of 2 days use. Anyway this is still a phone that you are most likely going to have to recharge every night unless you're a light user.

Which brings me to another bummer which is the omission of a quick charger. Being such a large battery, it can take a bit of time to charge it up using the provided 5V/1150mA charger in the box. I'll definitely recommend getting a quick charger instead.

Another thing I want to mention quickly as well is the GPS. On the last few Moto devices that I had, the GPS had been really solid, something I've come to expect from Motorola devices. However, on the Moto X Play, it is pretty weak for some reason. Slow to lock-on, and not very accurate. The lack of a gyroscope definitely didn't help too.

So the last notable feature of the phone would be its camera. In which Lenovo is touting it as the best camera in class. I'm happy to say that they held up with this claim. The camera quality is indeed one of the best you'll find for a phone this price (USD 299).

Daylight images has nice details and sharpness. Colour reproduction is true to life too, and images look natural. There is still a hint of weird image processing when you pixel peep, but really, it's not something people should care about at all.

The camera app is slightly underwhelming though. The controls feels a little weird compared to tapping to focus, and auto HDR mode doesn't work nearly as well as I would have liked. 

In dimmer lighting condition, the images gets noisier as the conditions get darker. The lack of OIS means that the ISO has to be bumped up to ensure minimal blur from camera shake. This is where Lenovo’s image processing show its flaws though. But again. Unless you're pixel peeping, or planning to do a large print out, it's still plenty decent for sharing on social media.

Overall, while the camera app needs improving and low light images could be better, the camera quality is great for a phone in this price bracket. I dare say it outperforms some higher tier devices this year even.

Full resolution images for comparison: Moto X Play, Moto G 2nd Gen, ZenFone 2, OnePlus One, OnePlus X, Mi 4i, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6

-----

I went into the phone not expecting too much, and I still walked away feeling disappointed. On its own it seems like a decent phone. A big battery, a decent screen, a nice camera, and stock Android. Take off that façade, and underneath, you're going to find a phone that isn't very good. 

The performance is disappointing, with stutter and lags throughout the UI. It is plagued with sluggishness when playing games like Need For Speed: No Limits. It lacks features that even the 2014 Moto X has like double chop to turn on flashlight, and IR sensors to activate Moto Display. Also for a phone this price, I think it deserves a Gyroscope at the very least. In case anyone forgot, even the first generation Moto G LTE had gyroscope. 

While it sits between the Moto G and Moto X Style, it seems more closely related to the former rather than the latter. It would have been better to name this something else like the Moto S or you know, any of the other 22 letters in the alphabet.

In the end, the Moto X Play feels like a poor attempt to fill in a gap. It feels like too much compromises were made to keep the phone at this price point. Even then, it’s not a price that I think is worth paying for. Considering other alternatives in the market like the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3, OnePlus X, Nexus 5X, Mi 4i, ZenFone 2, or even the OnePlus One, the Moto X Play is a hard phone to recommend.

On a more sentimental note, this doesn't feel like the same Motorola that made the original Moto X. This doesn't feel like a phone made by the Motorola that Google took over. This feel like a phone made by the Motorola that is under Lenovo's control. The fact that they have been dropping the ball on software updates didn't help too (owners of the original Moto X, or owners of the 2nd gen Moto E would know). So until I start seeing different, this is Lenovo's Moto X Play, not Motorola's.