Lenovo-owned Motorola Mobility just launched the Moto X Play smartphone in India at a mouth-watering price of Rs.18,499 for the 16GB memory variant. Shell out an extra Rs.1,500 and you can get the 32GB variant. But storage is not so much of a problem here since both the variants support expandable storage of up to 128GB, so you're pretty safe even if you go for the lower-priced Moto X Play.
And, unlike the Moto G (Gen 3) - where you had different RAM in different memory variants -- there's no difference at all between the two Moto X Play versions in terms of what's inside. So, that's a plus too.
We spent some time with the Moto X Play at the launch event and here are our first impressions:
It's very clear what the Moto X
Play wants to achieve. It wants to become the 'affordable' mid-range phone that offers Motorola's synonymous stock Android experience with the added bonus of what we've grown to associate with Moto X phones: Active Display and Touchless Control functions. But there's still a lot more than what meets the eye.
In the backdrop, it's something else. First, it is an indirect successor to last year's Moto X - the direct successor being the Moto X Style - and serves as a connecting link between the budget Moto G (Gen 3) and the high-end Moto X Style.
Basically, the Moto X Play is a little something to keep you occupied, for good until the true Moto X (Gen 2) successor, ala, the Moto X Style decides to show up. Not to say it's any less useful though. The Moto X Play may seem a little underpowered on paper, when compared to its older cousin -- the Moto X Style -- but that's no reason to look down upon it.
Motorola phones have never been about the hardware and as far as experience goes, the Moto X Play still manages to pack in a few surprises of its own to make it count.
The Moto X Play rocks the familiar design elements of the original Moto X line-up with a slight twist to make it more 2015-like. While the front still looks exactly like its predecessors with the characteristic edge-to-edge display and the lower placed speaker grill, along with the familiar set of sensors, the back is where all the changes have been made. The back panel is removable and has a textured finish to it, reminiscent to the one in the Moto G (Gen 3). Only that the textured finish feels more feeble in hand in the Moto X Play. While it may pass off as a 'premium' finish to the eye, it could also be a deal breaker for some. The gentle curve of the back (plus the textured finish) ensures a good ergonomic score for the Moto X Play.
Unlike the Moto X Style, which boasts of a metal frame, the Moto X Play has a plastic frame.
The vertical accent housing the camera apparatus along with the Motorola logo dimple seems to be the company's new signature style. We saw it earlier in the Moto G (Gen 3). It is found in both the Moto X Play and Moto X Style as well.
Moto X phones have seen a gradual increase in screen size over subsequent iterations. The Moto X Play that lies in between the Moto X (Gen 2) and the Moto X Style comes with a 5.5-inch FullHD LCD display with a 1080x1920 pixels resolution and 403 ppi pixel density. Yes, it's missing out on the AMOLED panel of the Moto X (Gen 2) (in fact even the Moto X Style is). At the same time, it's also missing out on the QuadHD screen of the Moto X Style, but then again both phones don't command a fortune.
In our brief usage we were pretty satisfied with the display output of the Moto X Play. The screen was bright enough and colours looked good and well saturated.
The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The Moto X Play also comes with a water-repellent nano-coating (IP52 certification) that protects it from accidental spillage. But, unlike the lower-priced Moto G (Gen 3), it misses out on IPX7 certification.
The Moto X Play comes with a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor in addition to two low-power co-processors that together form the Motorola X8 Mobile Computing System. The phone comes with Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB RAM.
It is actually these low-power co-processors that are responsible for carrying out the Moto X's Active Display and Touchless Control functions. This ensures two things: the Moto X Play is always on and listening, and the main SoC (Snapdragon 615) doesn't have to sweat it out for this to happen.
The Moto X Play supports 4G LTE on both SIMs, and also comes with NFC connectivity option.
The phone uses a massive 3,630mAh battery that claims up to two days of backup on single charge (extreme usage). It supports fast charging, but sadly the Moto X Play doesn't ship with a proprietary TurboCharger that is needed for the purpose. You'll have to shell out an extra Rs.1,000 to buy it.
To sum it up, Motorola seems to have got most things right in the Moto X Play. At the same time it has few shortcomings. Its most direct competitors will be the OnePlus One, Asus ZenFone 2. Motorola has done well with the price, but will that be enough? Looking at Motorola's track record, it might just get away with this one too.
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