Lenovo unleashes the Moto Z Play at IFA 2016, and it's the cheapest among the bunch, but that's not necessarily a sign that it can't handle the modular offering of the family.
To start things off, it's also going to bear the Droid moniker in the United States, just like the Moto Z and Moto Z Force, and the same as the standard variant, it will be exclusively available at Verizon for at least one month. Yes, that means unlocked versions of the Moto Z and Z Play are hitting shelves sometime in October.
Going over the specs, it has a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display with a 1,080 x 1,920 resolution, clocking in at 403 ppi. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 sits under the hood along with 3 GB worth of RAM, and a 3,510 mAh battery keeps the lights on for about 50 hours of typical usage, according to Lenovo, at least.
The smartphone runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow right off the bat, and it has 32 GB of internal storage from the get-go, which can be expanded up to a whopping 2 TB via a microSD card.
Of course, it has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, GPS and the Moto Mod Connector at the back, but on top of those, it also has a USB-C port, making it future ready. As a standard of sorts nowadays, it also has a fingerprint sensor.
For the mobile photographer, Lenovo fitted it with a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera with laser autofocus and a 5-megapixel front shooter with LED flash.
Design-wise, it pretty much took cues from its siblings. The big difference is that it sports a glass rear instead of metal, so smudges might be an issue. At any rate, the panels are fixed in place with a metal frame, and the handset features water-repellant nano-coating to boot.
As mentioned earlier, it's going to be available only at Verizon for some time, and it's coming in with a $408 price tag on Sept. 8, making it the most affordable way to get in on the Moto Mod action. If forking over that lump of sum all in one go is too much, it's also available under an installment plan for $17 a month for two years.
Meanwhile, the unlocked Moto Z will hold users back by $699.99 and the Moto Z Play by $449.99, and they will be directly available from Motorola come October. However, it should be pointed out that they are GSM unlocked, and that means they won't be compatible with CDMA carriers such as Sprint and Verizon.
What do you think of the Moto Z Play and the unlocked variant? Drop by our comments section below and let us know.
