The Moto X name has been associated with Motorola’s flagship smartphones ever since the original X was launched over two years ago. The Moto X was a good phone that was let down by its poor camera and battery life, though its
successor fixed the battery problem to a large extent.
2015 represents a dilution of the Moto X brand, first with the launch of the’super flagship’ Moto Turbo, and more recently, the unveiling of not one, but two new Moto X smartphones - the Moto X Play and the Moto X Style. The latter is closer to Moto X’s flagship ethos, while the Play is a mid-range offering by today’s standards. So how does Moto X Play perform in the real world? Let’s find out.
Design and display
The Moto X Play is another solid, good looking phone from the Motorola’s stables. The phone is pretty traditional in its design and layout, apart from the SIM-plus-microSD tray that sits on the top edge. The tray pops out to reveal two Nano SIM slots on one side and space for a microSD card on the other. We quite liked this idea, but if you are someone who likes to pop microSD cards in and out frequently, you may be perturbed by the fact you will lose cellular coverage every time you do that.
Performance and battery life
You don’t expect a smartphone at this price to struggle with everyday tasks, and, mercifully, the Moto X Play didn’t prove to be aberration. The smartphone comes with the
quad octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC along with 2GB of RAM, and we didn’t experience any lags with our unit. Games like Asphalt 8 ran smoothly without any problems.
We received a 32GB unit of the Moto X Play, which had 25.45GB of user-accessible storage. There’s a lower priced 16GB variant as well, but given the minimal price difference between the two, you’d be better off opting for the one with more built-in storage. If you can’t, worry not as the Moto X Play supports both microSD( up to 128GB) and USB OTG storage expansion options.
We didn’t experience any heating issues during a 20 minute session playing Asphalt 8 or while shooting multiple 2 to 3 minute videos in quick succession. However, the Moto X Play does tend to get a little warm during everyday use - not enough to be unconformable, but it’s something you are likely to notice.
The Moto X Play comes with a massive 3630mAh battery, one of the standout specifications of the smartphone in addition to its 21-megapixel rear camera. In real-world usage, our Moto X Play managed to last a day of use, but we were down to the last dregs of the battery’s capacity come end-of-day, like most other smartphones. This was a bit of surprise given the size of the battery and the real world experience of other users.