Raise your hand if you dropped a phone before. Did you drop a phone just now in an effort to raise your hand? Good news, you can upgrade to the Moto Z Force soon.
It’s Motorola’s more practical modular phone that adds a bit of thickness compared to the Moto Z in exchange for a shatterproof screen and bigger battery, though still no headphone jack.
The Moto Z Force camera also comes ready to take higher resolution photos that I can wait to test out further now that I got my hands on the nearly final phone.
There’s just one catch: the Moto Z Force release date. It may not come out at all, unless you’re on Verizon and live in the US. It’s limited to the carrier and States at this point.
The Moto Z Force isn’t the world’s thinnest phone, but it’s a still-reasonable 155.9 x 75.8 x 6.99mm and 163g. It just feels thick after handling the Moto X, which does happen to be the world’s thinnest phone.Like its slimmer Z sibling, the Force is an all-metal smartphone and uses modular accessories that latch onto the back.
Yes, this makes the Moto Z comparable to the LG G5, but it’s better in keys ways. It doesn’t require restarting the phone and it magnetically fastens into place.
There are also more Moto Z and Moto Z Force modules at the ready(and more promised), from an obvious battery case to the standout mini projector.There is already more potential behind the Moto Z modular future than anything we’ve seen except for Project Ara, and that’s a little more experimental and further out compared to what we’ve seen today.
You’ll also find a fingerprint sensor on the front, with a large chin dedicated to it - large when you consider this phone still uses on-screen buttons, too(the fingerprint button is not a home button, no matter how many times my brain told me to press it).
What you won’t find is a normal headphone jack - you options are USB C headphones or Bluetooth here. Apple is rumored to be axing the same 3.5mm jack in the name of thinness in the iPhone 7
Motorola beat Apple to the punch and it’s a dubious prize for consumers who prefer wired, but effortless and battery-free audio solutions to listen to music from their phones.
There are three Moto Z Force colors: black, gold and rose gold, the last of which is exclusive to the Force. The regular Moto Z has just gold and black.The Moto Z Force uses all of the same modules as the Moto Z, meaning you you’re getting to add cases and at least three creative accessories
I found the Moto Z projector, dubbed Moto Instant Share, to be a the most novel, even if it ends up being a niche product that a majority of eventual owners will never use.
This is where Moto Z Force is a little more ordinary. It uses a lot of the same internal specs we see in today’s best phones For 2016.
There’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM and an embedded Adreno 530 GPU. Like most of today’s phone, it switches over to a USB C connection on the bottom.
Moto Z Force
Internal storage consists of 32GB and 64GB options, and while there is no 128GB version, it does come with a microSD card slot(which can turn into a second card slot) and I can just imagine a future add-on that combines battery power with laptop-like extra storage space.
It’s nice to see the Moto Z Force specs don’t fall behind the competition even with its modular focus. It’s able to pull off the exact same internals as the LG G5, HTC 10, Asus Zenfone 3, ZTE Azon 7 and the US versions of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. Basically every phone is becoming the same on the inside.
This is another Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow phone too and while that’s the mobile operating system of the box, this is a Motorola phone. It shouldn’t have any trouble upgrading to Android N when it arrives in the summer.The Moto Z camera is 13MP with larger-sized 1.12um pixels, and includes a f/1.8 aperture with optical image stabilization and laser autofocus. The front-facing camera is 5MP and with an f/2.2 aperture and 1.4um big pixels for better low light.
There’s supposed to be zero shutter lag, but I have to take this one out of the demo room to get a better idea of how this performs in normal conditions. I’ll update this hands on review when that happens this summer.
However, I can tell right now that I like the default Moto Z camera app better. Previous Moto Z cameras included a clutter-free design that hid options and made it for casual users.