The Moto Z Play is not a powerhouse by any standards. The Super AMOLED panel and 3GB of RAM are nice touches and ones indicative of an above average offer. However, driving the handset is the Snapdragon 625. Modest as it may be, as already made clear in the battery section of the review, its efficient 14nm production process yields a major advantage to battery life.
This is definitely a plus and a selling point to note, however, with a price point of $450 or so, the Moto Z Play finds itself amid a very competitive crowd. That just happens to be the relatively new extreme value segment, spearheaded by amazing offers, like the OnePlus 3T or the ZTE Axon 7. Along with a few other devices, these raise the hardware stakes significantly, throwing in things like the powerful Snapdragon 820 or 821 chipsets in the mix.
That being said, there isn't really any significant value to be had hardware-wise if you opt for the Moto Z Play. Its eight simple 2.0 GHz Cortex-A53 cores, coupled with 3GB of RAM and an Adreno 503 GPU will power through most everyday tasks with ease. However, you can't really expect anything more from them. The real pickle is that a similarly priced competitor can really blow it away, in terms of raw performance.
To illustrate the point, we have picked out a few such popular powerful and budget-conscious devices to pit the Moto Z Play up against. These include the Asus Zenfone 3, ZTE Nubia Z11 and Xiaomi Mi 5s, to name a few more. However, we were equally interested to find out how good the Moto Z Play actually utilizes the efficient Snapdragon 625 SoC.
That is why on the other end of the spectrum, we threw in a few other devices, based on the same hardware. Notable mentions include the Samsung Galaxy C7, Oppo R9s and the quite compelling Lenovo P2. The last of the bunch could actually turn out to be a great alternative to the Moto Z Play - one that checks all of the same boxes and more, loosing mainly the Moto Mods. And since efficient chipsets seem to be the norm in this comparison, we also couldn't fail to mention the Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016). Particularly its Exynos 7870 variant - also rocking eight Cortex-A53 chips, made on an efficient 14nm FinFET process.
Kicking things off with the all-round AnTuTu benchmark, we see the Moto Z Play destroyed by its competitors. There is some consolation to be found in the fact that the Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) still lacks behind, which seems to be a trend across all the benchmark tests. However, the latter is cheaper.
Higher is better
If we attempt to dissect that a little further, we quickly come to the conclusion that the low score of the Moto Z Play is on all front. No one component, like the CPU, RAM, GPU or storage can be singled out and blamed for the lack in overall performance.
That being said, the eight Cortex-A53 cores, clocked at 2.0 GHz can only do so much, as evident by the Geekbench results.
Higher is better
Higher is better
Performance remains equally unimpressive in the graphics department. The Adreno 506 is clearly struggling to push pixels on the 1080p panel in most every demanding scenario. Perhaps 720p might have been a better fit.
Higher is better
Higher is better
Even in OpenGL ES 3.0 scenarios, you can't really expect to run most games in native resolution well. However, most casual games shouldn't be an issue, as they are typically quite well optimized.
Higher is better
Higher is better
There is one more note to be made here, to address the quite obvious variance between onscreen and offscreen rendering results. The thing is, most benchmarks we ran didn't really manage to hide the Moto Z Play's onscreen navigation bar, which means they ran at a slightly lower resolution.
Higher is better
Higher is better
The Basemark X results are quite consistent with those from GFXBench. Still, looking at the different arrangement of the Snapdragon 625 phones on the chart between high and medium quality mode, it almost seems like the Moto Z Play can't handle the increased video memory loads from the higher quality modes and is thus taking a performance hit.
Higher is better
Higher is better
Last, but not least, Basemark OS II paints the final touches to the overall unimpressive picture that is the Moto Z Play performance report.
Higher is better
To put it simply, the Moto Z Play performance is lower than some competing smartphones in the same price point. It is also true that the Moto Z Play won't fail you regardless how you use it. It's just you could get a faster performing device - granted, perhaps not with this long battery life. You just have to pick your priorities.
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