While American consumers have had access to the Moto Z, Motorola’s hot new take on a modular smartphone, for more than two months now, Canadian consumers have been left to ask themselves, why the delay? The answer, it turns, out, is that Motorola plans to launch the Moto Z alongside a device that makes a lot of sense in the Canadian market, the New Moto Z Play, which it announced today at IFA in Berlin, Germany.
Essentially a more modestly specced Moto Z, the most noticeable difference between the company’s new device and the flagship Moto Z is its stocky build. At 6.99mm thick, the Moto Z Play is significantly thicker than the Moto Z, currently the world’s thinnest phone.
However, for consumers that don’t want the thinnest phone on the market, the trade-off is that the Moto Z Play comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack and a massive 3,510 mAh battery. According to Motorola, the Moto Z Play’s battery should last approximately 45 hours on a single charge.
Moreover, the company claims the included TurboPower charger can bring the Play’s battery back up to 9 hours of life in just 15 minutes.
Other specifications include a Snapdragon 625 processor clocked at 2.0GHz, 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED display, fingerprint scanner 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage.
On the camera front, the Z Play comes with a 16-megapixel back-facing camera, and a wide angle front-facing camera with LED flash.
More modest specifications aside, this the same modular device Motorola and Lenovo announced back at TechWorld in June. All the currently announced Moto Mods — including the Hasselblad True Zoom JBL SoundBoost and Insta-Share Projector, all of which are coming to Canada — will work with the Moto Z Play.
In a hands-on with the Moto Z and Moto Z Play, a Motorola spokesperson said the company is committed to the 5.5-inch form factor of the Moto Z into 2017 and beyond.
Like the Moto Z, the Z Play will ship with Android Marshmallow. A representative from the company did not give an exact date for when the latest version of Google’s operating system, Nougat, will arrive on the device.
The Moto Z Play will be available in Canada partway through September via Telus, Koodo and Rogers. It will cost $650 off-contract. Motorola also told us that the Moto Z will be coming to Canada in the same time frame.
Photography by Patrick O’Rourke.
Related: Motorola documents how it made the Moto Z bendgate proof
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