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Lenovo-owned Motorola is yet to refresh its Moto Z series this year and considering its previous cycle, that should happen no later than this summer. Ahead of its expected announcement, a new leak has surfaced to detail some of the core software and hardware features of the Moto Z3 Play. XDA Developers got a hold of an internal document which has provided a lot of information about the mid-range Android smartphone. In accordance with the new trend of taller mobile displays, the Moto Z3 Play will also get an 18:9 AMOLED display measuring six inches with an FHD+ resolution. Motorola may brand its near bezel-less display on the Z family as a “Max Vision” panel. as per the same report. Use of premium materials like Gorilla Glass and aluminum is suggested in the document, with the device supposedly being “one of the thinnest premium smartphones in the market.”
That thinness is achieved at the expense of a humble 3,000mAh battery and a dropped headphone jack. While unveiling the original Z line of smartphones, the company committed to at least three years of Mod support, which will be seen continuing with the third generation, according to the leak. The Moto Z3 Play will have a design similar to its previous iterations in order to maintain lengthy support for Moto Mods. The handset will boast a Snapdragon 636 SoC together with 4GB of RAM and 32/64GB of expandable memory. A rear-facing dual-camera setup is said to be making its way to the Android smartphone, with a 12-megapixel primary sensor, whereas the front camera is supposedly an 8-megapixel affair. The report adds that Motorola is planning to bring at least four Mods along with the launch of the Z3 Play – Power, Style, Gamepad, and Projection. The company may choose to make these mods available as a bundled package with the phone.
Motorola’s approach to software has traditionally been very minimal with, only a few Moto-branded apps and services included on top of a near-stock Android experience. The Moto Z3 Play is said to follow a similar approach with the presence of services like Moto Display and Moto Voice, in addition to Moto Experience, which will leverage AI to add smarter shortcuts for the most-used features. Moto Voice will reportedly get a much deeper access to the OS to control apps and it will be capable of answering complex questions. The iPhone X-esque navigation gestures will be included in the Z3 Play, with a single pill-shaped button sitting on the bottom, designed for performing multiple navigational tasks. Face unlock feature will now be a part of the package along with the side-mounted fingerprint scanner. Motorola’s take on live photos will be called “Cinemagraphs,” which will be included in the phone’s default camera app, in addition to other features like spot color, cutout mode, document scanner, and a manual mode. The phone will presumably come running Android 8.1 Oreo, along with the promise of two major OS upgrades.