Lenovo has unveiled its latest smartphone, the Moto Z Play Droid Edition, with a 5.5-inch 1080p HD Super AMOLED touch-screen display, estimated battery life of up to 50 hours on a charge and a $408 price tag when it goes on sale exclusively through Verizon on Sept. 8.
The 4G LTE handset, which will be known as the Moto Z Play elsewhere around the world, also features a 2GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, an Adreno 506 graphics processor, 3GB of memory, 32GB of onboard storage and a microSD card slot for additional storage.
Also included is a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera with laser auto-focusing, an f/2.0 lens, 4X digital zoom and 4K video capabilities, a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with an f/2.2 lens and LED flash, and a fingerprint reader for device and user security. The handsets are built around an aluminum frame and have a glass back plate.
The Moto Z Play models were announced by Lenovo on Aug. 31, with the standard Moto Z Play going on sale later this month in Europe for about $558. In October the Moto Z Play Droid Edition phone will be offered in a GSM unlocked version in the United States for $499.99. The standard Moto Z Play phone will be sold through Motorola.com. The unlocked version will also work on AT&T or T-Mobile and will allow users to choose those carriers as well, according to Lenovo’s Motorola division.
The latest Moto smartphone also features TurboPower fast charging, giving users up to 9 hours of use after 15 minutes of charging, and runs on the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow operating system. The handset includes a water-repellent nano-coating to protect it from spills, and also includes WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and near-field communications (NFC) connectivity capabilities. The phone is equipped with one USB-C port and a 3.5mm headset jack. The device is 6.15 inches long, 3 inches wide and 0.27 inches thick and weighs 5.8 ounces.
It comes in Black/Silver/Black Slate or White/Fine Gold/Sugar White color combinations.
Also announced as part of Lenovo’s Moto Mods collection of modular attachments for the Moto phone line is a new Hasselblad True Zoom module, which is a camera attachment that adds a Hasselblad-engineered camera to the Moto Z Play handset. The Hasselblad True Zoom module snaps onto the phone and adds capabilities including 10x optical zoom, a Xenon flash and RAW image capturing.
The Hasselblad True Zoom module will be available for preorder in the U.S. on Sept. 8 and will be sold starting Sept. 15 for $249.99 at Verizon.com and Motorola.com. Users will be able to use Hasselblad’s Phocus software to edit the images that they capture. Users will also receive a free two-year subscription for unlimited storage on Google Photos with the camera, according to Lenovo.
In June, Lenovo announced its latest Moto Z and the Moto Z Force smartphones, which also feature a series of interchangeable, modular Moto Mod backs that can be snapped onto the phones to add varying features as needed by users, including a larger battery, a big-screen projector or a boom box speaker system for over-the-top audio. The Moto Z and Moto Z Force handsets are flagship smartphones that include all-metal bodies, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processors and Moto TurboPower fast charging capabilities. The Moto Z Force also includes the Moto Shattershield display, which is guaranteed not to crack or shatter.
The JBL SoundBoost audio back, the Moto Insta-Share Projector back and the Power Pack back, which adds up to 22 hours of battery life to the device, connect to the Moto Z phones using high-powered magnets. Other modular backs will be released in the future to extend the capabilities of the phones. The Moto Z, which is just 0.20 inches thick, includes a 5.5-inch quad HD AMOLED display, 4GB of memory, 32GB or 64GB of onboard storage, and a microSD card slot for additional storage. It also features a 13MP rear-facing camera with optical image stabilization and laser autofocus, a front-facing 5MP camera with a wide-angle lens and a water-repellant coating to protect the handset.
The Moto Z Force includes the same key specifications but also comes with the Moto Shattershield display, a 21MP rear-facing camera and longer battery life.