The forgotten smartphone: Motorola Moto X Play

Less than ten years ago, Motorola left the Netherlands and the brand came out with a series of new devices about 7-8 years ago. A little while later, the Motorola Moto X Play appeared; a nice smartphone from 2015. We discuss it ‘The forgotten smartphone’.

Moto X Play

For this edition of ‘The forgotten smartphone’ we don’t go back in time particularly far. However, we don’t want you to forget the Moto X Play, because this was a very nice (and large) device. Motorola released the device in 2015, but we estimate there is a chance that you did not just remember it.

In 2015, Motorola released the Moto X Play; a smartphone that was positioned between the Moto G and the Moto X Style. The Motorola was delivered with the Stock Android interface, so without (handy) fuss that Motorola places on its devices today. We published an extensive Moto X Play review at the time. Before that time, the Moto X Play was a fairly large device in terms of size; equipped with a 5.5 inch IPS LCD screen with a Full HD resolution. In the thick screen edge above the screen was a 5 megapixel camera. Under the screen was an extra speaker.

The rear of the Moto X Play had a back that felt somewhat rubbery; this one was water resistant. There was a 21 megapixel with dual LED flash. The camera app had a striking control. By swiping to the right in the camera app, a semicircle appeared, in which you could adjust the settings. The photo quality was very good for the device. If you are curious about the photo quality, you can browse the photo album here with photos taken with the Moto X Play.

Extras

There was no fingerprint scanner in the Motorola Batwing logo. At the time, a fingerprint scanner was not available for devices of this price. This while the smartphone had a suggested retail price of 379 euros. Now you will find a fingerprint scanner in devices from around 150 euros. Times change, shall we say.

Motorola released the Moto X Play with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. Later the update to Marshmallow appeared and the updates stopped after the rollout of Android 7.1.1 Lollipop. On board the Moto X Play we saw a 3630 mAh battery with 15W (fast) charging. That was quite a capacity for the time; and in practice the Motorola smartphone also managed to last three days with intensive use. The specification list also talks about 16/32GB of internal memory and a working memory that came out at two gigabytes. GPS, NFC, Bluetooth and of course WiFi could also be found on the device. The X Play received the Snapdragon 615 processor from Motorola.

Motorola placed several more features on the Moto X Play. Think of Moto Voice, where you could perform various voice commands. However, this only worked when the smartphone was set to English. There was also a sleek Material Design gallery app and an option to transfer all your settings and things from another smartphone to the Moto X Play.

The smartphone appeared in the summer of 2015 in the Netherlands for an amount of 379 euros.

Moto X Play summarized in 3 points:

• 5.5 inch Full HD screen
• Big device
• Large battery of 3630 mAh