{"id":4022,"date":"2019-12-10T20:56:24","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T01:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/?p=4022"},"modified":"2019-12-20T15:54:11","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T20:54:11","slug":"moto-z3-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/2019\/12\/moto-z3-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Moto Z3 Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over two years ago I got my very first smartphone<\/a>, a Moto G4. The G was a great value when it came out and was marked down substantially since it was near the end of its production life, having already been replaced by the G5. I figured if I bought a cheap, somewhat out of date phone now, I could justify upgrading sooner. The old phone has been getting slower and the battery hasn’t been lasting as long. Plus the newer G5 has a fingerprint scanner which is an easier way of logging in than typing in a PIN. Now the G6 is old tech and the G7 is the latest. I could get a G6 for $120 on sale. I actually bought one, but wound up letting a friend have it who needed a new budget phone and the 3-month trial of Mint Mobile that it came with. So a few weeks later I found the Moto Z3 Play for only $150 which has a faster processor, a little more memory, and seemed just generally a step up from the G6 for not that much more (originally $450). So I ordered that instead and it even came with two free back plates (not really cases, but I thought they would protect it a little).<\/p>\n

\"Moto<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I got the phone Saturday and started migrating stuff from the old phone. Android does a decent job of this so mostly all I had to do was back everything up to Google Drive on the old phone and it would reinstall all of my apps on the new phone. A lot of stuff was stored on a 128 GB MicroSD card, so I moved that over along with the SIM card. I still had to bring over my notes and an encrypted file with all of my password info. I also pulled over my databases that I use to keep track of blu-rays and other things.<\/p>\n

Then, because the phone was introduced over a year ago, it has an older operating system, so I had to install a year’s worth of updates, getting me to Android 9 (or Pie). Android 10 came out a few months ago, but Moto only does one OS upgrade per phone.<\/p>\n

The fingerprint reader is nice. It is on the right edge of the phone about 2\/3 of the way up, so if you hold it in your right hand, you might scan your thumb. If you hold it in your left hand, then your left index finger will be close to the scanner. If you pick it up with both hands, you would probably use your right index finger. So I scanned all three fingers and the phone is very easy to activate, almost without thinking about it. When I restart the phone, I have to enter the PIN, but after all of the updates I don’t restart that often.<\/p>\n

The new back covers look nice, and they help cover up the camera which protrudes quite a bit from the glass back of the phone. But otherwise they offer no protection to the phone. I shopped for cheap cases and came up with a clear silicone case on eBay for $1.49 shipped from China (so might get here in January). After I bought that I saw eBay gave me a $5 off coupon, so then I found a nicer case in New Jersey for $5.99, or $0.99 after my discount, so that should be here by Monday. Also it has a USB C port, so I ordered some extra cables for the car and work. The big advantage of the USB C port is you don’t have to worry about plugging it in right side up, since it will work either way.<\/p>\n

It can do wi-fi calling, but since I have unlimited minutes, I don’t know if there is a point to that. It could be that sometimes at the house I have a clearer wi-fi signal than phone signal and it might be better to choose wi-fi, but it seems to always default to wi-fi or always default to cellular. It also has NFC, so I can tap to pay, but I haven’t set it up yet. The other probably forever unused feature is “moto mods” which are accessories you can attach magnetically to contacts on the back of the phone. One is a battery but it costs anywhere from $50-150, so I don’t see the point. They make one that is a speaker, one is a projector, and one gives you 5G capability, but they are all pretty expensive. So the only mod I am using is the back cover that attaches magnetically and covers the mod contacts.<\/p>\n

It does not have a headphone jack, but came with a short adapter cord that plugs into the USB port. They also included a leash that lets you detach the adapter from the headphone cord and plug into conventional devices, which I didn’t think I would need, but realized today I do need when I listen to the iPad on the train.<\/p>\n

It is definitely snappier than the old phone and the fingerprint reader is nice. It is thinner than the old phone and the screen just feels better than the old phone. The new operating system maybe has some good features since the old phone maxed out with Android 7. Otherwise it is almost exactly the same size, but the screen is a half inch bigger and, combined with shrinking the pixels down a little, there is more room on screen, but things are a little tinier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over two years ago I got my very first smartphone, a Moto G4. The G was a great value when it came out and was marked down substantially since it was near the end of its production life, having already been replaced by the G5. I figured if I bought a cheap, somewhat out of … Continue reading “Moto Z3 Play”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4022"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4030,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4022\/revisions\/4030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveforks.com\/ted\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}