In the increasingly crowded midrange phone market, the Motorola Moto Z3 is under more pressure to stand out. And it does, thanks to its respectable (if slightly dated) specs and Motorola’s signature Mods add-ons – all for under $500.
Admittedly, this review is late – the Moto Z3 officially launched in August 2018 – but the phone has a curious advantage that makes it relevant in 2019. The 5G Moto Mod, already on sale, will enable the phone to link up to 5G networks – including Verizon's, which is the only active one in the US thus far.
This is the year 5G is supposed to arrive in force, promising much faster speeds and downloads. When 5G networks will actually get up and running isn’t clear, but there are already 5G phones coming this year by big companies, including the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, LG V50 ThinQ, and the foldable Huawei Mate X.
If the already-released Moto Z3 beats these others to the punch, that’s another feather in its cap. But some of those manufacturers, like Honor, will likely release a more affordable model that will compete with Motorola’s midrange phone – so the Moto Z3 may not end up being the most affordable 5G answer on the market for long.
Otherwise, the phone incrementally improves on its predecessor, the Moto Z2 – but you’d do better to think of it as taking nearly all the best parts of the Moto Z2 Force and stuffing them into the Moto Z3 Play’s slightly larger frame.
The Moto Z3 5G story...so far
While the Moto Z3 is a worthwhile choice for the budget-conscious on its own, it’s also, currently, the only 5G phone in the US. Not alone, of course: you need the 5G Moto Mod, which clips on to the phone’s rear (securely, thanks to some strong magnets) and must remain in place to connect to Verizon’s just-launched 5G network.
It’s not as simple as dropping into a Verizon store and walking out with the mod, as we found out. Among our first reactions, starting from the day the telecom switched on its 5G network, was surprise: Verizon requires you to show proof of ownership of a Moto Z3 when picking up a 5G Moto Mod, or to buy a phone on the spot. You’ll need to be subscribed to one of the telecom’s Unlimited plans, and then pay a $10 monthly fee above that. (You do get 3 months of free 5G data, though.)
The 5G Moto Mod is pricey, retailing for $350, though Verizon is selling them in-store for $200 at the moment. Couple that with the $350 pricetag for the Moto Z3 and the whole setup is solidly in the midrange expense tier, though that’s far less expensive than the Galaxy S10 5G and LG V50 ThinQ 5G are expected to cost (at or above the $1,000 threshold that their non-5G versions have been priced at).
As for the coverage, well...Verizon did activate its 5G network in early April a week earlier than expected, true. But it only went live in parts of two US cities. In Chicago, this included Magnificent Mile (specifically the Verizon store), Gold Coast, Old Town, River North, and portions of South Loop and West Loop. Milwaukee's 5G coverage areas are in Downtown West, Downtown East, Elliot Park, and the Mall of America's Verizon Store.
Verizon is relying on millimeter wave technology that requires line-of-site with the 5G-broadcasting signal tower, which don’t cover nearly as large of area as those broadcasting 4G LTE. As such, we found it difficult to pick up 5G in the network’s first few days, and Verizon wasn’t providing coverage maps.
(Image: © Image Credit: Techradar)
Once you step outside the 5G coverage zones (or if your phone can’t connect), the 5G mod-packing phone should switch automatically to 4G, which we’ve found. When we have found 5G signal, we’ve seen speeds up to 448Mbps, which is about where Verizon placed its tamped-down expected rates before it improves its network. Compare that to the 45-60Mbps we saw on the 4G side of things.
One last quick note: the 5G Moto Mod clips to the back of your Moto Z3 (and will be compatible with other Moto phones later on), but don’t worry about missing out on a battery pack: The 5G mod includes a 2,000mAh battery expansion, too. Worry instead at the beefy girth of the mod, which nearly doubles the thickness of the Moto Z3.
Moto Z3 price and release date
The Moto Z3’s launched in August 2018 at a $480 (about £370, AU$650) baseline cost, though that’s dipped down to $349 on Motorola’s official store. That’s below the lower-specced Moto Z3 Play’s $399 price, though the latter is typically bundled with a 2,200mAh battery pack Moto Mod, which typically retail for $50.
We’ll get into the Mods lineup later, but suffice to say they’re an important factor in the Moto Z3’s value – so if you’re just looking for a basic model with Mod accessibility, you might be satisfied with the Z3 Play.
Unfortunately, the Moto Z3 is only carried by and available through Verizon. That’s certainly different from previous models like the Moto Z2 and Moto Z3 Play that you could buy unlocked or through different carriers, but you’ll have to go through Verizon if you want the Moto Z3.
Design
Picture the Moto Z3 Play. Got it? Great – that’s the design of the full-fledged Moto Z3. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the phone is a sleek, thin smartphone with attractive glass front-and-rear that will easily fit in your pocket.
Well, so long as the camera bump doesn’t get in the way: the signature photo-blister returns, and while it’s not cumbersome, it’s not small. But since it’s a key component to Moto’s Mod system (each add-on fits snugly around the bump), it’s a particular choice you’ll learn to live with if you opt for Motorola’s Z-line phones.
The phone weighs 156g, which is on the lighter side compared to flagships like the iPhone XS (171 g) and Samsung Note 9 (201g). This is offset by the Mods, which can be hefty: the basic 2,200mAh power pack, by far the most useful Mod of the bunch, adds around 70 g. At 5mm thick, it covers the camera bump and then some, nearly doubling the thickness of the 6.8mm phone.
Otherwise, the Moto Z3 looks textbook Motorola, with thin bezels on the sides, a chin thick enough to stick a company logo, and a thin top with no notch. From a distance, you’d be hard-pressed to tell this apart from some of the cheaper G-series phones. The big difference is the glass back (some G-phones have glass, but others have aluminum or plastic), the sizable camera bump, and the strip on the back filled with contact pins for the Mods to connect.
Motorola retained the side-mounted fingerprint scanner. It’s conveniently placed right where your thumb rests, so we never had a problem logging in. In fact, it’s almost too convenient: when grabbing the phone, we accidentally pressed it and unlocked the phone when all we wanted was to check the lock screen notifications. It’s an odd annoyance, to be sure.
The Z3 has a USB-C port at the bottom, but sadly, there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack. That’s something the newer and lower-market G7 phones have on their pricier cousin – let alone the Samsung S10 line, which still retain the port as a bragging point.
As previously mentioned, the Moto Z3 keeps the 6.01-inch (2,160 x 1,080) 18:9 display of the Moto Z3 Play, which is large, bright and crisp. It’s not quite the resolution of expensive flagships, but the Full HD display is certainly a step up from the lower-priced G7 phones with their HD (1,570 x 720) screens.
Sadly, the Moto Z3’s display is a step down in resolution of the 5.5-inch Quad HD screen (2,560 x 1,440) in the Moto Z2 Force, though it is slightly larger.
Also notable for phones in 2019: the display has a black bar at the top that houses the front-facing camera, leaving the display an unbroken rectangle. That will please anyone who refuses to compromise on an unblemished display, but with more and more top-tier phones attempting workarounds for better screen-to-body ratio (like the Samsung S10 series’ punch-hole display or the Mi Mix 3’s sliding front screen), it makes the Z3 look less flagship.
Camera
The Moto Z3 packs a 12MP f/2.0 lens paired with a 12MP f/2.0 monochrome for low-light photos, and shoots a respectable but unimpressive 2160p@30fps video or up to 1080p@60fps.
The phone’s main camera suite manages decent daytime photography but suffers in low light. This is expected from the basic camera setup. Most flagships these days sport two or even three cameras – but they’re varied in field-of-view and/or telephoto capabilities. Compared to those, the Z3’s setup is limited to point-and-shoot, managing an 8x digital zoom that comes out grainy.
Of course, this isn’t just due to the Z3’s lower price point – it’s a compromise of design, too. The central camera blister has roughly the same dimensions as those of the entire Moto Z line so that it can work with past and future Moto Mods. In that sense, the phone series may never build out more than two lenses. But as we’ve seen with the Samsung Galaxy S10e’s twin shooters, it’s not the amount of cameras that necessarily limits your capability, but how they’re used.
And the Moto Z3 makes decent use of its lenses. The software has the expected plethora of modes, from Portrait to spot color to a cute (if spotty) “cutout” option letting you slice out a foreground object and slip in a background. There’s even a text-recognizing mode that lets you convert typed words (on a screen or page) into a simple PDF or word doc. Handy.
The 8MP front-facing camera is, well, fine. It works for the immediate subject, but expect the backgrounds to blow out if they're bright and sink into darkness if they're the opposite. There are a few cute modes, like group selfie, that essentially creates a mini-panorama of about one photo-width on either side of the central subject.
Battery life
The Moto Z3 packs a 3,000mAh battery, which lasts through the end of the day without serious issue. It uses Motorola’s 15W Turbopower brand of fast charging, which doesn’t keep up with the much higher wattage of Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0, 3.0 (18W) and 4.0+ (27W) formats. Still, any fast charging is better than none.
But that’s not whole battery story. The Moto Power Pack mod adds another 2,220 mAh, which should provide another 16 hours of juice, per Motorola’s site. Customer reviews aren’t entirely positive for the add-on, though, with some decrying its quick burnout and charging issues while others complain that it doesn’t have a port of its own, and must be charged through the Moto Z3.
On the plus side, unlike battery pack cases, the Power Pack mod doesn’t obstruct the side buttons or bottom USB-C port.
Performance
The Moto Z3 packs a Snapdragon 835, which was outdated when the phone launched in August 2018 and is even more so today. But the processor still outperforms the midrange Snapdragon 632 chip found in the Moto G7 or the slightly beefier Snapdragon 636 found in the Moto G7 Plus.
The Moto Z3’s baseline setup (Snapdragon 835, 4GB RAM) achieved a 6,549 score on Geekbench 4, putting it around other phones sporting that chipset (the Galaxy S8 Plus, for example, hit a score of 6,630 in our testing). That’s obviously far below today’s top chips – the Galaxy S10 Plus, for example, hit 11,002 on the same test – but it’s respectable.
And, at long last, the Moto Z3 finally has Android 9 Pie. The update was originally announced in February and then delayed, per The Android Soul; conveniently enough, it was finally rolled out the day Verizon unleashed its 5G network and Motorola started selling the 5G Moto Mod, according to XDA Developers.
By ‘convenient’ we mean ‘essential,’ as long as you want to hook up to that 5G network: Pie is required to support the new 5G mod. But the update brings a host of other better-late-than-never upgrades: gesture navigation, a refreshed dashboard, optimized app switching and screentime-managing features like app timers.
Image credit: TechRadar
The Mods
Aside from the 5G Moto Mod, Motorola has a plethora of mods on the market – and others that were released for earlier Moto phones that the phonemaker is no longer selling, but which you can still find on eBay, Amazon and elsewhere.
Motorola’s official list of mods has been trimmed down to just over a dozen battery packs, speakers, cameras and oddiments, like a gamepad that wraps around each end of your Moto phone.
Sure, it’s nice to have a speaker to blast tunes every once in awhile, or perhaps even an Amazon Alexa-sporting speaker ($149) or very nice Hasselblad 10x optical camera ($299). But far and away, the mod you get the most use out of are the battery mods.
Everyone wants more battery, and the mods (like the $49 official Moto Power Pack) grant almost another day’s worth of juice. That’s a no-brainer...but by clamping one to the back of your slim and admirably light Moto Z3, you’re adding weight and nearly doubling the thickness.
To put it bluntly: these aren’t as slick as the battery pack cases out for most phones. On the plus side, they don’t obstruct the side buttons or expand the length and width of the Z3. And yet, you won’t be able to protect your phone with a case…
You get the gist – there are drawbacks. But at least most of the mods won’t obstruct the camera while you have them clipped on (the Amazon Alexa speaker being a notable exception).
Final verdict
Not counting the Moto Mods, the Moto Z3 keeps abreast of the pack of other midrange phones while coming in cheap at $349 – and even inches ahead with its old but still sturdy Snapdragon 835 chip. For a bit more, the $549 / £499 (around AU$771) OnePlus 6T packs better specs across the board, but that’s another price tier entirely.
If you’re considering the Moto Z3, you’re either looking around for a less pricey option within Verizon...or you want 5G network speeds at a discount.
And that discount is nothing to ignore – for a fraction of the price of leading 5G-compatible phones, you’ll get a phone that works fine, shoots okay photos and runs your favorite apps in a slim body with a 6-inch screen. You could do far worse at this price point -- including, curiously, the less-powerful Moto Z3 Play released shortly before it that costs about the same.
If you’re intending to buy it for 5G, be forewarned: in these early days, we don’t know much about how these networks will unfold nor whether lower-powered devices will have lower network performance than the highly-priced flagships coming out later in 2019 that are specialized to work on 5G, like the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G or the LG V50 ThinQ 5G.
In other words, the Z3 could be a blessing for Verizon to undercut pricey competition and lure people over to its 5G network with a far cheaper entry-level phone...or just a decent phone option should its 5G network get outclassed by other carriers.