Moto G4 Play: A decent buy within 10,000 INR Budget - BSTechReviews

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Wednesday 28 December 2016

Moto G4 Play: A decent buy within 10,000 INR Budget

The Moto G Series has always been one of the most awaited for most consumers during its launch. Way back when the first Moto G was launched, thats when it was owned by Google and there was a tremendous hype with the device in the market and the entry of Motorola in the budget friendly stock Android Experience was born.


My favourite amongst the Moto series when launched in 2013 was the Moto X 1st generation, and I still consider it till date one of the snappiest stock android experiences. At that time the price was around 25,000/- and it was a good buy in terms of screen size and performance. There after we did see great phones like the Moto g 2nd and 3rd generation, Moto X 2nd Generation and so on. With every new device there was a premium looking phone you would get at a low price. The G series was priced lower than 15,000/- and the X was around 25,000 - 35,000/-. Post acquisition by Lenovo we saw a steep decline in the quality of Motorola Phones. All around forums, e-commerce reviews etc people did complain about Lenovo going in for cheap chipsets and ruining the Motorola Brand name which Google Maintained very well. Nevertheless we still have some Motorola devices in a little budget and higher price range that are powered by decent chipsets and thereby maintaining the Motorola Standard.

Motorola G4 Play First Impressions:

The phone looks pretty decent when I first opened the handset, and it had a good finish in plastic, however not the same kind of finish that we used to see way back in Moto G 1st and 2nd Generation devices. For budget users if you consider purchasing a handset and probably you are a fan of Snapdragon chipsets then this is a good choice, else if battery is your main concern go in for the E3 power. But I still would stay with a snapdragon chipset because they deliver better performance on the device and with a smaller battery as well. 

    

So since this phone is a budget phone you get the regular stuff you would get on any Moto G device like the power cable and charger, a removable battery which comes pre-inserted into the device, the headphones and some paperwork. 

Coming to the design of this device, it has a good build quality and seems fine to hold in your hand. It has this kind of tiny mesh plastic on the back along with the rear facing camera along with LED flash. The top of the device has the headphone jack 3.5mm and at the bottom you have the charging cable and a tiny opening for removing the plastic on the back where you can insert your SIM cards. It has front firing speakers and the microphone and earpiece on the front of the device. On front you also get the front facing camera with phone flash and not LED flash. 

The Moto G4 play is definitely not the best of designed phones when you compare it say with the look and feel of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 or the Redmi 3S as these devices come with Full Aluminium body as compared to the plastic back of the Moto. I am still wondering Motorola has still not come up with a Aluminium unibody phone below 15,000/- range. 

Moto G4 Play Specifications

The Moto G4 Play is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 Quad Core processor with a 450 MHz Adreno 306 GPU upto 1.2 Ghz. This is the same processor that comes on the Moto G3 as well and performance is really good. This chipset also supports the Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 technology that helps charge the device rapidly using the fast charger. Ideally fast chargers are shipped with USB type-C capable phones but this one fairs well with a regular USB port as well. 

The Moto G4 Play comes with 2 Gigs of RAM and 16 GB of inbuilt storage and capable of storage space upto 128 GB on a micro SD card. The phone is pretty light and weighs just about 137 gms. It has a 5" 720P HD display at 294ppi and gives a decent screen resolution. The phone is packed by a 2800 MaH battery as per Lenovo's website to be an all day battery. Yeah I think it should last at -least a day but it all depends on what kind of applications and games you use your phone for. 

It has a dual SIM micro-SIM/nano-SIM slot with 4G capable SIM cards that can be used, but again the SIM slot is an hybrid one meaning at one time you can either put in another SIM card or another micro SD card in it. 

The phone comes in with a 8 MP Rear facing camera with f/2.2 aperture and and is able to capture shots including panoramas, and recording at 1080p HD resolution @ 30 fps. The front facing camera is a 5MP shooter with again f/2.2 aperture. Does not make sense as to why it comes with both the cameras having the same aperture, weird. Best part I would say at least about this is that you can unlimited photo storage for 2 years on Google Photos at original quality. But you need to redeem this offer by uploading a photo from the device before March 31st 2017. 

It comes with an Accelerometer, a proximity sensor and a Ambient Light sensor, which basically means it can track footsteps and also movements. For the proximity and light sensor, when you lift the device or move your arms over the device it will wake up to show the screen in a Dim Light fashion. It has a splash-proof design but not a waterproof one so do not try dipping it into water, and its at your own risk. 

Where can I get it? What are the variants?

You can buy the device only on Amazon, as it is exclusively available on Amazon. It comes in just one variant that I have described above and two colours - Black and White. Its available for INR 8,999/- and you get a Cash-back on Amazon based on the current offer thats running which is credited to your Amazon Pay Balance. 

In my opinion if you are considering a budget phone in the range below 10,000/- and can probably spend more than a Moto E3 power go for this. If build quality is of importance to you then you should consider going for the Redmi Note 3, as it has a much better design than this but is a little expensive and comes in two variants. All depends on how you use your phone. Xiaomi however would not get the latest Android updates like the Moto Devices would get. 

























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