Moto Z evaluation: modular+thin tribute to the blade classic

Evaluation of IT 168 half a century ago, Martin Cooper, then the general manager of Motorola's communications department, stood on the busy street of new york with a wireless phone bigger than a brick, and dialed the first phone with people around him watching. Perhaps no one would have thought that this big and stupid guy would extend to every bit of our life in a few decades. Since then, the world has truly entered the era of wireless communication.

As the pioneer of mobile phones, Moto has left us many classic products. Behind the sentence "Hello Moto", there must be many post-80s people who have their own memories of Moto products. Whether it's L7, Moto V3 or XT9 10, these familiar classic models all have the same name-Blade. Even though Moto is no longer the glory of its peak, the blade series is still like the first love goddess in the hearts of some fans. Since 2004, 12 years later, when Moto Z inherits the classic of "Blade" full of science and technology, what will happen? Let's take a look today. What is this mobile phone like?

Moto Z made its debut at Lenovo TechWorld Conference in June. As the latest flagship model of Moto, how many surprises did Moto, who is not good at stacking hardware parameters, give us on this product? First of all, we can simply understand its hardware parameters through a table.

"Moto Z main parameters

operating system

Shallow customization One UI, based on Android 6.0

Network standard

Full netcom, dual card dual standby

Fuselage size

155.3 *75.3 *5.2 mm

weight

137g

screen

5.5-inch 2560* 1440 resolution AMOLED screen

camera

13 megapixel F/ 1.8 aperture, supporting laser focusing.

processor

Qualcomm Xiaolong 820

Body memory

Ram: 4gb ROM: 64gb (expansion supported)

eigenfunction

Modular extension and fingerprint identification of Moto Mods

battery

2600 mAh (non-replaceable)

Fuselage color

Liu jinhai

listed price

3999 yuan view

In my opinion, its highlights are as follows: First, the flagship hardware configuration, needless to say, the core of Xiaolong 820, 4GB+64GB storage is also relatively mainstream, it is worth mentioning that Moto Z is the second Moto mobile phone equipped with fingerprint recognition after Atrix. Secondly, it pays tribute to the slim design of the blade. The thickness of the whole machine is 5.2mm, and the visual impact is strong. It is inevitable that there will be a sharp feeling, a feeling of affection and personality. Finally, modular design, connecting modules through magnetic attraction, thus expanding the functions of mobile phones, is a relatively perfect modular solution at present. Generally speaking, Moto Z is a distinctive model, which is worth mentioning. Let's evaluate it.

Atlas modular mobile phone Moto Z/Z Play live demonstration

"Moto Z design

The biggest feature of Moto Z is that it is light and thin. The thickness of the whole machine is only 5.2mm and the weight is only 136g, which reminds people of Moto's classic blade Razr series models. Moto Z's metal middle frame adopts customized 7000 series aviation aluminum, which improves the strength of the fuselage by 85% and is not easy to bend. In addition, the transition between the metal middle frame of Moto Z and the back of the fuselage is as neat as a "blade".

Moto Z is equipped with a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED screen with 2K resolution, which has a good visual impression. Covered with 2.5D glass, it adds a little roundness to the overall tough design style. Moto Z hides the speaker in the receiver position to reduce the openings in the metal middle frame. Chang Cheng said at the press conference that the addition of the former Meguiar's lamp was the most popular with Mofen, but such a bright Meguiar's lamp was slightly abrupt on the black panel.

At the bottom of the front is the square Home button, which has fingerprint recognition function and cannot be pressed. The official claims that the fingerprint unlocking speed is only 0.09s, which supports fingerprint payment. There are microphones on both sides of the Home button. This time Moto Z uses 4 MIC noise reduction technology, and the other two microphones are located at the top of the fuselage and the bottom of the back of the fuselage. Above the Home button is Moto's new Logo.

Because the body thickness of Moto Z is only 5.2mm, the 3.5mm standard earphone hole is cancelled, and it is used with USB3.0 standard USB Type-C interface at the bottom of the body to support forward and backward insertion. In addition, Moto Z adopts a hidden antenna design, and there are injection-molded antennas only at the top and bottom of the fuselage.

On the back of the fuselage, Moto Z adopts a three-stage design, the top and bottom are made of glass, the middle is made of high-precision steel backboard, the thickness is reduced by 50%, the surface is decorated with horizontal stripes, and at the same time, it is treated with nano-hydrophobic coating, so that Moto Z can easily cope with daily water splashing such as rainy days.

Limited by the ultra-thin fuselage design, Moto Z's rear camera protrudes from the back of the fuselage and is protected by a metal ring of the same color as the metal middle frame. Of course, if the module is added, the problem of camera protruding will be solved, but it is impossible to have both.

At the bottom of the back of the fuselage is the metal contact "Mods Smart Surface" connecting the module. Gold-plated waterproof and antioxidant treatment, attached to the module by magnetic force, supports instant use. Modular design is the biggest attraction of Moto Z. Moto Z can meet the needs of different consumers and realize different functions by matching different rubbing modules, rubbing JBL speaker modules, rubbing Hasselblad photography modules, rubbing battery modules and rubbing fan back shell modules. The specific experience of Moto Z modularity will be introduced in detail later in the article.

Moto Z's thin and sturdy "blade" design left a deep impression on people, but in order to achieve ultra-thinness, some compromises were made in the design, such as the prominent rear camera and the cancellation of the 3.5mm headphone jack. In addition, Moto Z's modular design is ingenious, supports hot plug, and has almost no learning cost when used, which is very convenient.

"Moto Z hardware configuration

In terms of hardware, Moto Z adopts SoC Opteron 820, 4GB running memory and UFS 2.0 standard 64GB body storage space used by almost all flagships this year. Xiaolong 820 adopts 14nm FinFET process. As we all know, the architecture and technology determine the performance of the processor. The smaller the process of the chip, the stronger the computing power under the same power consumption, and the lower the power consumption under the same computing power. FinFEF mainly controls the leakage rate of the chip fence by transforming the shape of the processor fence and improves the energy consumption ratio. 14nm process is the most advanced process in mass production CPU at present.

In addition, Xiaolong 820 also adopts the built-in Hexagon680 DSP, adopts a brand-new Hexagon architecture, and integrates HVX (Vector Extension) and low-power island. Based on the low power island, the sensor information can be processed, and other chips that don't need to work can be completely turned off to avoid wasting power. On the other hand, based on this DSP, photos (videos) can be dynamically adjusted in real time, such as improving the brightness in the dark, while the overall brightness of the picture remains unchanged, which is the so-called LTM technology.

From the running results of Ann Bunny, the total score of Moto Z is 128 187, which is at the same level as most Xiaolong 820 mobile phones, especially in 3D performance and RAM performance. In actual use, Moto Z has a good experience in game experience and multitasking. Geekbench 3 scored 2090 points for single core and 52 14 points for multi-core. The CPU computing power is almost the same as other Xiaolong 820 products.

"Fast charging test.

"

The previous Moto flagship phones all supported turbo fast charging. This year's Moto Z has been upgraded on the basis of turbo fast charging. In order to speed up the turbo charging, a 5V/3A 15W charger is adopted. The official claims that charging 15 minutes can be used (no call) for 6 hours, and charging for 69 minutes can be fully charged. We also carried out the fast charge test of Moto Z and compiled it into a chart. From the chart, we can see that the whole charging process of Moto Z is almost linear, and the last trickle charging speed is relatively fast. It takes 74 minutes from automatic shutdown without power to full charge. Because the charging time will be affected by environmental temperature and other factors, although it is slightly different from the official charging time, the difference is not big.

"endurance test

Because the thickness of the fuselage is only 5.2mm, Moto Z has a built-in battery with a capacity of 2600mAh, which seems to be a little smaller than the current 3000mAh battery. So what is the endurance of Moto Z? We use PCmark to simulate daily work to test the battery life of Moto Z. It can be seen that it takes 8 hours for Moto Z's battery to consume from 100% to 20%, which shows that Moto Z's optimization of power consumption is good.

"Moto Z system combing

Moto's products have always used Android native system, which has become its unique symbol. Moto Z is equipped with Android 6.0 system. The native system always gives people a clean and smooth impression, which is much lighter than other customized Roms. Let's take a look at the Android 6.0 system equipped with Moto Z, and you will find that this is actually not a simple native Android.

Intuitively, Moto Z's system interface is actually very different from native Android. Moto Z does not use the second-tier desktop of native Android, and the application used is tiled on a desktop. The icon does not choose the native style, but caters to the rounded rectangle, making the desktop clean and tidy. Lenovo calls it One UI.

But when you continue to operate, drop down the notification bar and enter the multi-task interface, the intimacy of the native system comes to you, and all this is still the design style of Materials Design.

Although it is a native system, Moto Z still has no pre-installed Google framework, and all the services involved are provided by Lenovo, such as music stores and voice assistants. In addition, some grounded application services are connected, such as security center, which integrates harassment interception, application authority management, background application management and so on.

Moto Z has its own unique side in human-computer interaction. We can see that there are many sensors on the front of Moto Z. For example, the metal decorative strip of the earpiece slightly protrudes from the screen, and the sensor openings are faintly visible on both sides of the bottom, which provides more possibilities for Moto's voice control and gesture control.

When the screen is closed, you can wake up the phone and enter the voice assistant by saying the preset password to the phone. What makes Moto proud most is that Moto Z can recognize different people's voices and only respond to the preset owner's voice (recognize voiceprint wake-up through a low-power processor), so that your mobile phone only listens to you. In terms of functions, you can make phone calls, set alarm clocks, listen to books, check phone bills, watch news, check weather and so on through voice commands, which is very rich.

In addition to voice interaction, Moto Z also supports gesture operation. When you slide your hand on the screen, it will display information such as time. Shake the phone left and right to start the camera quickly, and shake the phone up and down to turn on the flashlight. These functions have certain practical significance. Especially when the camera is turned on, the trigger rate is almost 100%, which can be completed from when the user takes out his mobile phone to when the mobile phone is ready to take pictures with both hands.

Moto display is the iconic human-computer interaction function of Moto series mobile phones at present, which is also the Always On function that we often talk about recently. Using the self-luminous characteristics of AMOLED screen, messages such as SMS, WeChat and Weibo are directly displayed on the black screen, which balances power consumption and practicality.

It should be said that in terms of human-computer interaction, Moto has made certain characteristics from both hardware and software. Generally speaking, the system has been improved on the original basis, but the framework is still the original experience.

"Moto Z imaging experience

As the latest flagship product of Moto, Moto Z has put a lot of thoughts into the camera. In terms of parameters, Moto Z is equipped with13 million main camera+5 million front camera. The main camera supports not only phase focusing, but also laser focusing. Of course, many people will also spit out their slightly prominent shots. Here, I need to explain to you that the reason why the camera stands out is to accommodate a larger voice coil motor, so as to ensure the focusing speed. At the same time, adding optical image stabilization to ensure the quality of night shooting is entirely out of the pursuit of camera performance. This choice between performance and aesthetics, Apple and Samsung tend to the former, it is not surprising that Moto made such a choice.

Moto Z's camera interface is simple and basically does not need any settings. Automatically recognize night scenes, HDR and other modes to open the scene, and also provide manual adjustment of picture brightness. The photo album can be previewed by sliding, and the overall interaction is not complicated. Let's analyze the imaging strength of Moto Z in detail through the proofs.

During the day, the performance of Moto Z is worthy of recognition, the white balance of the picture is more accurate, the color processing of the blue sky is very pleasing to the eye, and the first impression is good. Thanks to the blessing of phase focusing and laser focusing, the performance in focusing is particularly fast and the experience is very good.

Laser focusing is very helpful for macro shooting. Take this yellow flower as an example, there is not much obvious difference in color. Ordinary contrast focusing is difficult to focus on reality, even phase focusing takes a lot of effort. Moto Z relies on laser focusing for direct light ranging, and directly adjusts the focal length through the feedback distance information, so that the speed and accuracy are guaranteed.

In the indoor environment, Moto Z continues the outdoor performance, and all aspects are relatively balanced. Occasionally, there will be inaccurate metering and slight overexposure tendency, but it can be compensated by manual adjustment.

In terms of night scene, thanks to the addition of optical image stabilization, ISO can be maintained at around 600, and the exposure time can be extended to one tenth of a second, so the picture purity of Moto Z is worthy of recognition. In addition, if the night mode of Moto Z is triggered, the system will automatically take multiple photos and synthesize them to achieve the most effective effect, which takes a long time (about 1 second), and users need to try their best to keep the camera posture and prevent jitter.

Generally speaking, the camera hardware of Moto Z in Moto mobile phones of past dynasties should be the strongest, and the imaging effect is also remarkable. Its ultra-fast focusing speed also left a deep impression on the author.

It is no problem to be competent for daily shooting.

"about the modularity of moto z.

As the biggest selling point of Moto Z, modular design has become its unique symbol. At present, Moto provides five modules, namely Mo Fan, Modian, Yin Mo, Moying and Mo Yan, for function expansion, corresponding to five different modules, namely personalized back cover, extended battery, audio, projection and Hasselblad camera.

Moto Z has a 16 pin interface on the back cover and the bottom of the module respectively. When the mobile phone is connected to the intelligent module, the function of the module can be expanded through the pin contact between them.

▲ Module and mobile phone pass through.

16 pin interface connection

▲ Trial use of magic shadow projection module

The LG G5 introduced at the beginning of the year is also a modular mobile phone, but the expansion of its module is completed by "plugging and unplugging the chin", and the module is connected with the mobile phone through the bayonet, which is not very friendly to use. Moto Z and the module are connected simply and smoothly by magnetic attraction, and also support hot plug, which provides great convenience and should be regarded as a relatively perfect modular solution at present.

▲ Modularization of ▲LG G5

Coincidentally, when I got this modular mobile phone Moto Z, Ara, a long-studied modular mobile phone project of Google, just announced an abortion, which seems to cast a shadow over the future of modular mobile phones. Will Moto Z repeat the mistakes of Project Ara? What must be said here is that the modularity of Project Ara is essentially different from Moto Z. Project Ara is equivalent to "saving a mobile phone", and different modules such as processor, camera and battery can be combined to complete a mobile phone. Moto Z, on the other hand, expands its functions on the basis of a perfect mobile phone to realize a more professional experience in a specific field, so it makes no sense to use Project Ara as an analogy.

▲

Ara, a modular mobile phone project that Google has studied for a long time.

Moto Z's modularity cannot deny its value, especially in today's mobile phone homogenization, which provides us with more diverse and cutting-edge choices.

▲ Scan the QR code to buy.

Back to Moto Z, the appearance follows Moto's excellent industrial design, 5.2mm slim body, exquisite materials and technology. In design, it pays tribute to the classic blade of the past and evokes many feelings of the past. In terms of configuration, Moto Z is equipped with Opteron 820 processor, 5.5-inch 2K AMOLED screen and 4GB+64GB storage combination, which is the flagship level of the current mainstream, making Moto's traditional native system and interactive experience even better. The camera has also been upgraded. The main camera13 million supports optical image stabilization and laser focusing, which significantly improves the imaging experience. It is a competitive product in itself.

As for the modular design of Moto Z, it really surprised many people, reflecting Moto's still good industrial heritage and innovative spirit, and also showing its thinking on the future development of mobile phones, which is undoubtedly successful at the product level. At the commodity level, as the flagship mobile phone of Moto, can Moto Z attract more consumers to pay for it, thus reshaping the glory of the blade era? Only waiting time will tell us the answer.