Moto Z Droid review: Birth of a new successor
Birth of a new successor
Gallery
The Moto Z relies on stock Google apps for viewing photos, video playback, and the music player. The Gallery in question is part of Google's Photos service. If you are familiar with Google Photos, then you'll be quite familiar with the interface.
Camera roll views can be changed with pinch-to-zoom
The stock offering also offers many basic editing features to help you crop, rotate, and adjust basic levels. There's also an "auto enhance" feature which automatically adjusts the photo the way Google's software thinks it should look.
Various photo editing tools
Video playback is just as simple as the photo viewer. There is also an "edit" button but it only allows you to crop the video's length. Unfortunately, the stock video player doesn't come close to 3rd party video players that you can find on the Play Store with features like additional format and subtitle support.
Video playback: tools • options • editor
Google Play Music
The Moto Z uses Google Play music as the stock music player which offers a free music streaming service (think YouTube, but for music and ad-supported). These days, it's more common to either subscribe to a music service or stream music from a free service. The days of loading 20GB of music to a microSD card are slowly being left behind in the past.
Album art: Now Playing • notification • lockscreen
Google Music: home • settings • equalizer
When using Google Music, you'll be shown a YouTube icon which will take you to that song's music video on YouTube (if it has one). Besides the "Now Playing" screen, album art can be seen in the notification shade (along with music controls) and the lock screen also features the album art in a full-screen version.
Audio is loud and clear
The Motorola Moto Z Droid delivered excellently clean output when used with an active external amplifier, getting top marks across the board. Its volume was nicely high too so a great start for a phone with no headphone jack.
Degradation caused by headphones is about a very contained hike in stereo crosstalk. Output remains very clear and pretty loud so top marks for the Moto Z here.
And now here go the results so you can do your comparison.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| Motorola Moto Z Droid | +0.02, -0.05 | -93.6 | 93.6 | 0.0046 | 0.0097 | -93.9 |
| Motorola Moto Z Droid (headphones) | +0.03, -0.04 | -93.7 | 93.6 | 0.018 | 0.019 | -75.4 |
| Huawei P9 Plus | +0.04, -0.01 | -97.4 | 98.9 | 0.0040 | 0.010 | -96.9 |
| Huawei P9 Plus (headphones) | +0.03, -0.38 | -95.8 | 95.9 | 0.0055 | 0.190 | -63.7 |
| Sony Xperia X Performance | +0.01, -0.04 | -95.2 | 90.0 | 0.0038 | 0.011 | -95.1 |
| Sony Xperia X Performance (headphones) | +0.23, -0.17 | -93.2 | 89.3 | 0.0078 | 0.174 | -64.9 |
| LG G5 | +0.01, -0.04 | -92.6 | 92.6 | 0.0051 | 0.0096 | -93.3 |
| LG G5 (headphones) | +0.05, -0.01 | -92.2 | 92.3 | 0.0029 | 0.037 | -50.7 |
| Xiaomi Mi 5 | +0.01, -0.03 | -95.3 | 95.1 | 0.0034 | 0.0065 | -95.1 |
| Xiaomi Mi 5 (headphones) | +0.01, -0.03 | -95.2 | 95.1 | 0.0027 | 0.013 | -71.5 |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 | +0.01, -0.04 | -92.5 | 92.6 | 0.0027 | 0.0078 | -92.7 |
| Samsung Galaxy S7 (headphones) | +0.05, -0.05 | -91.9 | 92.1 | 0.0044 | 0.063 | -73.4 |
| +0.03, -0.04 | -93.5 | 93.5 | 0.0016 | 0.0075 | -73.2 | |
| +0.10, -0.06 | -93.8 | 93.9 | 0.0030 | 0.101 | -68.2 |
Motorola Moto Z Droid frequency response
You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.
Loudspeaker test
The Moto Z is not too different from previous Moto X models. The Moto X Style features dual, front-facing, stereo speakers. The only difference with the Moto Z is there is only one speaker, and it's also the earpiece for making calls.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing | Overall score | |
| 61.9 | 66.0 | 62.1 | Below Average | |
| 65.8 | 65.1 | 64.6 | Below Average | |
| 63.1 | 66.7 | 74.3 | Average | |
| 70.0 | 69.1 | 71.8 | Good | |
| 62.4 | 71.0 | 77.8 | Good | |
| 64.5 | 66.2 | 81.8 | Good | |
| 72.1 | 66.6 | 75.6 | Good | |
| 74.7 | 77.8 | 72.1 | Very Good |
While the loudspeaker isn't too loud with spoken word or video clips, Motorola made sure that it was loud enough for ringtones. The speaker in the Moto Z tends not to have such a strong low or mid-range, but the mid-to-high range for treble sounds is much louder and clearer (which is what a ringtone typically makes). The speaker makes just the right amount of compromise, while still making sure you don't miss any calls.
Reader comments
- LucaZ
- 02 Dec 2020
- mTh
hi, I have many of them (z, z play, z force) they all works great in a different speed, sorry to say but most of negative post on it are because I guess most of them don`t use the right cover when unplugging the phone, I had the same problem but I re...
- Anonymous
- 16 Jul 2019
- jsI
Z4 has a 3.5mm jack again....so who was right?
- Stihy
- 23 Nov 2018
- m1c
After using this phone for 8 months this is what i know. -Phone i fast -Camera is good -Durability is not good -Batery is horible. U can't use phone for 4-5 hours withouth charge. For a price of battery pack addon you can buy Xiaomi A...