Motorola Moto G7 Play review

Introduction

The Moto G7 Play is the most basic smartphone of the G7 quartet that launched in Brazil not long ago. But even though its price hints of a budget experience with a lot of compromises, we actually found it quite capable and interesting. And here is why.

The Moto G7 Play has a very sturdy plastic body but unlike the G7 Power, it has a textured and matte back meaning smudges, and scratches are highly unlikely. Just like the rest of the G7 phones, the Play also comes with a large and notched screen and runs on the Snapdragon 632 chipset the vanilla and Power models have.

The camera department seems quite adequate, too. The G7 Play has a 13MP snapper on its back with Portrait mode and 4K video capturing, while the 8MP selfie camera is the same as seen on the G7 and G7 Power.

The Moto G7 Play also runs a vanilla Android Pie and comes with all the software tricks by Moto available across the entire G7 lineup.

Moto G7 Play specs

• Body: Plastic back and frame; Splash resistant; Corning Gorilla Glass 3 front
• Display: 5.7" IPS LCD, HD+ 720x1512px resolution display (19:9 aspect ratio), 294 ppi.
• Rear camera: 13MP, f/2.0 aperture, 1.12µm; phase detection autofocus, LED flash, Auto HDR. 4K/30fps video recording.
• Front camera: 8MP, f/2.2 aperture, 1.12µm, fixed focus, 1080p/30fps video recording, LED flash.
• OS/Software: Android 9.0 Pie
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 632 (14 nm): octa-core CPU (4x1.8 GHz Kryo 250 Gold & 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 250 Silver), Adreno 506 GPU.
• Memory: 2GB of RAM, 32GB storage; dedicated microSD slot for expansion.
• Battery: 3,000 mAh Li-Ion (sealed); 5W or 10W charging.
• Connectivity: Single/dual SIM; LTE Cat. 7 (300Mbps download/50Mbps upload); Type-C USB2.0 port; Wi-Fi b/g/n; GPS, GLONASS; Bluetooth 4.2; FM radio.
• Misc: Rear-mounted fingerprint reader; single speaker - the earpiece; 3.5mm jack.

The Moto G7 Play won't impress with battery capacity or fast charging. It's available only with 32GB storage but a dedicated microSD slot is present just like on the other models. The only issue might be the 2 gigs of RAM - those may work for Apple, but we aren't sure if they would be enough for a modern Android smartphone.

Moto G7 Play unboxing

The Moto G7 Play retail box is as fancy-looking as the rest of the G7 series but its contents are as basic as the price tag suggests. The G7 Play ships with a sluggish 5W charger and a USB-C cable. That's it.

The Moto G7 Play does support 10W charging and in some markets, like the USA, it will come with a proper 10W charger in the box. Your local Motorola website should be able to give you information about what's supposed to be included in the retail box depending on your region.

In our case there was no protective case for the G7 Play in contrast with the rest of the G7 bundles we got.