Motorola Moto G7 Play review

Design

The Moto G7 Play may be the smallest, the most lightweight, and the cheapest Moto G7, but it's still a worthy smartphone that has many good tricks in its bag. The design is the first thing anyone would notice, and the Play has it figured out quite nicely.

The Moto G7 Play, just like the rest of the G7 phones, is made of plastic. But unlike the G7 Power, the Play has no glossy parts. And this has played out for the better - the G7 Play has a wonderful grip and one really cool back with a micro-grooved texture which almost begs you to scratch it with a fingernail if you know what we mean.

We said the G7 Play is the smallest of the G7 quartet and that's because it has a 5.7" display. That's by no means a tiny screen, it's just that the other G7 phones pack 6.2" displays.

So, the 5.7" panel on the G7 Play has 720p resolution, just like the one on the Power. It also has a cutout for the earpiece and the front camera, in fact, it's the biggest notch among the G7s. But there is a reason for that - in addition to the earpiece, which is also the loudspeaker, the 8MP selfie snapper and some sensors, the G7 Play's notch also houses a LED flash.

The display has round edges matching the phone's shell and has some thick bezels, but that's to be expected given the price tag. The notch's extra pixels are the only premium thing you get, if that's still considered premium.

There is a Gorilla Glass 3 on top of the screen keeping it safe from scratches and we appreciate that.

The back of the Moto G7 Play is made of one piece of plastic slightly bent towards the phone's longer sides. It has this very distinct fingerprint-like pattern, which is very grippy. Other than that, fingerprints do stick over time, but it takes a while, and because of those tiny ridges etched on the back - you should be more careful with tiny particles such as dust, sand, salt, etc.

Motorola's iconic circle at the back is on the Moto G7 Play, too, and it's bulging a bit but doesn't make the phone wobble when used on a flat surface. The single 13MP camera and the LED flash sit there, surrounded by the same grippy texture as the rest of the rear panel.

The plastic frame has subtle curves, too, but it's not as glossy as on the G7 Power. On its left side is the ejectable card tray, which has a separate place for a microSD card no matter single or dual-SIM model. The 3.5mm audio port is on top of the G7 Play.

The Moto G7 Play measures 147.3 x 71.5 x 8 mm and that's one of the most compact phones we've handled lately. It's also lightweight at 149g - 23g lighter than the G7 and 44g lighter than the G7 Power.

The Moto G7 Play is a pleasure to handle. It has a no-nonsense build with subtle design decorations that improve the grip instead of ruining it. The phone is among the more compact ones we've handled lately and a nice departure from all those phablets, flagship or not. The G7 Play is easy to operate even with one hand, requires little to no finger stretching, and in the end of the day we had nothing short of great handling experience.