Moto Z, Moto Z Play And Moto Mods: Australian Price And Release Date

Moto Z, Moto Z Play and Moto Mods launched today in Australia. We’re looking at two flagship smartphones and a collection of mods that clip onto the back — a super zoom camera, a battery pack,a big screen projector and a boombox.

Here’s all the details — including when you can pick them up, and for how much.

Moto Z



The new Moto Z is 5.2 mm, which Moto says is the world’s thinnest premium smartphone ever. Made from military aircraft-grade aluminum and stainless steel, the Moto Z features a 14 cm 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and coupled with 4GB of RAM.

As far as cameras go, there’s a 13MP, f 1.8 camera with optical image stabilisation and laser autofocus and a front-facing 5MP camera with an extra front flash and a wide angle lens.

On the front of the water-repellant coated phone is the fingerprint reader, and the 2600 mAh battery promises up to 24 hours of mixed usage battery life. TurboPower fast-charging can give you up to 7 hours of power in 15 minutes.

It comes with 64 GB of internal storage with additional space up to 2TB via a microSD card.

Moto Z will be available at Harvey Norman, The Good Guys Stores, Officeworks and www.motorola.com.au from tomorrow (13 October) and cost $999.

Moto Z Play

The Moto Z Play comes with Moto’s longest lasting smartphone battery ever. The design is thin and lightweight design with a solid aluminum frame and glass back. Under the hood there’s a 2.0 GHz octa-core processor and 3GB of RAM.

Its got a 14cm (5.5-inch) 1080p Full HD Super AMOLED display, 16MP laser autofocus camera and that battery life? Up to 45 hours of mixed usage (that’s both usage and standby time) battery life with its 3510 mAh battery. It also supports TurboPower charging, so you get up to 8 hours of use in 15 minutes of charging.

Moto Z Play will be available at Harvey Norman, The Good Guys Stores, Officeworks and www.motorola.com.au from tomorrow 13 October, and cost $699.

Moto Mods



Both the Moto Z and Moto Z Play have been designed to be thin enough to allow for mods to snap magnetically onto the back without being too huge to fit into your pocket. Once snapped on, the corresponding app is triggered to open automatically and you can use your smartphone as a JBL SoundBoost portable speaker ($159), an Insta-Share 70-inch movie projector ($429) or even just add an extra 20 hours of battery life with the Incipio offGRID power pack ($119 or $139 for the wireless model).

The standout mod is the Hasselblad True Zoom 10x optical zoom camera ($399), with its Xenon flash light. There are physical shutter and zoom controls, you can capture in RAW, and there’s access to Hasselblad’s Phocus editing software.

The JBL SoundBoost, Moto Insta-Share Projector, Hasselblad True Zoom and The Power Pack Mods will also be available from 13 October.

We got hands on with the phones and mods today, and surprisingly they don’t add a lot of weight or bulk. They are easy to connect, but not terribly secure — I wouldn’t want to drop the handset with any of these attached.

Oh, and there’s the Moto Style Shells, which come in real wood ($29), leather ($39) and nylon ($29) so you can personalise your handset.

So you get yourself down to a store tomorrow, pick up the flagship Z, add the available mods, buy a shiny leather cover and you’ll be looking at a sweet $2k. But is it worth it? We’ll keep you posted with our review in the coming weeks — but in the meantime, here’s the full specs of the handsets.

Moto Z Specs

Height: 155.3 mm
Width: 75.3 mm
Depth: 5.19 mm
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with up to 2.2GHz quad-core CPU with Adreno 530 GPU
Software: Android Marshmallow with Moto enhancements (Moto Display, Moto Actions, Moto Voice)
Display: 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED display (1440p [2560×1440] / 535 ppi), Corning Gorilla Glass
Storage (ROM): 64 GB, microSD card support up to 2 TB
Memory (RAM): 4 GB
Rear Camera: 13 MP with f/ 1.8 aperture, optical image stabilization (OIS), laser autofocus, zero shutter lag, color correlated temperature (CCT) flash with dual LEDs.
Front Camera: 5 MP with wide field of view and extra flash
Video Capture: 1080p full HD video, 60fps; 4K (30fps)
Battery: 2600 mAh, up to 24 hours mixed usage
Fast Charging: TurboPower gives you up to 7 hours of power in 15 minutes of charging
Colours: Black with Lunar Gray, White with Fine Gold
Sim: Nano-SIM, Dual-SIM with 4G+3G, 3G + 3G standby support
Audio: Front-ported loudspeaker, 4-mic support
Water Repellent: Water repellent nano-coating
NFC: Yes
Connectivity: Moto Mods connector, USB-C port for headphones, charging and data transfer, 3.5mm to USB-C headphone port adaptor included
Authentication: Fingerprint reader

Moto Z Play

Dimensions: 156.4 x 76.4 x 6.99mm, 165g
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor up to 2 GHz Octa-Core CPU with Adreno 506 GPU
Software: Android 6.0.1, Marshmallow with Moto Enhancements (Moto Display, Actions and Voice)
Memory (RAM): 3GB LPDDR3
Storage (ROM): 32GB with microSD Card support (up to 2 TB)
Display: 5.5-inch Super AMOLED, 1080p HD (1080 x 1920), 403 ppi
Battery: Mixed usage up to 45 hours (3510 mAh)
Fast Charging: TurboPower for up to 8 hours of power in 15 minutes of charging
Rear Camera: 16 M, ƒ / 2.0 aperture, Laser autofocus, Phase detection autofocus (PDAF), Zero Shutter Lag, Color balancing(CCT) dual LED flash
Video Capture: 480p (30fps) 720p (120fps), 1080p (30fps), 4K (30fps)
Front Camera: 5 MP, wide-Angle 85° lens, LED flash
Water Protection: Water repellent nano-coating
SIM Card : Nano-SIM, Dual-SIM with 4G+3G, 3G with 3G Standby Suport
Connectivity: Moto Mods connector, USB-C port, 3.5mm port
Bluetooth Technology: Bluetooth version 4.0 LE
Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n 2.4 GHz + 5 GHz
Speakers/Microphones: Front-ported earpiece/loudspeaker, 3 Mics
Video Playback: 480p (30fps) 720p (120fps) 1080p (60fps), 4K (30fps)
NFC: Yes
Authentication: Fingerprint Reader
Colours: Black with Silver, White with Fine Gold


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