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

evaluation of p>IT168 half a century ago, Martin Cooper, then general manager of Motorola's communication department, stood on the busy street of new york with a wireless phone bigger than a brick, and dialed the first call under the crowd around him. Perhaps no one at that time 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 really entered the era of wireless communication.

as the pioneer of mobile phones, Moto has left us many classic products. Behind the phrase "Hello Moto", there must be many post-8s people who have their own memories of Moto's products. Whether it's L7, Moto V3 or XT91, these well-known classic models all have the same name-Blade. Even now Moto is no longer the glory of its peak, but the blade series is still like the goddess of first love in some fans' hearts. From 24 to now, 12 years later, when Moto Z inherits the classic of "Blade" with a sense of science and technology, what kind of performance will it have? Let's take a look today. What's this phone like?

Moto Z was first presented 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, we can simply understand its hardware parameters through a table.

"main parameters of moto z

operating system

shallow customization of One UI, based on Android 6.

network standard

full netcom, Dual card dual standby

body size

155.3 *75.3 *5.2 mm

weight

137g

screen

5.5 inch 256*144 resolution AMOLED screen

camera

13 million pixels F/1.8 aperture, Support for laser focusing

processor

Qualcomm Xiaolong 82

body memory

RAM: 4GB ROM: 64GB (support for expansion)

Features

Modular expansion of MotoMODS, Fingerprint identification

battery

26mAh (non-replaceable)

body color

liquid gold black

listing price

3999 yuan

In my opinion, its highlights Atrix as follows: first, the flagship hardware configuration, needless MoMoto say, the core of Xiaolong 82, 4GB+64GB storage is relatively mainstream, which is worth it. Secondly, it pays tribute to the slim design of the blade. The thickness of the whole machine is 5.2mm, which has a strong visual shock, and it is inevitable that it will have a sharp handle and great feelings and personality. Finally, modular design, connecting modules by 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 below.

Atlas Modular Mobile Phone Moto Z/Z Play Live Trial Play

"Moto Z Design

The biggest feature of Moto Z is its thin and light body. The thickness of the whole machine is only 5.2mm, and the weight is only 136g, which reminds people of Moto's classic Razr series blade models. Moto Z's metal middle frame adopts customized 7 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 in order to reduce the opening in the metal middle frame. At the press conference, Chang Cheng said that the addition of the front Meguiar's lamp was the most popular with Mofen, but such a bright Meguiar's lamp was slightly abrupt on the black panel.

the front bottom is a square Home button, which has fingerprint recognition function and cannot be pressed. The official claims that the fingerprint unlocking speed is only .9s, 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 for USB Type-C interface of USB3. standard at the bottom of the body * * *, which supports 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 a high-precision steel backboard, the thickness is reduced by 5%, the surface is decorated with horizontal stripes, and at the same time, it is treated with a nano hydrophobic coating, so that Moto Z can easily cope with daily water splashing situations such as rainy days.

limited by the ultra-thin fuselage design, Moto Z's rear camera protrudes from the back of the fuselage, and it is protected by a metal ring with 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 lightness and thinness.

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

Moto Z's thin and sturdy "blade" design left a deep impression, but in order to achieve ultra-thinness, there were some compromises in the design, such as the protruding rear camera and the cancellation of the 3.5mm headphone jack. In addition, Moto Z's modular design is clever, 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 Xiaolong 82, a SoC used by almost all flagships this year, with 4GB of running memory and 64GB of body storage space in UFS 2. standard. Xiaolong 82 adopts 14nm FinFET process. As we all know, the architecture and process determine the performance of a 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 and improves the energy consumption ratio by transforming the shape of the processor fence. The 14nm process is the most advanced process in mass production CPU at present.

in addition, Xiaolong 82 also uses the built-in Hexagon68 DSP, which adopts the brand-new Hexagon architecture and integrates HVX (Vector Expansion) and low power island. Based on the low power island, the information processing of the sensor can be carried out, and other chips that do not need to work can be completely turned off to avoid wasting power consumption. On the other hand, based on this DSP, photos (videos) can be dynamically adjusted in real time, for example, the brightness can be improved in the dark part, while the whole brightness of the picture remains unchanged, which is the so-called LTM technology.

according to the results of Ann Bunny's running, the total score of Moto Z is 128,187, which is on the same level as most Xiaolong 82 mobile phones, especially in 3D performance and RAM performance. In practical use, it has a good experience in game experience and multitasking. Geekbench 3 scored 29 points in single core and 5214 points in multi-core, and its CPU computing power is almost the same as other Xiaolong 82 products.

"Fast charging test

"

Moto flagship mobile phones all supported turbo fast charging. This year, Moto Z was upgraded from turbo fast charging to extremely fast turbo fast charging, using a 5V/3A 15W charger. It is officially claimed that it can be used (not called) for 6 hours after 15 minutes of charging, and it can be fully charged after 69 minutes of charging. We also carried out the fast charging 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 growth, and the last trickle charging speed is relatively fast. It takes 74 minutes from automatic shutdown without electricity to full charging. 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 body thickness is only 5.2mm, Moto Z has a built-in battery with a capacity of 26mAh. Compared with the current battery capacity of 3mAh, it seems to be a little smaller. 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 1% to 2%. It can be seen that Moto Z is good at optimizing power consumption, which means that it is no problem to deal with simple daily use during the day.

"Moto Z system combing

Moto's products have always adopted the native Android system, which has become its unique symbol. Moto Z is equipped with Android 6. system. The native system always gives people a clean and smooth impression, which is much lighter than other customized Roms. Below, we will sort out the Android 6. system equipped with Moto Z, and you will find that this is actually not a simple native Android.

intuitively, the system interface of Moto Z is actually very different from the native Android. Moto Z didn't use native Android's second-floor desktop, and the applications used were tiled on a desktop. The icons didn't choose the native style, but instead catered to the rounded rectangle, which made the desktop clean and tidy. Lenovo called 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, which 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 store and voice assistant. In addition, some grounded application services are also accessed, such as the security center, which integrates harassment interception, application authority management, background application management and so on.

in terms of human-computer interaction, Moto Z has its own unique side. 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 seen on both sides of the bottom, which provides more possibilities for Moto's voice control and gesture control.

when the screen is off, you can wake up the phone to enter the voice assistant by saying the preset password to the phone. What Moto is most proud of is that Moto Z can recognize different people's voices and only respond to the preset owner's voice (wake up by recognizing voiceprints through a low-power processor), so that your 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 the weather and so on through voice commands, which is very rich.

in addition to voice interaction, Moto Z supports gesture operation. when you swipe your hand on the screen, it will display information such as time. you can quickly start the camera by shaking your phone left and right, and turn on the flashlight by shaking your phone up and down. these functions have certain practical significance. Especially when the camera is turned on, the trigger rate is almost 1%, and users can complete it from the time they take out their mobile phones to the time they hold their mobile phones in their hands to prepare for taking pictures.

Moto display is the iconic human-computer interaction function of Moto series mobile phones at present, which is the Always On function we often talk about recently. By using the self-luminous characteristics of AMOLED screen, messages such as SMS, WeChat and Weibo will be displayed directly in the black screen, which makes a good balance between power consumption and practicality.

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

"Moto Z imaging experience

Moto Z, as the latest flagship product of Moto, has devoted a lot of thoughts to camera building. In terms of parameters, Moto Z is equipped with 13 million main camera+5 million front camera. The main camera not only supports phase focusing natively, but also supports laser focusing. Of course, many people will also spit out their slightly prominent lenses. Here, we need to explain to you that the reason why the camera will stand out is to accommodate a larger voice coil motor, thus ensuring the focusing speed, and at the same time, adding optical image stabilization to ensure the quality of night shooting is completely out of the pursuit of camera performance. This choice between performance and aesthetics, both 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. The modes such as night scene and HDR automatically recognize the scene, and manual adjustment of the brightness of the picture is provided. You can preview the photo album by sliding, and the overall interaction is not complicated. Let's analyze the imaging strength of Moto Z in detail through proofs.

In daytime, Moto Z's performance is worthy of recognition, the white balance of the picture is relatively accurate, and 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 rapid and the experience is very good.

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

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.

at night, thanks to the addition of optical image stabilization, ISO can be maintained at around 6, 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 for synthesis to achieve the most effective effect. This cost is a long time (about 1 second), and users need to try to keep their camera posture to prevent shaking.