Moto Z And Moto Z Force With Moto Mods Review: Excellent Execution

At first glance you might pass off their faux plastic/wood backings as cheap or flimsy but they actually feel pretty high quality and snap into place firmly with confidence on the back of the phones. They also help fill in the large camera bump of the Moto Z and Moto  Z Force, protecting it more from wear but not completely. Once snapped on the back of the phones these bundled back plates do add a bit of thickness, but regardless, both devices still feel thin and strong to boot, though the Moto Z feels absolutely wafer-thin. 

The Moto Z Force is a bit thicker and has a subtle double X bevel to its edges that make it comfortable and easy to grip, while accentuating the volume up, down and power buttons on its right side edge, which are also placed in the same location on the Moto Z. Those buttons are a little confusing at times, however, since they're all stacked on one side of the phone. Those that are used to volume rocker on the left edge, power button on the right (Galaxy S owners we're looking at you), might take some getting use to this setup.

And yes, we dropped the poor thing on its face a number of times to see how well the Moto Z Force and its ShatterShield-enabled display puts up with abuse. We didn't mar it with even a nick or crack, though admittedly it just felt wrong making the effort to test it out.  

In either case, both phones look and feel great and are definitely very high quality builds with excellent rigidity, no flex whatsoever and nothing cheap or flimsy about them. They look like very premium devices, feel like premium devices and respond as such as well. 

Of course one of the first things we set out to determine was how Moto's 5.5-inch AMOLED displays compare to the 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. Samsung's Super AMOLED equipped devices are easily our favorite among smartphone displays and are arguably regarded as the best in market currently, so this is a tall yardstick for the Moto Z family to measure up to. The reality is that the Moto Z and Moto Z Force's AMOLED displays are excellent and rival that of Samsung's.

There are some subtle nuances that come down to user preference, however. The Galaxy S7's display setup tends to be slightly warmer than that of the Moto Z and Moto Z Force. Viewing angles are comparable but a slight edge goes to Samsung as well, especially with the Moto Z Force where the extra covering for Moto ShatterShield technology cuts back on its brightness a touch. Regardless, both displays offer really good brightness and contrast in general and again are about as close as we've seen any smartphone display compete with Samsung's Super AMOLED technology. So in other words, they're top-shelf. The only significant drawback, which again comes down to user preference, is seen in the shot above. Where Samsung places their Android navigation buttons on the bezel of the device, Moto situates them on-screen, which does end up consuming some valuable vertical real estate -- and still the Galaxy S7 manages to measure up as a slightly shorter device as well, even with the same size display.

Conversely, the Moto Z's and Z Force's square fingerprint reader on the bottom bezel is probably the fastest, most fool-proof fingerprint sensor we've used in an Android device to date.

And aside from their storage expansion capability with dual SIM/SD Card slots, the Moto Z and Moto Z Force Droids have another trick up their sleeve that no other smartphones on the market can boast: Moto Mods.  

And we'll let the Moto Modding commence, next...