Overall and Final Verdict
If I’m being honest, normally when I get a phone in I am excited. But even a quick look at some of the features of the Moto Z Force had me especially excited about the phone even before it came in. I love the higher build quality with a shatterproof 2.0 glass screen and the aluminum frame. But at the time it was the Moto Mods that really caught my eye. I love being able to hot swap features, so I was curious how that would work out. As it turns out, I didn’t use the Moto Mods very much. The JBL Soundboost that Verizon included with the phone sounded amazing, but was just much larger than I thought it would be. I will say, for those who take portable sound bars with them often it would be a better option, but for me I just didn’t like having what felt like three phones stacked in my pocket. The projector option was really interesting as was the extended life battery.
It ended up being all of the other features of the Moto Z Force that I really enjoyed. Like I mentioned before, I love the shatterproof screen. A lot of people drop their phones and normally the screen is the first to go, even with a case on the phone, so it’s nice to know there is a little extra protection there. Things like the USB Type C connection and the quick thumbprint reader on the home button also made life a little easier even though they didn’t make it into the top four things I liked about the phone. The 21MP rear-facing camera performed extremely well in my testing and throughout the entire time I used the phone, I especially liked the auto best photo setting that would take multiple pictures when you move the phone to make sure one is in focus. Then of course in my performance testing the Snapdragon 820 SoC dominated the charts, proving that the Moto Z Force can handle anything you throw at it, especially with gaming.
Then, of course, was the additional battery capacity of the Moto Z Force edition. They made the phone a little thicker but upped the battery capacity. Sadly, I wasn’t able to get our battery test to work out, but in my real world testing, it was up there with phones like the Droid Turbo that also focused on battery life. Battery life is something a lot of people forget about, but unless you are at a desk all day or in a car most of the time you have to rely on your phone to not die and the Moto Z Force can do that, not to mention the Moto Mods extended life battery that you can add to it.
The Moto Z Force I tested was on the Verizon network and it takes advantage of the new LTE Advanced network. I didn’t have the chance to test out LTE Advanced myself because it isn’t available in our market, but Verizon is suggesting people will see 50% higher peak speeds (From what I understand it is capable of up to 225Mbps) it is a feature you want to have.
So is this the phone to get? Well with the new iPhone being introduced and the issues with the Note 7 being very public there are still a lot of questions to be answered before I could call this the best option. But It is one of the best Android phones on the market currently and it runs basically a pure version of Android as well other than a few apps that Verizon includes. The Moto Z Droid and the Moto Z Force Droid are good go-to phones for people looking for premium options in the Android market.
Live Pricing: HERE
