Motorola is a shell of its former self. In 2010, it had just released the Motorola Droid, a phone so popular it led to all Android phones being called "Droids" by non-techies. But there have been some rough years between then and now, and Motorola's latest "flagship" doesn't look like it will help get them off this path.
The Motorola Z4 looks like a phone from a struggling company. In an effort to fulfill their three-year promise of supporting Moto Mods, they're stuck with a dated design. Since none of the phones have sold well, it looks like Lenovo (Moto's new parent company after being bought, gutted, then sold by Google) is trying to minimize cost. The result is middling performance in what will most likely be the best offering from Motorola this year, aside from a potential new Motorola RAZR.
Standout Features
The Moto Z4 might very well be the last smartphone from Lenovo to support Moto Mods. This year will mark the last of the three years Lenovo promised for support of the Moto Mods. And as you can see with the Z4, this promise didn't fare well for the once-dominant OEM.
The Moto Z4 is a phone rocking a midrange (Qualcomm Snapdragon 675) SoC with a large 6.4" OLED display and a display notch. It will have a single rear camera and a single 6.2 MP selfie camera, both of which leverage Quad Pixel technology. Providing juice to the device is a 3,600 mAh battery which can be fast charged via the included 15 W charger. It fully supports Moto Mods.
Important Dates
For months, we have been in the dark regarding the possible announcement date and release date of the Moto Z4. However, a Reddit user was able to purchase the actual phone from Amazon and received the device. This means Amazon already has retail units in stock, indicating a release date within a few weeks. Since this news broke late May 2019, we expect the phone to release in June, with it officially shipping within the same month, and preorders occurring sometime between those two dates.
- Release date: June 2019
- Preorder date: June 2019
- Announced: June 2019
Storage Capacity
The Moto Z4 will come in one storage options, 128 GB. It will support microSDXC, allowing you to add 2 TB of storage (currently, the highest available microSD card is 1 TB).
- Storage available: 128 GB
- Expandable storage: yes, up to 2 TB
Price for Everything
There are two models available, one with Amazon bloatware preinstalled to lower the price, and a second standard model without extra bloatware. The standard model will be available in Verizon stores as well as on Amazon. The Amazon bloatware model will retail at $499.99. We don't know the pricing of the standard, but usually, this version is only about $50 more than one with Amazon's bloatware.
- Price: $499.99 (Amazon bloatware), $549.99 (standard)
Body
The Moto Z4 will be made with a 6000 series aluminium frame. It will use Gorilla Glass 3 to protect the display and back cover. On the back, you will find the same series of pins and circular housing for the rear camera, allowing for the Moto Mods to comfortably attach.
Talking of colors, we only know of one: black.
- Frame: aluminium, with gorilla glass 3 (front and back)
- Finish: black
Basics
Because it has to support Moto Mods, the dimensions of the Moto Z4 are very similar to its predecessor. While we don't know its depth, we don't expect this to be much different. Once again, Lenovo is opting against waterproofing their phone. Instead, water resistance is limited to P2i, which is only certified for splashes. Despite only being sold through Verizon and Amazon, it will be supported on all four of the major wireless carriers in the US.
- Height: 6.18 inches
- Width: 2.95 inches
- Depth: Unknown
- Weight: Unknown
- Dust/water resistance: P2i splash-proof
- Supported carriers: Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint
- Infrared blaster: no
As with all smartphones these days, it will have an operating temperature between 32°F and 95°F.
- Operating temp: 32º to 95 º F
- Nonoperating temp: Unknown
- Relative humidity: Unknown
- Operating altitude: Unknown
Software
The Moto Z4 will run the latest version of Android, 9 Pie.
- Version: Android 9 Pie
Skin
The Moto Z4 will run the lightweight skin that Motorola has included in their phones for years. There are few additions such as non-stock gestures and some apps, but very little else. There isn't a name for it, but it's one of the lightest skins on the market if you're an Android purist.
- Version: N/A
Display
The real value of the Moto Z4 is its display. The Z4 has a 6.4-inch OLED panel with a resolution of 2340 x 1080. Usually, at this price point, OLED isn't typically available, meaning you're stuck with inferior picture quality with an LCD screen. It does use a notch, but it's the water drop design, so it barely obstructs the display.
- Screen size: 6.4 inches
- Screen resolution: 2340 x 1080 pixels
- Total pixels: 2,527,200 pixels
- Pixel density: 403 ppi
- Screen type: OLED
- Notch: yes
- Screen-to-body ratio: Unknown
- Aspect ratio: 19:9
- Minimum brightness: Unknown
- Maximum brightness:Unknown
- Refresh rate: 60 Hz (60 Hz for touch-sensing)
- Color temp: Unknown
- Color gamut: Unknown
Performance
Powering the Moto Z4 is the 11 nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 675. The eight-core CPU uses Kyro 460 cores that are clocked up to 2.0 GHz. It uses the X12 LTE modem which supports Cat. 12 for download (600 Mbps), and Cat. 13 for uploads (150 Mbps). As far as RAM goes, the Z4 will have 4 or 6 GB of the RAM. At its base model, it should give a similar experience the Google Pixel 3a, which pairs a similar SoC with the same amount of RAM, but we would recommend opting for the higher RAM.
- Memory: 4 or 6 GB RAM
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 675
- Chip size: 11 nanometer
- CPU frequency: 2.0 GHz x 4 ( 1.71 GHz x4)
- CPU cores: 8
- GPU: Adreno 612
Battery
The Moto Z4 has a 3,600 mAh battery. Such a large battery with a 1080p display and 600 series Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC should make battery life pretty impressive on this device. It supports Motorola's TurboPower for fast wired charging. And thanks to Moto Mods, you can add wireless charging to a phone which out the box doesn't include the feature.
- Battery: rechargeable lithium-ion
- Capacity: 3,600 mAh, 3.85 volts (13.86 watt-hours)
- Wired charging: yes, 15W TurboPower
- Wireless charging: yes, with Moto Mod
Front Camera
The Moto Z4 has a 25 MP front-facing camera. However, it uses Quad Pixel technology that combines the data gathered by four adjacent pixels into one in order to reduce noise and artifacting, resulting in photos 1/4 the megapixel count. As a result, images taken with the camera will be 6.2 MP.
It's possible you could use a third-party camera app to disable this feature and take 25 MP photos instead, but know that low-light performance would suffer and that 6.2 MP is already pretty close to 4K resolution (8.2 MP), so you likely wouldn't notice any extra sharpness regardless of what screen you view the picture on. You would, however, gain the ability to digitally crop the images a bit further without dropping below 1080p resolution (2.1 MP).
- Resolution: 25 MP (output 6.2 MP)
- Aperture: ƒ/2.0
- Zoom: yes, digital
- Flash: no or yes, type of flash (actual light or screen with branding name if any)
- Image stabilisation: Unknown
- RAW support: Unknown
- Object detection: Unknown
- Formats: JPEG
Rear Camera
The rear camera uses Quad Pixel to combine four pixels into one for better details and improve low light performance. The rear camera is equipped with a single 48 MP lens which outputs 12 MP images thanks to this technique.
- Resolution: 48 MP (output 12 MP)
- Sensor size: Unknown
- Aperture: ƒ/1.8
- Zoom: yes, digital
- Flash: yes, LED
- Image stabilisation: yes, Unknown
- RAW support: Unknown
- Lens cover: Unknown
- Object detection: Unknown
- Formats: JPEG
Thanks to a video of an early copy of the Moto Z4, we know that the phone is capable of shooting at 1080p at 30 fps. However, because it uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675, we can make some educated guesses, as the SoC largely dictates the performance of the video camera. With this SoC, the Z4 is capable of shooting at 4K at 30 fps. Slow Motion up to 240 fps is available at 720p. It can record in H.264 and H.265 (HEVC) formats.
- Resolution: 720p, 1080p, and 4K
- Max frame rate: 30 fps for 720p, 60 fps for 1080p and 30fps for 4K
- Slow motion: yes, 1080p at 120 and 240 fps at 720p
- Time-lapse: Unknown
- Photos: Unknown
- Zoom: yes, see above
- Flash access: yes, see above
- Image stabilization: yes, see above
- Object detection: Unknown
- Autofocus: Unknown
- Audio: Unknown
- Formats: H.264 and H.265 (HEVC)
Audio
As far as sound goes, we know that it does include 3.5 mm headphone jack. We don't know if it comes with stereo speakers, but we do know that there is one speaker grill on the top edge. However, because it supports Moto Mods, you can add stereo speakers to the phone.
- 3.5 mm headphone jack: yes
- Stereo speakers: Unknown
- Mics: Unknown
- Max speaker volume: Unknown
Media Formats
The Moto Z4 supports the common set of codecs found in Android phones.
- Audio: MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, WAV, FLAC, APE, OGG, MID, M4A, IMY
- Video: MKV, MOV, MP4, H.265(HEVC), AVI, WMV, TS, 3GP, FLV, WEBM
Sensors
The Moto Z4 has the usual set of sensors included in a modern day smartphones.
- Accelerometer: yes
- Ambient light: yes
- Barometer: no
- Color temperature: no
- Compass: yes
- Gravity: yes
- Gyroscope: yes
- Hall: no
- Infrared: no
- Laser: no
- Pedometer: yes
- Proximity: yes
While we don't know which satellite navigation standards it will support, we do know which it can use based on the SoC powering the device. With the Snapdragon 675, it can support all of the major navigation systems, including QZSS, which is usually not found on American Android devices.
- GPS: yes
- aGPS: yes
- Glonass: yes
- BeiDou: yes
- Galileo: yes
- QZSS: yes
Connectivity
The Moto Z4 supports up to 802.11ac Wi-Fi. It uses a USB Type-C data port for charging and transferring information and includes Bluetooth 5. The phone will support 5G via the 5G Moto Mod.
- Wi-Fi: 802.11ac
- Bluetooth: 5
- NFC: yes
- Cellular: nano-SIM
- Port: USB Type-C
We don't know what bands it supports, but we do know it will at least have LTE bands for all four major US wireless carriers.
Security
The Moto Z4 uses an in-display fingerprint scanner. It appears to be optical (just like the OnePlus 7 Pro), which means it won't work when wet or without light. It doesn't include any other secure biometric authentication methods.
- Fingerprint scanner: yes (in-display)
- Face scanner: no
- Iris scanner: no
- Manual authentication: password, PIN, pattern, swipe
Box Includes
We currently don't know what will be included in the box.
- Moto Z4
- USB Cable
- 15W Turbo Power AC Adapter
- Screen Protector
- Quick Guide
Accessories
According to a leak, Motorola will be selling the Moto Z4 with a 360 camera mod. Attaching it will give a 360° camera alongside the 48 MP rear camera that comes with the phone.
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