"It’s not the camera, but the person behind the camera that makes great pictures."

Every seasoned photographer will bestow these words of wisdom on the less financially equipped. But in the case of smartphone cameras, superior hardware really makes a world a difference if you want great photos.

Just when I thought Motorola’s Moto Mod attachments for its Moto Z, Z Force and the new Z Play Droid couldn’t get anymore over the top, out comes the Hasselblad True Zoom.

The Hasselblad True Zoom is an entire camera that overrides the phone’s included back camera, while simultaneously adding a physical shutter button, grip handle and 10x optical zoom.

If you read my review of the Z Play Droid, you’ll understand that I wasn’t particularly impressed by the 16-megapixel camera. It’s fine for what it is, but it doesn’t compare to the Galaxy S7 and Note7’s back camera, which is currently the best smartphone camera.

With the Hasselblad connected, the Z Play Droid instantly gets upgraded to a point-and-shoot-like camera.

With the Hasselblad connected, the Z Play Droid instantly gets upgraded to a point-and-shoot-like camera.

The module works just like all of the others. It clips on magnetically and latches into place around the bulbous Z Play Droid’s camera hump. The magnetic pins on the backside sync up to the phone and just like that you’ve got a bonafide point-and-shoot.

I’ve tested a lot of these shutter button-and-grip handles (minus the optical zoom, unless you’re talking about Sony’s bizarre QX camera attachment) and most of them fall short. Shoddy grips and flimsy half-baked shutter buttons and special apps are needed to work — I’ve seen them all.

Snaps right onto the Moto Z phones. Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE



The Hasselblad works with all camera apps. Read that again: ALL CAMERA APPS. I tried a bunch of camera apps from the Z Play Droid’s stock camera app to Snapchat to Instagram and the Hasselblad works as if it’s the actual native camera on the phone. (The only thing you will have to do is update your phone’s software, which doesn’t take too long.)

With the Hasselblad, you get a larger 1/2.3-inch sensor that’s commonly found in many point-and-shoot cameras and you trade in whatever megapixels your phone has for 12-megapixels (which, for some reason seems to be the sweet spot for resolutions on smartphone cameras these days).

I had my worries, but my concerns quickly faded as I shot with the camera module.

Image quality is vastly better than what the Z Play Droid’s capable of producing, with more accurate colors that aren’t as saturated (like skies), sharper details and wider dynamic range.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

Just like a real camera, you can press the shutter button (love that it’s orange) halfway to autofocus and then keep pressing to take a photo. It’s not as precise as a real camera, but comes pretty close to mimicking the same process. There's also a zoom switch connected to the shutter button.

The textured, rubberized grip is a nice touch, too. I’m really happy it’s not just a blocky hunk of plastic grafted onto the front. It feels good in the hand.

Nice grip. Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE



Like pretty much all smartphone cameras, the Z Play Droid’s camera doesn’t have optical zoom. It’s difficult to put optical zoom on a smartphone because of the added bulk on the back. And the digital zoom is almost always terrible. At its highest magnification, the image becomes so blurry that there might as well be no digital zoom to begin with.

Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

Optical zoom, on the other hand, physically magnifies an image through actual lens elements instead of relying on software. And the Hasselblad’s 10x zoom is a real winner when compared to your phone’s digital zoom. You can also toggle on a 4x digital zoom for a maximum 40x zoom, but let’s just pretend that doesn’t exist because of how crummy it looks beyond the 10x optical zoom.

Here are some shots I took with and without the Hasselblad with the Z Play Droid (click to enlarge):

Hasselblad 10x optical zoom Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

Z Play Droid 8x digital zoom Image: raymond wong/mashable

Not only does the Hasselblad allow farther zoom, but it also retains image quality with crisper details thanks to its f/3.5-f/6.5 aperture.

Here are some more comparisons (click to enlarge):

Hasselblad 10x optical zoom Image: raymond wong/mashable Z Play Droid 8x digital zoom Image: raymond wong/mashable

Hasselblad 10x optical zoom Image: raymond wong/mashable Z Play Droid 8x digital zoom Image: raymond wong/mashable

The larger camera sensor also has a wider lens for a wider field of view from its 25-250mm focal length (35mm equivalent) range.

Hasselblad True Zoom Image: raymond wong/mashable Moto Z Play Droid Image: raymond wong/mashable

As for low light, the Hasselblad's a mixed bag. It's barely better than the Z Play Droid and image noise a real problem. The Z Play Droid actually exposes the image better in low-light situations as you can see below.

Low light: Hasselblad vs. Moto Z Play Droid Image: raymond wong/mashable Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

And while you’ll almost never see me shooting with a flash on, the powerful Xenon flash (I had one of these bright babies on my ancient Sony K810i candy bar phone years ago) is bright enough to blind or provide suitable fill flash to brighten up the shadows (yes, using flash when there’s plenty of light can be good thing).

Xenon flash. Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE



Stabilizing the optical zoom and keeping all the images tack-sharp is built-in optical image stabilization and electronic image stabilization for when it’s shooting video.

The Hasselblad records video, but it’s capped at 1080p full HD resolution at 30 fps, which is a downgrade from the Z Play Droid’s max 4K recording, but honestly, I could care less since the screen's not 4K and I don't have a 4K TV at home.

Sony RX100 point-and-shoot next to the Moto Z Play Droid with the Hasselblad True Zoom attached. Image: RAYMOND WONG/MASHABLE

I’m usually not fond of camera attachments. I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to mobile photography. For a long time, I stuck to only using the my phone’s built-in camera and the power of editing with apps to craft photos I felt would provoke some kind of feeling (good or bad), pushing the limitations of the camera with atypical composition and aesthetics before posting to Instagram.

My Instas didn’t get many likes and I didn’t care. I knew that I had pored over a certain photo with the love and care of a creator and artist. I knew how maddening it was to create each photo to be something more than just a fleeting snapshot and the painstaking process of adjusting each setting and importing into and exporting it out of several apps just to get it until it felt "right" to share publicly.

The process of mobile photography is me putting my undivided love for the craft and "starving for my art" so to speak.

I still try to do more with less with my mobile photography because I feel it really pushes me to think outside of the box — there’s nothing more dull than seeing 50 Instagram or VSCO accounts that all have the same aesthetic — but I’ve slowly warmed up to adding mobile lenses to push my creativity further.

I like the Hasselblad True Zoom. Shooting with it reminded me of Samsung’s short-lived Smart Cameras, only you know, without the detachable design.

But despite enjoying the Hasselblad True Zoom, I don’t think it’s the mod for everyone for the same reason why I would not tell any sane person to buy the DxO One camera attachment for iPhone: it’s really expensive at $500.

For the money, you could buy a real camera instead of the Hasselblad module.

The Hasselblad is $300 from Motorola ($250 if you buy from Verizon). For that money, you might as well buy an RX100 (even the original one) or save a little more and upgrade to an mirrorless camera like Sony’s A5100, which remains one of the most affordable cameras out there. Both cameras even have a screen that flips upwards for high-res selfies, something the Hasselblad doesn’t improve at all (unless you have the rear camera flipped towards you, but then you can’t see yourself).

And when you factor in the fact the module doesn’t have a built-in battery of any kind, which means it’s sucking up power from whatever Moto phone it’s attached to, it’s even more of a deal breaker.