These kinds of missteps are offset by a general feeling of sturdiness, thanks in large part to the phone's solid metal rim. My colleague Aaron rightfully gave last year's Moto X Play some grief because Motorola didn't pay close attention to the fine details. That's true here too, but the caliber of construction here still elevates this mid-range phone into more premium territory. While devices like the Moto G series always felt a little chintzy compared with the more premium Moto X line, that sort of quality gap doesn't really exist here. That doesn't mean you can treat the Z Play as harshly as you could a Z Force, though -- there's no ShatterShield display, and the Play's back is made not of metal, but of easily scratched glass.

The differences don't end there. The Z Play packs a 16-megapixel camera and a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED screen running at 1080p; the regular Z and Z Force both feature Quad HD displays. That dip in screen resolution was inevitable given the Z Play's price, but who cares -- this thing has a headphone jack sitting next to its USB Type-C port. Motorola is still convinced that a single socket for power, audio and everything else is the way of the future, and its bet was vindicated when Apple did the same with the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. So what gives? Motorola's rationale is simple: The design of the Z Play's logic board had room for the port. The mixed message is a little confusing, but hey: No dongles necessary this time.

You wouldn't know just by looking at it, but the Moto Z Play sits lower on the performance totem pole than either of the Moto Z's that came before it. There's an octacore Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset inside, an Adreno 506 GPU and 3GB of RAM, all of which last for a very long time when paired with the Z Play's 3,510mAh battery.

Remember: The Moto Z Play is modular (as evidenced by the multi-pin connector on its back), so you could strap on a magnetic battery mod for even more battery life. If only Motorola were as generous with the storage options: There's 32GB of room on board, and only 24GB is available to you from the get-go. At least the micro-SIM tray has a spot for a microSD card with support for up to 2TB of additional space.

This isn't my first time taking the Moto Z Play for a spin, but this version is different. It's a fully unlocked GSM model, ready for action on AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States. If you're a Verizon customer and don't see yourself switching anytime soon, there's also a version of the phone just for you -- it's physically identical but packs all of Big Red's usual bloatware. (More on that later.)

Display and sound

It used to be that buying anything less than a flagship phone meant you got stuck with a lousy screen. Oh, how times have changed. Case in point: The Moto Z Play packs a 5.5-inch AMOLED panel offering respectable viewing angles and great clarity; I never missed the extra resolution on the Moto Z and Z Force. This screen does seem a little dim compared with the Z and Z Force displays, but you'd be hard-pressed to spot the difference when you're just sitting around inside. Taking the phones outside is a different story, though: The Z Play's screen is merely passable under bright sunlight, while the Z and Z Force can dial up the brightness quite a bit further. Guess Motorola had to cut corners somewhere.

I'm also fond of how the Z Play renders colors right out of the box: Sunsets and close-ups of wood seem suitably deep, as do the blues and greens that always pop up in landscape photos. If slightly oversaturated colors aren't your thing, though, you can change things with a trip to the settings (the phone's display mode is set to "vivid" by default). Toggling the feature to standard mode results in visuals that, while probably a little more accurate, are a lot less fun.

Speaking of things that aren't much fun, the sound setup here leaves a lot to be desired. Then again, who didn't see this coming? Motorola used the same lackluster system in the more premium Moto Z and Z Force, with an earpiece that doubles as the main speaker driver when you crank up the volume. Listening to music on a vanilla Z Play is passable at best -– vocals and mids can sound crisp -– and muddled at worst. I wish the Z Play's speaker was a little louder too, but considering the sort of quality we're working with, Motorola might have been doing us a kindness by capping the volume.

Thankfully, we have options. First, you can plug in a pair of headphones –- once more, without a dongle! -– and bypass that speaker entirely. Motorola, meanwhile, would much prefer you use that sweet, sweet Moto Mod connector around the back to magnetically lash a completely new set of speakers onto the phone. JBL's $79 external speaker is the most useful of the multimedia mods available, and while it still focuses on mids and highs, there's enough heaviness and clarity to its sound that most people I've shown it to have enjoyed the experience. You certainly don't need Moto Mods to use the Z Play, but they are handy.

Software

I'm pleased to report that there isn't a whole lot to say about the Moto Z Play's software. Yes, that's a good thing: It's fast, familiar and free of the bloatware that comes loaded on the Verizon-branded Z Play. If you've used a modern Motorola device, you could probably just leave it at that and move on. If not, well, here's a little more.

The Motorola that's endured so much change these past few years still prefers stock Android (in this case, 6.0.1 Marshmallow), leaving us with a software stack that's largely untouched. That shouldn't really surprise anyone: Motorola wasn't going to blaze new software trails on a mid-range version of its flagship device. The look, the app launcher, the underlying functionality -- it's all just Marshmallow.

Motorola's additions are as subtle as ever, and exist mostly in the form of smart gestures. Waving your hands over the Z Play's face like a Jedi makes the screen light up, proffering the time and your notifications. Double-twisting your wrist launches the camera, and a relatively new double karate chop fires up the flashlight. (Pro tip: Don't use your whole arm.)

Relatively new to the mix is a one-handed mode that's invoked by swiping up from the bottom of the display. Motorola's implementation isn't perfect -- you can't resize or move the shrunken window -- but it's really useful if the 5.5-inch screen is a little too big to use with one hand. Perhaps the biggest issue with the feature is that it can be too easy to activate accidentally, which probably explains why it's not on by default: You'll have to dive into the included Moto app to enable it. Then there are Motorola's voice commands, which have steadily gotten more precise since they debuted on the original Moto X three years ago. They're nice enough to have and work as well as they always did -- just don't expect the same sort of conversational fluidity you'd get from something like the new Google Assistant.

And that's really it. As a brief aside, this is the first time I've used an unlocked version of the Moto Z, and I can't stress how much nicer it feels to use without all that carrier-mandated bloatware. Android device manufacturers now realize that cleanliness, while not that close to godliness, is a virtue worth exploring when it comes to interfaces. To date, few phone makers match Motorola in its devotion to pure Android, and I'll keep doling out the kudos as long as the company keeps at it.

Camera

The Moto Z Play's main camera is a mixed bag, but not for the reasons you'd expect. In terms of pure resolution, the 16-megapixel sensor here sits somewhere between the Moto Z's 13-megapixel camera and the Z Force's much better 21-megapixel shooter. Not bad, right? Well, hold on: The Z Play camera works with an f/2.0 aperture, as compared with the f/1.8 apertures used by both of its predecessors. In other words, the Z Play is technically capable of capturing a little more photographic nuance than the bog-standard Moto Z, but lags behind it when it comes to low-light performance. The Z Play's camera also lacks optical image stabilization, making it slightly more susceptible to blurry edges and obscured faces, especially when it's dark.

So yes, your poorly lit bar photos won't turn out great. Even so, the Z Play doesn't completely drop the ball, and -- perhaps more important -- it's capable of producing some really attractive shots when the lights come back up. Colors seem accurately represented (though you might sometimes see whites turn a little blue), and there was often plenty of detail to gawk at. The very act of snapping photos is quick too, with basically zero lag before taking a new shot.