Its even better than the Z force (for its battery capacity).. And probably better than most 3,000 mah phones tbh
It is slightly more efficient for the size of battery it has than the Z force, but the standard Z does not have the battery life of your average 3000 mAh phone. A bit ambitious of a statement...
. Since I am here now, I will go ahead and give a second impressions review of the phone, as I went to the Verizon store to actually get to really use the phone (standard Z):
-Design
I have nothing but good things to say about the design, It is a beautiful phone, and is ludicrously thin. The back is stainless steel and it doesn't feel at all like glass, contrary to what dome reviewers said. The phone is not the most comfortable to hold without a mod, due to the lack of ergonomics in hand, flat back, and sharp edges, but a simple style shell fixes that with its slight curves round the edges, and the battery mod makes the phone feel amazing in the hand. The top of the phone's front houses the 5MP front camera, the front facing speaker/earpiece, an IR camera, and a front facing flash, the usual affair for a flagship motorola at this point. The bottom contains a moto logo, a fingerprint scanner, as well as two IR cameras flanking the fingerprint scanner. Below that are two noise cancelling mics. Side note: the white front exposes everything, and literally makes the front of the phone so ugly that you wonder why the white version of the phone even exists. The black front hides all of the sensors and therefore looks nice.
Around top, there is a microSD card tray, that doubles as a SIM card tray. On the left, there is nothing, and on the right, there are your volume buttons, and below those, the power button with a slight texture. On the bottom, there is a USB-C port. Around back is the 13MP Sony IMX214/IMX278 camera, laser autofocus, and the dual LED flash. Another noise cancelling mic is at the bottom of the back of the phone. Said phone measures 6.04" by 2.96' by 5.19mm thick.
-Display (source: Anandtech)
The phone has a 5.5" AMOLED display at a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels (1440p) at a pixel density of 534 ppi. It is bright and shows relatively accurate colors, when compared to my Droid Turbo 2. I think the GS7 display looked better, however. Display measurements:
White point: 7,080K (Kelvins)
This means that the phone's display's whites are a little bit cool, and definitely cooler than those of the Nexus 6P or Oneplus 3 (sRGB mode).
Grayscale DeltaE2000: 3.33
Grayscale accuracy is worse than that of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Note 5, as well as both the Nexus 6P and the Oneplus 3 in their respective sRGB modes, due to a cooler white point that also throws grays off a little bit, especially lighter shades of gray.
Saturation Accuracy DeltaE2000: 3.09
This is quite a good result, but not as good as the Galaxy S7, Note 5, Oneplus 3, or Nexus 6P. Color saturation is very close to the target sRGB color space, although blue is a bit oversaturated, and red is ever so slightly undersaturated. This causes a slight shift in secondary colors magenta and yellow.
GMB Accuracy DeltaE2000: 2.53
Overall color accuracy is very good and on par with every other flagship. So, the display is a well calibrated AMOLED, although its whites and grays are slightly cool.
-Software
Well, its close-to-stock with some Motorola enhancements, and the Verizon bloatware we ALL love, right?
Anyway, instead of the Moto Z coming with the Google Now Launcher preloaded, it comes with "Launcher3", somehting that Verizon has had Motorola put on the Droid line of phones since the original droid turbo. It is obviously different from Google's own launcher: it lacks a Google Now leftmost screen, and the backgrounds for the app drawer as well as those for the folders and widget menus are all transparent. Regardless, everything is kept close to stock android. You have your usual suite of Google apps, and a slew of verizon apps. The games can be deleted, luckily, and every Verizon app other than "Voice Mail" can be disabled. Then there's the usual affair of Motorola apps, with the exclusion of the Gallery app, which has been replaced with Google Photos, and the old calendar app, which has been replaced with Google's calendar. The phone is literally the fastest phone I have ever used. There was no lag or slowdowns WHATSOEVER during operation, it put my Turbo 2 to shame and made the S7 look like it was moving in slow-motion, no kidding. I will post benchmarks and camera information later, when I can get a better look at those aspects of the phone.
-Audio
The phone has a single front-facing speaker. While I didn't spend very much time listening to it, I can definitely say that it is a good speaker. The sound is loud and clear, and actually quite crisp. Unfortunately, the speaker lacks good bass/low end. However, in the midrange, it starts to come alive. Where the speaker really shines is its treble, with clear high tones that are not overly pitchy and have a decent richness to them, with little distortion. For a better summary of the audio experience: Imagine an HTC 10 without the subwoofer, just the tweeter, and add a slight bit more richness and bass to the speaker. However, while the speaker on the Z is good, it is by no means the best, and its inherent lack of bass allows it to be outmatched by the likes of, say, the Droid Turbo 2. And I obviously don't have access to the USB-C to 3.5mm adapter, so I don't know what headphone audio sounds like through the Z and its adapter.
-Battery
for some reason, the charger on the demo unit was not working, so I was able to pseudo-test the battery on the Z a little, and from what I can tell just from using the device for about 45 minutes (light-moderate use), the battery drained about 9 percent, from 35% to 26%. Then again, I am spoiled by the great uptimes I receive from my turbo 2, with its gargantuan 3,760 mAh battery. But still, the Z would probably give you about 3-4 hours of SOT with moderately heavy use, which is about right on par with what an LG G5 would get and less than what a GS7 or HTC 10 would get. However, for such a low capacity battery, it is an efficient phone. Again, it is about on par with the LG G5, but not the GS7 or HTC 10. The fix for that is the battery mod, which increases total capacity to 4,820 mAh. It can be utilized to simply recharge the phone, or could be used as something that is kept on the phone daily, that keeps your phone at 100% until the mod dies, then the phone uses its internal battery. If the mod used on the phone daily, it works somewhat like certain fast chargers, including Motorola's own turbocharger, where it charges the phone's internal battery to 100%, and the phone simply utilizes the charger as its power source instead of its own internal battery, unlike battery cases that simply charge the phone, and serve no other function but to charge the phone. Since it is almost 5,000 mAh of battery to be charged, this will cause you to charge your phone overnight instead of topping off.
Overall, the Z seems like an innovative and spectacular phone, if a bit too pricey. The price of the unlocked Z will certainly be more reasonable and a bit less expensive than that of the droid edition. However, I would not settle in to buying one until the nexus comes out, as that is truly this phone's only real competition. I will update you guys with camera information and maybe some performance benchmarks when I can.