Moto Z Play reception comparison in fringe/weak areas?

[Kawboy12R]

I'm looking to upgrade from my old Samsung S4. The Moto Z Play hits many of my must-have strong points (great battery life, good screen, good performance, expandable storage, reasonable price) but I haven't seen much online comparing it with other phones in bad reception areas. Both my workplace and home have poor cell strength. 1 bar is common on my S4, and I get a lot of missed calls or calls drop when I answer. Battery life is often horrible because of the poor reception as well. There are many many dead areas on the highway between my place and work as well, which makes it impossible to have an uninterrupted conversation.

The folks in the cell stores around here either all live in the city or have near-useless opinions "The faster processors give all the new phones awesome reception dude!"

Sooo, does anybody have experience with a Z Play in fringe areas? Any travelers change to a Z Play and get fewer dropped calls or voice dropouts driving through known bad areas? Anybody get one and hate the reception?

I'm in Canada and will be using it on Bell/Telus/Virgin/Koodo towers. Currently Virgin but might switch to Telus or Koodo and I'm told they all use the Bell towers around here.

 

[Soundtallica]

I get great reception with my Z Play. It consistently gets one bar more reception than my old Droid Turbo 2 and Nexus 6P, and even my old S4 as well. and has LTE in places where those two phones only had 3g. It seems to put more juice into the antenna for a better signal than most phones do, but with its amazing battery life that isn't a problem.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Have you looked at the dB to compare? There's a place in the settings that shows signal strength like -90dB or -105dB etc. How is it in areas where the other phones had problems rather than just grabbing LTE over 3g? My main problem is getting NO "G". After that it's all gravy.

 

[barrycinti]

You could do a comparsion of the Z Play to your phone if there is a demo at your store by looking at the signal readings under settings

 

[Kawboy12R]

You could do a comparsion of the Z Play to your phone if there is a demo at your store by looking at the signal readings under settings

True, but I'm not sure how much of a harsh test it would be. I can almost touch a tower from each of the local stores. Still, if there's a big difference there then that'd be a good indication. If there isn't I'd be skeptical that it means they're the same with faint signal but it might work out that way. Worth a shot anyway.

 

[Soundtallica]

I don't have the Turbo 2 or 6P anymore, so I can't compare. All I can say now is that at work right now, where I get a very strong signal (5 bars, LTE), my Z Play is pulling -89dB. And it also is significantly faster on 3G and 1X than those other two phones were.

 

[udazavlanje]

It's the same as my Moto XPE when it comes to dB but it performs better when it comes to dropping out of LTE and connecting back. I guess Z Play (Droid) holds stronger because it's optimized better for VZW network and XPE is only initially setup for their bands (it's factory unlocked). I compared it to VZW version of Pixel and on average has lower dB by 4-6 which is better.
Way better than iPhones on VZW and Samsung as well.
I would say that Lenovo did a great job by not messing with Motorola radio engineering. It's probably one of the most reliable cellPHONES available

 

[On2Vegas]

I would say that Lenovo did a great job by not messing with Motorola radio engineering. It's probably one of the most reliable cellPHONES available

This right here. Motorola has a history of reliable cell reception. A couple of exceptions here and there, but for the most part they are among the best with their technology.

 

[Kawboy12R]

I tried the "compare dBm at the store" method. No dice. They had no demo Z Play phones, and their Moto Z demo had no sim card. 15 day try at home period but only 30 minutes of talk time to compare with before they consider the phone unreturnable.

 

[inversvs]

I'm on the Telus network for my Z Play. My friend has an HTC One M8 with Koodo, and typically when we are in a place with very low reception I usually get messages in and can sometimes place calls where he can't.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Telus and Koodo are sister companies and use the same towers so that's a good sign for the Moto Z Play. I ordered one on a holiday sale to try out but they're backordered. Might be another week-ish before they get more in unfortunately.

 

[Kawboy12R]

Well, I got my Z Play and have started giving it some testing. Battery life is phenomenal. I don't think I'd ever kill a battery in a day unless possibly I used it all day on max screen brightness. At home on Sunday I started using it at 5am for an hour or so, caught some more ZZs, used it another hour or so, got up, then used it a lot during the day getting things set up, apps loaded, things tuned, read a bunch online, etc etc and at after 10pm it was still at 48% battery life. The phone doesn't benchmark as fast as something like the Pixel XL but is nice and responsive. Light-years better than the S4. Screen is excellent as well. 1080P is still pretty sharp at 5.5". 3D games would prefer more pixels and a faster phone though. Oh well, this phone isn't for FPS games.

As far as reception goes, I used it on the way to work today and didn't have a single hiccup in net reception through the areas that ALWAYS gave me trouble with the S4. Was today just an amazingly good reception day? Doubt it. I don't think I've ever had a day this good with the S4. I'll be able to tell a bit better if voice calls tell the same tale over the next week or so. Not a lot of those so far, but I had a 20 minute call sitting in one spot that was usually bad on my S4 with no trouble at all.

First impressions? Stunningly good as a PHONE. I just wish I could've got a Moto Z Force on a plan and under warranty in Canada. Same big battery, higher specs, and bulletproof to boot. I didn't really want to pop full price for the phone up front buying it from the States and unlocking it though. Koodo had a great deal on the Z Play and data plan over the holidays. Doubled my data and am paying less than $15/month more than I usually paid/month for the S4's data plan (it's paid for) with the $15/mo Koodo Tab over 2 yrs to pay for the phone.

If Moto keeps this quality reception up I don't think I'd ever recommend a Samsung as a phone again. This Z Play is an actual CORDLESS PHONE, not some city-only battery sucker that is chained to a charger a few times a day.

One caveat in the bulletproof area- it isn't a hardened phone and there are cheap cases to fit it but I can't find an Otterbox or Life Proof case. Just about all of them are open around the Moto Mod connection area when they shouldn't be (can't use a Mod with the case on, right?), or if they block that area then the USB C connector and headphone jack are still left exposed with no rubber doors to close them like an Otterbox would have. I stick my phone in my pocket bottom-up so any dirt or rain has a straight shot to the openings. Yay... I sent an email to Otterbox asking about it so hopefully they've got plans to support this great phone.

 

[huungryshark]

tank of a phone , no case, no screen protector needed I dropped my phone many times, only the style shell flew away.

 

[Kawboy12R]

I consider a phone without a case to be a second away from being a crunchy glass brick. YMMV.