Moto G6 Plus

This is another device in the mid-tier: value-against-features playground. The G6 (without the Plus) feels just a little bit too much like low-end to me, but I’m sure it has its fans. I tend to only really take seriously Android phones with (equivalent or above) Snapdragon 600-series chipsets. There was, however, a temptation to compare this phone with the other G-series handsets and various Chinese offerings from Xiaomi and Honor and so forth, but I think that I’d rather pitch it against the Nokia 7 Plus now that it’s under £300, on grounds of specs and performance - and maybe the Moto X4 as it seems to take design cues left, right and centre from its Moto sister.

Catchment
I have the Moto Z2 Play here too, of course, but because of the Moto Mod System integration, the Moto G6 Plus really isn’t in the same catchment area as this, though I will, no doubt, make reference to that device along the way as it’s a year old, Z3 Play pending, and to some degree it may be good to note some of the differences not related to Mods.

Variations
The G6P is currently available for officially £269 in the UK, but £230/240 can be found. Motorola/Lenovo do the same annoying LG trick of making different versions of the device for different markets and make it difficult to get preferred variations if you’re in the wrong patch. The one I would have preferred here would be the version with 128GB of storage and 6GB RAM, but it seems that this is reserved for other countries. It’s assumed, I guess, that everyone in The West sits in unlimited connectivity the whole time. Anyway, this gripe aside, I have the 64GB/4GB version in Deep Indigo, though again, depending on where you live, there are Gold and Nimbus colours. I think Nimbus is some sort of battleship grey!

Sleek Frame
One of the ways in which the Nokia is set aside from the G6P here is in the use of metal for the frame. The Moto has a plastic perimeter, but unlike the Nokia, is then sleek glass on front and back. The Nokia has 6000-grade aluminium through the sides and back, with soft-touch coating, though actually, it’s largely psychology - as everyone’s going to use the supplied TPU in both cases. Talking of which, the Moto was a first for me in that the phone in the box on opening, factory sealed, had the clear TPU in place around it. The case is actually not great and for a fiver, I got a much better one.

Big Sister
The styling of the G6P is very much like the Moto X4 - it’s a bit spooky really. The way in which the curves of the glass front and back meet the edging and the very similar camera ring on the back, it all looks like a clan. Where the two devices are clearly different is that the X4 has a 5.2” 16:9 screen and the G6P a 5.9” 18:9 one.

Drawn the Line
The choice of screen has been a 1080p IPS LCD and, as I say, it’s a 18:9 ratio, which is the first time Moto has swayed itself away from 16:9. I didn’t think they needed to, personally, but it’s all the rage. Fortunately they’ve drawn the line (literally!) at inclusion of a Notch and the corners of the panel are very slightly curved, more subtly than the Nokia’s. The Nokia has a 6” screen, still 18:9 but they’re all but the same size in height (due to the front-facing fingerprint reader on the Moto’s chin) and width. Gorilla Glass 3 is employed front and back, but you really need that case!

Boxed In
The Nokia is certainly boxier than the Moto as the latter follows the Moto trend of rounding the actual corners of the device itself rather than (all but) squaring them off. They’re about the same thickness, too, though the Moto’s camera island does stick out somewhat in comparison. Another reason to use a case, as the amount by which it sticks out is really quite marked. Both devices feel substantial in the hand, are weighty and neither conjure up anything other than a premium feel.

The End of OLED
LCD screens on phones these days seem to just get better. I wonder if this is the end of OLED on phones really. The Sony Xperia XZ2 and XA2 I reviewed recently had similar commentary. They are bright, vibrant, rich and colourful. This Moto doesn’t reach the heights of the latter’s Triluminous glory, but it really is very good - and the brightness is incredible, especially on auto. Very bright, challenging even the Nokia 8. No problems in the sun with the G6P. The user can also switch between Standard and Vivid to choose ‘as the eye sees’ and a more saturated colour palette.

Chips Down
The Moto lags behind the Nokia in the chipset stakes, settling for a Snapdragon 630 instead of 660. The same 4GB RAM are present on both and if we’re being picky and holding the two side-by-side, yes, the Nokia gets there first in most launches or switches. But the context is that it’s nanoseconds. You really do have to be picky. But if you’re looking, it’s there. If that’s going to annoy you then the Nokia would be the choice. Fortunately, the Moto gains points elsewhere to balance the books.

Nano
The Moto is p2i interior component nano-coating ‘splash resistant’ (and I’ve seen YouTube videos of people submerging the device in clean water for a few minutes, which it survives). The Nokia boasts nothing of the sort.

Rapid Updates
Fast updates to an OS has become very important to many and AndroidOne devices are right up there with the first wave of recipients of the latest and greatest after Pixel. The Nokia benefits from this and my unit here is currently on Android 8.1.0. and July 2018 Security, awaiting August any minute. Users won’t get the same level of attention for the Moto units, this, and the Moto Z2 Play alongside, sitting on 8.0.0. and June security. The X4 is (in the USA) a part of the AndroidOne programme and will get in there along with the Nokia. When and if Moto decide to update is anyone’s guess. With Android Pie now in devices, it does make you wonder - and the confidence will be with the Nokia owner here over the G6P.

Twitch
The trend these days is to go for 64GB of storage in Android devices in the mid-tier and both of these are compliant. The X4 only has 32GB but all three have microSD Card slots for more memory, so there really shouldn’t be concerns about getting all your apps and services on any of these, at least for the time being. I do get a bit twitchy when my 32GB devices are 75% full, but to be fair, I haven’t run out yet - by sensible allocation of data.

Long and Tall
This UK G6P is a Single SIM version - which is very obvious when the tray is removed as it’s really tall! There’s a plastic block in the middle where the second SIM Card goes in some markets, which means that they will benefit from two SIM Cards and the microSD Card slot. Not a given, when so many make the user choose.

The Bitter Pill
Nokia have chosen to mount the fingerprint scanner on the back whilst Moto have gone for front-mounted and chin. It’s a very thin sliver of a pill-shaped sensor too - they seem to have sacrificed the nice big sized version used on the Z2 Play and X4 so they could squeeze in the 'motorola' logo between it and the screen! Very silly. And the big one on the others worked so well. Or why not just put it on the back, I wonder. It does have advantages on the front for desk/table use of course, but it’s a shame it’s not bigger. I wonder if they’ve made it like it is so as to be in keeping with the style of Pie and Pixel Navigation options. One of the Moto Actions is already to choose to get the controls off the screen and use the ‘pill’ for swiping, so logically, should Pie arrive on this, the scanner would be ready to go in the same fashion. I still say it would have been better on the back.

Turbo
Talking of the back, it’s all glass but at this price-point there’s no wireless charging of course. The 3200mAh battery is housed in there serviced by the bottom-facing USB-C port. There’s a 15W TurboCharger in the box, which is a nice touch, and QC4. So charging up good’n’fast. I was concerned about the battery at 3200mAh having now got used to the two-day Nokia - and with no Moto Mod to fall back on - but I needn’t have worried. The battery, like the XZ2 I mentioned earlier, performs amazingly well. Something’s going on with batteries these days - every new device I review, I just seem to wow about - despite the specs reflecting a lesser output. First 3/4 days here and it’s returning 40hrs between charges with 6-7hrs SoT and 25% brightness. Not quite matching the 4000mAh of the Nokia, but going by the figures and capacity difference, staggeringly impressive and not far away.

Dolby Audio
One of the main attractions to me regarding this device was what was being said about the speaker and the deal that had been done with Dolby for the inclusion of a true system-wide sound manipulation tool. Unlike the Xperia which isolates the controls, this emulates at least a part of what Dolby Atmos does in the Razer, with the sound control sitting over and above anything you’re doing with the device instead of being only available to certain apps. Dolby Audio is a separate app and can be launched at will and switched on/off. Applications default to the controls and there is a genuine difference to be heard when employed.

Rich Performance
The sound is louder, richer and better than every device I have to hand, all the Nokia models, the other Moto models (including the Z range) and Sony ones - excluding, of course the Razer/Marshall. Even when the Dolby is switched off, it’s still ahead of most, on most grounds. A fabulous performance. There’s also a 3.5mm audio-out socket and the sound coming from there testing with my reference headphones sounds fabulous, Dolby controls available throughout of course. There’s no earphones in the box, which is probably a fair idea as people will want their own anyway, generally, and it might have shaved a tad off the price. There’s a recordable FM Radio included along with Bluetooth 5 connectivity standards for hooking up other gear. I’m really impressed with the sound!

Useful Additions
Software is held to a minimum, Moto infusing the experience with their genuinely useful additions on top of Vanilla Android and none of it gets in the way of feeling like one is experiencing Android as intended. The two exceptions to this were also present on the Moto X4 - Outlook and LinkedIn. They can both be disabled (though not uninstalled) and I remain as foxed as I did when reviewing the X4 as to why those two were isolated for inclusion and can only think that it’s something to do with the USA market and AndroidOne. Mystery. But it doesn’t spoil the party and unlike many others the device is not littered with bloat and junk to deal with. The Nokia 7 Plus is obviously even cleaner, but you don’t get some of the useful additions which Moto offer.

Keep Quiet
The Moto Voice is pretty pointless really and stands out as the one addition which the user wonders ‘why’ about when Google’s own Voice functions and Assistant are so good and available on the device anyway. Moto did toy with including Amazon Alexa stuff for a while, but although this is still a downloadable app, it’s not baked in. Perhaps they thought better of it! The rest of it enhances the experience in the usual ways. The virtual always-on screen which needs the wave of a hand over the phone to show content, lighting it up when notifications arrive and offer the (uneditable but attractive) circle of battery state, date, time and so on. It’s a brilliant system only bettered by truly always-on, and one which I remain unclear about as to why it’s not been emulated elsewhere.

Bearded Wonder!
Then there’s the usual raise to check, double-tap to wake, press fingerprint scanner to turn on and off, chop-chop for torch, twist-twist for camera, night display controls, power controls, Moto Key for remote logins, 3-finger screenshot and so on. The face-unlock function, like others I’ve tested with my full-face beard, just doesn’t work! It won’t let me register my face. End of! So I’ve no idea if it works. As I’ve said in other reviews, it seems like a dead-loss if everyone in the world with a full beard can’t use it! Anyway, I’ve covered all this stuff before in other Moto reviews so won’t do it again. It’s all familiar and mostly provides for useful additions.

Instability
The bad news about the camera is that there’s no OIS anywhere. There is EIS, however, and in my testing here the camera does a fine job even in low light. The 12MP sensor with f1.7 aperture captures things in all but very dark scenes. There’s secondary 5MP camera in the rear cluster with an f2.2 aperture which functions as a depth sensor for de-focusing effects which we’re now coming to expect in our phones’ cameras. Video can be captured in 4K at 30fps. Seems pretty stable on testing even without OIS. There’s a 8MP Selfie around the front which they’ve also included a secondary LED flash for capturing one’s mug!

Foto Fun
More importantly for the target audience here is the fun that can be had with the cameras with various modes and functions. We’ve seen Spot Colour before in the X4 and coming to the Z3 Play, where a single colour can be isolated in a scene while the rest of it is shot in mono, and a slider to adjust the degree of contrast. Panorama, Cut-out (which takes a shot of a subject then isolates it from the background, making the background black or another photo), slow-mo, timelapse, daft face-filters for kids, text scanner (which actually works really well recognising text and allowing it to then be ported to an app of choice for use or saved as a PDF), Portrait Mode which seems to work as well as any other out there and even YouTube Live for broadcasting via the video function.

Fiddle Mode
The Manual Mode enables manipulation of focus, White Balance, Shutter Speed, ISO and Exposure Compensation and even emulates the half-circles of the original Nokia style. Google Lens is baked into the camera for recognition of objects and places, which is improving (slightly) with age! There’s plenty of fun to be had with shooting pictures and video which should keep people, with no designs on printing posters for the wall, entertained.

Bottom Line
The bottom line on this device is that it’s very nice indeed at the price-point. The choice between X4 (which, significantly for some, has the addition of that excellent wide-angle camera) and this, comes down to whether or not you want 16:9 or 18:9, 32GB or 64GB, an overall smaller form/screen and all-metal/glass construction. They’re now not far off a similar price. The Moto G6 Plus is a more modern-feeling and looking device which seems to fit with the in-vogue way phones are being pushed and is equally, if not more, capable.

Verdict
Going back to the goal here and finally comparing it with the Nokia 7 Plus, it’s very similar in many ways. They are similarly sized, and similarly modern, though the Nokia more boxy in form. The Moto has a better LCD panel and certainly better sound output, but the Nokia is an AndroidOne device and doesn’t rely on Motorola/Lenovo’s lethargic approach to pushing out OS and Security updates. There is a price difference of around £50-75 and which you might consider better value will depend on how you value the two brands and the ‘extra features’ that Moto bundle, along with that better sound output. Personally, I can’t decide. So I’ll keep both!

Lap Tray

I recently had a bad back again (Room 101 for the human body once more!) and found sitting in an office chair for computing, a short-lived challenge - but did find that sitting on a firm supportive sofa gave the best relief (you just can't stand up all the time!).
The lap tray came into its own here and I found it genuinely useful. The laptop sits perfectly in front of the torso at just the right height, the cushion attached underneath makes the whole rig adjustable for fat or boney legs/knees enabling all sorts of positions. This, coupled with the obvious screen-angle adjustment of laptops gives a perfect solution.

The only gripe I have is that I'm afraid I'm so used to using a mouse that trackpad is a leap too far for me! But I found that on a sofa, the mouse worked perfectly well on the cushion next to me. (So entrenched in my behaviour as I am, I can even use a mouse on the side of my leg or arm of a chair! Talk about being stuck in one's ways!)

Clearly, these are not just for laptops - there's 1001 other uses from writing and drawing to jig-saws and even quaffing and scoffing in front of Corrie if you're careful!

This particular one has been in the family for years so nobody knows really where it came from, though it is a very nice unit with a lovely wooden top and traditional patterned cover. There are plenty of them about though so not hard to find one in a size, shape and colour to suit you.

Illuminated Magnifier

This very light and plasticy sight-aid does a job, if not with much class and quality! The idea is that it stands on a desk (though it can be used hand-held) and you put things behind it so you can see them more clearly with 3x magnification.

The unit has a base, from which protrudes an arm, from which comes the rectangular (approximately) 5” x 7” ‘glass’ panel. I say glass loosely, as it’s not! It’s very flexible plastic and actually, the thing that does the magnifying is a sticker on the plastic! But it seems to work.

In the base you can, if you like, put 4 x AA batteries which then powers some LED lights off to one side. In a brightly lit room these don’t really do anything (and one could argue that they don’t need to) but when it’s darker they certainly assist, even if they off to one side for lop-sided illumination. But you don’t have to power it. Note, however, that if you don’t, you’ll lose the weight of the batteries and subsequent stability that provides, on a desk.

The viewing panel can be turned round through 360 degrees, so any angle can be used - and the LED lights turn with it. It certainly is useful for anyone needing to magnify anything behind it, so for close-up work for fiddly jobs or general use for those with sight impairments.

We paid £12 for it but I note that it’s no longer available via AmazonUK except for from 3rd party sellers at higher prices, which we don’t think it’s worth. As usual, hunt around (especially eBay) and you’ll find very similar units at better prices if you have the need for one of these. For those folk, recommended.

Napoleon Mantel Clock

I had a gap on my mantelpiece which had been crying out for months for something to go in it! What better than a clock! I've been biding my time (heh) and eventually found a style I liked in the Amazon Bank Holiday Sale for half price. (Due to Amazon's wonky pricing, it was set at £90 and I got it for £45 but now I see it's £60! Pick the bones out of that. So I guess on today's price it was only a quarter off. They saw me coming! Oh well.) It's very nice and certainly worth £45.
It's made of wood (apparently 'oak effect') with an Arabic Dial (whatever that means) and has the usual (these days) AA-battery driven Chinese clock assembly inside with a plate to pull off the back to get to that and the dial to set the hands. It was obvious from setting the hands that it was a better quality item as it just 'felt' firmer and more solid in the movement than many a £9.99 special! There's four 'felt' pads on the bottom for sitting on without risk of scratching/sliding.

These things are all subjective of course, but I think that for the money it's very attractive and fits in the space very nicely. There's some stuff that we buy that's dirt cheap because being plastic and badly made doesn't matter - like the average auto-detect LED bathroom light for a fiver - but sometimes it's just nice to pay a bit more and have something that one knows is at least a bit less rubbish ;-)

Chef'n FreshForce Potato Ricer

Do you like mashed potatoes? I think most people do, but we don't like lumps and bumps 😕

This Potato Ricer was given to me as a present and I am delighted with it. It seems very well made and after nearly a year of use I've had no problems with it in regular use. The ricer is mostly made of very hard plastic, solid and thick held in the hand, with a metal ricer attachment. It's a bit like an old-fashioned meat grinder watching it ooze out!

The potato comes out shredded, smooth, light and with a soft texture and the big lever-action ensures that it's easy to press together. It is ideal for cottage pies, fish pies and the like, as the potatoes do not sink into the meat/fish. It seems much easier to me than mashing potato with masher or fork, or whatever you might use - and the the result is so much nicer!

It can be washed in the dishwasher which is great as I do think it would be a bit fiddly to wash by hand. There are several on Amazon which look like they all do the same job, of course, I can only vouch for the one I have which is about twenty quid. Recommended.

Moto Z3 Play

Being a current user of the Moto Z-series handsets, having (unusually) held onto the three generations of the family and armed with a man-bag full of Moto Mods, on the face of it, the Z3 Play was a no-brainer for me as soon as I could get it.

Give me a Brazilian!
As usual it seems these days, there are different versions of this phone available in different places around the globe and, much as I’d have loved the 128GB storage version from Brazil armed with 6GB RAM, I know that from previous experience that short of importing it myself from Hong Kong (which I’m not doing) it won’t come officially to the UK. So 64GB and 4GB RAM it is!

Banging!
Since the inauguration of the Z-series phones, I banged on about it, reviewed handsets, posted video, chatted on PSC at length about the modular flexibility, rued the reducing battery or lack of audio-out socket with some models, wow’d initially over the thinness and have generally given the whole thing probably more airtime than it deserves!

Seepage!
The thing is though, that the Z-series Mod system remains unique in the mobile phones world, due to that very modular Moto Mod system. Nobody else is doing this and sadly, this third generation of Z-series is the last that the company committed to at the outset. I sincerely hope it continues and that updates to existing hardware doesn’t seep away further from ‘really not the best’ to plain forgotten! Given that the (higher spec’d) Z3 has also now been released with a 5G Mod for future use in the USA, it seems hard to imagine that it’ll now be abandoned. Fingers crossed.

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad?
The big question is about whether, as a two owner, the changes of three are marked enough, attractive enough and not too annoying! Here we go then…

1. The 3.5mm audio-out socket is gone
There’s a 3.5mm to USB-C adapter in the box. And a pair of 3.5mm ear-plugs! Much like the Sony Xperia XZ2 I reviewed recently, I don’t get it! A phone with no 3.5mm audio-out socket, yet supplied adapter and 3.5mm ear-plugs. Bizarre! Anyway, there’s no DAC thing going on here but the audio output sounds fabulous to me, with an Audio Effects array of choices (much more flexible when Headphones are plugged in than Speaker alone) which only one step short of Dolby Audio/Atmos. Which brings me to the next point.

2. No Dolby Audio
The Moto G6 Plus I reviewed last week had the Audio app, system-wide, with loads of bells and whistles, great sound choices and excellent adjustment capabilities. So why not here, I wonder. The less expensive phone gets a better audio deal. Strange and sad.

3. 18:9 6.1 inch Screen
The Super AMOLED 1080p bigger, stretched-ratio panel is terrific. I don’t know who makes Motorola’s AMOLED panels for the Z-series, but they are such a cut above most else. They don’t feel like they’re Samsung or LG panels. They don’t have the hallmarks of such. So I wonder if Lenovo’s (unknown) manufacturers are doing this. Whoever it is and however they get them, they really are superb. I’ve said before that indoors, I routinely have the screen brightness set to 10% and it’s perfectly usable. Out in the sun and cranked up, it’s just like you’re indoors. It’s colours are not too saturated and it’s a joy to use. The 18:9 thing has taken the screen out to the edges, within 2mm, left and right, and lifted top, dropped bottom, just enough to make it look balanced and get the speaker and sensors in without resorting to a ludicrous ‘notch’. Well done Moto. The screen’s corners are very subtly rounded, much like the G6P, not hugely rounded like some others.

4. Side-Mounted Fingerprint Scanner
The fingerprint scanner being on the chin of the device was one of the most useful aspects for me using the Z2 Play, so I was not happy that they’d moved it to the side, old Sony style, especially when I got it here to discover that there’s certainly room on the chin for a scanner (and the microphones) the same as the G6 Plus’ - if they ditch the ‘motorola’ logo. I get why it’s gone to the side given the Mod system and the back being out of bounds, but it’s just a bit annoying when there appears to be room on the chin still. This will be my greatest challenge switching to the Z3 Play and a real test for my staying power. I never liked it on the Razer Phone, nor the Sony Xperia’s and at the moment, I don’t like it here. It feels like the least useful place to me. Oh well. One of the knock-on issues here is that unlike Sony and Razer, they’ve not made it a Power button as well. The Power button is now across on the other side of the device. I think that’s a good decision. I was forever trying to work out with the Sony and Razer whether or not I was supposed to press, press and hold or just touch - and then what each of those things executed. Moto have made it simple here. It’s a fingerprint scanner! Personally, I think I might have preferred them swapped around as I tend to pick up the phone in my left (so good for thumb on that side) and navigate with my right. But ‘lefties’ will be happy and it’s no deal-breaker.

5. Snapdragon
The chipset has been updated from the Snapdragon 626 to 636. The manufacturer is claiming a 40% efficiency boost between the two, though what that actually means, I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t notice any speed boost switching or opening apps, games play fine (the ones I tried - which to be fair are not the hungriest) so I can only assume that there’s going to be battery efficiencies with the very same 3000mAh unit. On initial testing, the battery performance seems very good and, yes, maybe improved. Not 40% worth though!

6. Android 8.1
I waited for a year after release for the Z2 Play to be updated to Oreo - and then it was only 8.0.0. and June 2018 Security. This phone is shipped with 8.1.0. but at the moment, only April 2018 Security. The differences between 8 and 8.1 are not huge, but it feels like it’s more up to date if nothing else. Android Pie is promised to follow along but actually, based on my experience of Motorola phones over the last 2 or 3 years, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

7. Navigation Slider
Not strictly new as the Z2 Play had the option in settings to use the capacitive button on the chin for navigation control, but the truth is that every time I tried, it just didn’t work well. I kept missing the gesture and Back often actually closed stuff down and so on. This is a much more like an Android Pie ‘pill’ and I’ve got used to using it very quickly. Never thought I’d say that! It takes up a tiny bit of screen right at the bottom and works intuitively and executes what it’s supposed to first time every time. Left for Back, Right for Recents, Tap for Home, Press for Assistant. Peachy.

8. Camera
The camera has been updated to pretty much emulate the arrangement and functions of the G6 Plus, so all I said there about fun applies here. It is an improvement over the Z2 Play with loads more stuff to play with and it remains a very good camera as far as I’m concerned, not pixel-peeping. There’s a dual set-up, the 12MP, f/1.7 for most uses and a new 5MP ‘depth sensor’ lens for Portrait Mode and the like. Video can be shot at 4K (30fps) and the front-facing Selfie is an 8MP f2 unit, so faster and more sensitive than the Z2 Play at 5MP f2.2. Check out my G6 Plus thoughts for more on the camera, which adds to that and takes in all the aspects of the Moto X4’s camera setup.

9. Glass
The Z3 Play returns to glass back and front after the predecessor’s aluminium back had an outing. In reality, I don’t think it matters much as most people will have some sort of Mod on the back, even if it’s only a style one - and there’s no Qi charging (for obvious reasons) - for that you’ll need the Wireless Charging Mod. The ring around the two sheets of glass is 6000-grade aluminium, unlike the G6 Plus’ plastic but the same as the Z2 Play.

10. Supplied Battery Mod
In the box, making the retail price in the UK just now over £400, is a 2220mAh Battery Mod. This is the standard one which came out first and which are obviously not selling for them! There’s no independent charging function on it, a button to press on the front to check very basic charge condition and that’s it! It will, however, get people 5220mAh out of the box and it is very slim, rounding the back of the device for the palm perfectly. They should have done this before the likes of me had to go and buy one a long time ago! I don’t personally need one now and would rather have had the forty quid taken off the purchase price, bringing it down to what the price of the Z2 Play was, £379. Having said all that, it is certainly a boost for new users - though it’s hard to imagine that there’ll be many of those, without a Mod or two already and the knowledge that it might be end-of-line for the Mod system.

11. Fat
The Z2 Play was thinner! By nearly 1mm. When I heard this, I was hoping that maybe there was a battery hike, but no return to the good old days of the Z Play and 3500mAh! So why is it thicker, I wonder. Beats me! The camera island sticks out a long way, more so than the older version, and because of this alone you really need some kind of Mod on the back, even if it’s only a Style cover. In actual fact, I really don’t mind that it’s thicker. I like 'substantial in the hand' and it suits me, but I guess that there will be those who still want ‘thin at all costs’.

Diff'rent Strokes
So I think that’s pretty much the differences. Do drop a note in the comments if I’ve missed anything. To mop up the rest, it retains (probably) the best ‘glance screen’ arrangement on the market just now, short of the ‘always on’ of a couple, this unit is the Deep Indigo Dual Sim version (with the second SIM Card having to give way to the microSD Card if needed), it’s splash and dust resistant, has Bluetooth 5, has no FM Radio (a strange omission given that the G6 Plus had that) and USB-C charging of course, supporting TurboCharge cracking out 50% in 30 minutes.

Invested Length
There’s a couple of questions here to pose really. Firstly, for the likes of me, buried in the Mod system, is it worth it as an upgrade over the Z2 Play, taking into account all the above and secondly, is it an attractive proposition for new users, given that there’s a Battery Mod included to get them going, but also that nobody knows now how long the company will support the scheme. Is (particularly) the in-vogue 18:9 screen enough of a change to make it feel like a worthy upgrade, I wonder. I’m not a typical user of course, and I feel like I ‘want the set’ to go along with the Mods I own and keep up to date with the latest, but for over £400, given the specs and compelling competition out there, including from Moto’s own G-series, I don’t think this will sell well. Which is a shame as that might well influence strongly the decision about continuity. Brazil seems flooded with Moto products, so maybe their influence will swing things.

Indian
As a footnote, I bought this from Amazon UK and although they said it was sold by them etc. I did smell a rat with regards to origin, as firstly it’s not on sale anywhere else in the UK mainstream, the delivery arrangements were not straight forward in terms of choice of destination delivery, the Motorola UK website is still not listing it as available and when I installed the My Vodafone app, it told me I was using Vodafone India and had to uninstall/reinstall to fix it - so make what you will of that! But in short, I like it!

Sucker Punch

...it feels like I've been blown it - for watching this ludicrous pile of nonsense, marginally worse in my book recently than even the absurd Wonder Woman, also directed by Zack Snyder along with other clap-trap like 300, Watchmen and Man of Steel!

I have to admit that there's only one reason why I even considered watching this - no prizes for guessing that! It's a ridiculous story about a 20 year old girl (who is made throughout to look like a child, raising dubious questions, even being called 'Babydoll') who's mother dies. There's a wicked step-father who kills her sister then blames her for it as she won't 'do favours' for him, subsequently having her locked up in an asylum for the insane to, five days later, receive her lobotomy punishment!

This is no ordinary asylum though - oh no, it's an asylum run by a madman who ensnares young girls like her then forces them to dance and supply personal services for the local dignitaries and other paying customers. The rest of it is about her whipping up the similarly scantily-clad girls around her into an escape bid!

The film then dives into some fantasy where as she dances she enters some sort of dream world and each of the four times this happens it's based around having to 'collect' an item from the asylum staff, mirrored in her dreams as (usually) some sort of battle scene or race against time adventure where monsters and soldiers have to be defeated in order to make it through. It seems that if any of the 'girl team' get hurt or injured in the fantasy world, they also get hurt in reality back in the asylum when the fantasy-dance is over.

I can't believe what tripe it is, though it certainly has its fans, reading online reviews, I'm guessing from the comic-book nerds out there! I'm surprised at Scott Glenn getting involved - as I am for all of them really - including gorgeous starlet of the show Emily Browning. (Ignore me, it's an addiction!)

This film is a choreographed, fantasy, pseudo-erotic, special-effects driven bizarre notion brought together for what purpose I'm not sure. Shot in dark fantasy style sepia tone for a lot of the time like his other films listed above and with occasional nods to Gothic outings such as Batman and The Addams Family here and there it will certainly appeal to teenage boys and those who are desperately seeking a story-line where girls/women get one over on men in a male-driven society. But even for them, it's so bizarre and off-the-wall that they won't take it seriously either!

Unless you want to look at Emily Browning dressed up as a little girl, give it a miss!

Letters to Juliet

The wide-eyed Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia!, Les Misérables, Ted 2) plays New York wannabe writer Sophie who’s engaged to a very distracted chef, leaving her to largely fill her own time. She heads off to Italy to enjoy her last days of freedom whilst he keeps working and largely ignoring her.

When she gets to Verona and starts poking around she stumbles upon the balcony made famous in Romeo and Juliet - Juliet’s Balcony. Here, women looking for love write letters to the (fictitious) Juliet and pin them to the wall under the balcony. These letters are collected up at the end of each day by a gaggle of women called the ‘Secretaries of Juliet’ and they proceed to write a reply to each of them and mail it to them.

Sniffing a story to write about she recruits herself to the team and starts to help them. In the process, she pulls out a brick from the wall and behind it is a letter that was left there 50 years previous and was never answered. This then becomes the focus of the story as she replies to the letter and invokes the old lady, played beautifully by Vanessa Redgrave (I can’t even begin to list the highlights of her career and millions of films since 1958), to visit with her handsome, attentive and available grandson. You can see where this is going!

At this stage, the film turns very much into RomCom territory and the male lead could easily have been Hugh Grant, Jude Law or Colin Firth - you get the idea! The formula for chick-flick is hugely in attendance as we move forward and love blossoms for all and sundry in the cast!

The quest for the old woman is to try and track down the man, subject of the letter, 50 years on, and to see if love conquers time and distance! The cast do fairly well within this structure, though as you can imagine, nobody is really stretched. Seyfried is cutesy and the audience soon gets onboard with the agenda of wanting something more for her than the half-hearted experience she’s involved with in the chef. You really can guess the rest - including a sprinkling of parallels with Shakespeare's work!

The Italian countryside is nicely shot and settings well handled from producer cum director Gary Winick. Given that, as you might expect, the production is good and script tight enough for the purpose. Redgrave steals the show of course showing all around her how to act, but it’s also obvious that she’s also having a laugh with it!

I’m not going to overtly criticise a film that will bring such enjoyment to so many even if for others, a vomit-bowl might be handy! A cracking Sunday afternoon RomCom. For the girls. Woops - did I say that?!

Magic Ironing Board!

...appears from nowhere!
What a clever idea this is for space-saving caravans and static homes.
As you can see from the photos, when closed, it looks pretty much like your top cutlery drawer. Pull it out - keep pulling - keep pulling - and the mechanism folds down the drawer-front and raises the platform of the ironing board. The user then unfolds the 'folded in half' ironing board and gets ironing!

It really is a case of Whatever Works - as this just does. It's been very cleverly thought out and when in position is super-sturdy (even more so than most I've used on wobbly legs) and you really wouldn't know that there is no support directly under it. I wouldn't recommend sitting on it, mind you!

This is, of course, not something I can point people at AmazonUK to go and buy as it's built-in but thought it was interesting. I wonder what other similar contraptions people have in their caravans and Motorhomes to share with the community.

Biggest problem here is actually not constantly going for the top drawer for cutlery! Every time I go to someone else's house for any length of time my life-long brain/muscle memory sends me straight back to the top drawer for knives and forks!

Nokia 1

I’ve been threatening to take a look at this for a while now and think it’s probably the longest-lasting phone-in-a-box unpacked since delivery ever for me! Must a be a reflection of my interest in the device, but what I am interested in is AndroidGo. It’s almost not worth listing the specs of this tiny phone, except that we can see it in context - the target market, price, intended functionality and for whom.

Get GO-ing
AndroidGo is another attempt by Google to get everybody on the planet online, using their services and thereby exposed to their partners’ advertising. In order to do so, they need to include people with small amounts of cash available and families who might be sharing a phone, often needing multiple SIM Cards (though actually this unit sourced from Argos in the UK is a single-SIM version) and cellular-only connectivity. AndroidGo is a cut-down version of Android, designed to run on devices with limited capacity and cheaper components, so that companies like Nokia can make inexpensive phones to push out in their millions, like they used to with feature phones.

Slippery Trough
Take a cheap plastic body, put 8GB of storage in it, load AndroidGo (which will only use 3GB of that storage for itself OOTB), 1GB RAM (though AndroidGo will run with less), a small and cheap LCD screen with low resolution, a basic but functional camera from 10 years ago, cheap chipset and push it out for somewhere north of £60. Everyone online, no excuses, world domination and exposure! Physically, as I say, it’s a plastic ‘trough’ which reminds me of the Lumia 620. The Xpress-on compatible back pulls off and underneath is a place for the removable battery, SIM Card and microSD Card. It’s cheap plastic and the back is very slippery. The NOKIA name is emblazoned across the middle of the back and above it is the pill-shaped camera cluster comprising lens and LED flash. Down at the bottom and off to one side is a hole with a loudspeaker behind. There’s a 3.5mm earphone socket up top, the charging port at the bottom and volume rocker/power button on the right side, which are surprisingly firm in use. Noticeably missing is any kind of fingerprint scanner. The front is made of glass with sizeable bezels all round, an earpiece speaker and selfie camera up the top and a 4.5” 16:9 480 x 854 IPS LCD screen. The unit is just over 5” tall, 2 and a half inches wide and a third of an inch fat.

Data Frugal
Google has developed a suite of their usual apps for data-frugal use under this platform, pre-installed many of them and stuck a ‘Go’ after their proper name. Unlike various feature-phones in the same price bracket running some other proprietary OS, this strategy sticks with mainstream apps and services enabling users to access their data as used across other devices and computers - or if not yet done by the user, will future-proof the data for when they do. Just imagine the advertiser negotiations based on now and future exposure of humongous numbers of people.

Full Fat
Other developers are rolling out Go apps too, and looking through the specially allocated section in the Play Store there are plenty of options apart from the already-ported Google apps for those who want to connect to social media, WhatsApp, Facebook, Facebook Messaging, Skype, Telegram, Line, Instagram and so on - and where the Go app is not yet developed, the full-fat version can be installed easily enough (at the expense of storage space and RAM for running etc.) To be honest, it’s hard to find the features sometimes of the apps which are supposed to be Go-ready over their ordinary versions - and don’t forget that many have developed a Lite version of their app already anyway.

Pie Coming
The system is only as good as the UX though and the ongoing commitment Google have to AndroidGo, keeping it up to date and, as I say, evolving the ‘Go’ apps alongside the mainstream ones by Google. It also depends on the uptake by third parties as they consider whether or not it’s worth tweaking and developing their apps for this demographic. The device ships with Android 8.1 and May 2018 Security which updated itself step-by-step to July, so far, reporting mid-September. The Go website speaks very boldly of Android Pie as if it’s here, so maybe this will be as quickly done as the Nokia AndroidOne based phones.

Patience
In the box, you get a charger brick, USB-A to microUSB cable (no USB-C here, which is fair enough for the target market where the former will still be much more prevalent), a basic pair of outer (hurrah!) earphones, 2150mAh battery - and that’s about it! Charging is very slow, even with the supplied kit, compared to better spec’d smartphones these days, so be prepared for a 3 hour wait!

Adopt a Card
The 3GB of storage used by the system leaves 5GB for other stuff. Firstly, against the apparent Google trend, the microSD card slot allows for Adoptable Storage so that 8GB can be virtually extended - or for those for whom 8GB is enough, as portable. I made a 128GB microSD Card Adoptable and all seems well. During setup, some of the core apps are optional and not pre-installed, which is sensible as not everyone will want everything. Google Drive, Keep, Google Play Music, Google Play Books, Google Plus, Hangouts, and Google Play Games are noticeable for this initial exclusion. But head across to the Play Store and anything you fancy is then installable at full size.

Smart Google
Google Go and Assistant Go work incredibly well and quickly compared to other apps here. They are stripped down and rely on core connectivity which, even over cellular is lightning fast. Smart Google making these very visible and up-front apps and services work very well and allow people to talk to their phones and search quickly with blazingly fast results.

Slow and Laggy
The Mediatek MT6737M, also used in the Moto C amongst others, is slow and sluggish. The whole UX is laggy (apart from the above-mentioned) and waits of 3-4 seconds for apps to open is usual as it is for switching between them if more than about 3 are loaded (1GB RAM) and even refreshing the homescreen when returned to takes 2 seconds - which is very odd. I guess that the target market will be tolerant of this, at this price-point, but it would drive all of us here nuts!

Lifeless
You probably know by now that my approach to cameras in phones is pretty dismissive (until they can really challenge a stand-alone camera) for all but social media posting. But it seems that even I have limits! This has a 5MP camera on the back, so still OK for social media posting I guess, when people are only going to look at photos on a tiny screen, but the 2MP selfie really does challenge the limits! This really feels like having gone back (even more than) 10 years in mobile phone progression! The images are lifeless and washed out - fit only for viewing on phones. The Camera interface, however, is the same as the one which was shipped with Nokia AndroidOne devices (not with the recent update) sans Bokeh Mode or anything fancy like that - but it’s surprising how many options there are to try and get the most out of the limited hardware.

HTC Desire
I can remember when I got my HTC Desire in 2010 with a 800 x 480 screen and was wow’d at the sharpness and clarity! How things change. But the point is that even though we have super-high resolution screens routinely now, we often say at PSC Towers that our eyes can’t appreciate the difference, proportionately for size. I was comparing this screen against the 1440p screen of my Razer Phone and yes, the Razer is clearly far more sharp and lines more defined, but actually, shrink that down to a 4.5” screen and I can see how people can quite happily live with the resolution that the Nokia 1 delivers. It’s perfectly usable, though be prepared to use it on manual maximum brightness all the time and really struggle to see anything on it outside in anything but a dull day.

Compact
What we might not be able to cope with here is the physical size of the screen at that 4.5”. It’ll be OK for the ‘compact’ crowd - those happy with the smaller Xperias, iPhone SE, children etc. but for me, I think we’re beyond this - and although this might make a great back-up option for glove-box or pub-phone for most people reading this, it’s just too small.

Slow Power
The battery is one of the benefactors of all the above of course, and with my kind of usual use, it would certainly last 2-3 days. The battery is slow-charged by microUSB which slots in the hole at the bottom relatively easily. I remember that one of the biggest complaints that we used to have about this connectivity solution was that we didn’t know which way round it went and kept getting it wrong. This, however, is very clear and I’ve not got it wrong once. Maybe it’s a redesign of the hole or shaping of plastic around it that has made a difference. Don’t know. But it’s no longer frustrating. On the plus side, the battery is removable - so replaceable for those who want (or need) to be away from power for extended periods.

Wireless
As you might expect, this unit certainly has an FM Radio. I’ve tested this in various locations in North Wales and it returns a good signal, good sound through earphones, can be switched to speaker as long as the earphones remain plugged in acting as an aerial, but it doesn’t record.

Muffled and Tinny
Speaking of sound, the speaker is woeful compared to modern devices all around it. It’s tinny at best and has no depth or body. You can make the best of it by making sure the speaker on the back is not blocked by a hand or table, at the cost of volume. I found the best place to use it was on the edge of a table with the bottom half of the phone (and speaker) pointing at the floor. Move it fully onto the table and it’s immediately muffled and tinny. I guess it’s to be expected at this price-point. The volume is not as bad as the quality, however, so 70% setting returns more favourable results. You can play with the equaliser in Google Play Music and VLC to make things less tinny, so some mileage can be gained. Rest assured that this is no Marshall! But it does have a 3.5mm earphone socket and although I’m far from an audiophile, it sounds terrific through my AKG reference headphones with flat equalisation, for both volume and quality.

Get Connected
We wouldn’t usually cover connectivity options in reviews these days, but with a handset like this, I guess we should! Firstly, it has 4G connectivity and appears to hold a signal well, transferring data and voice remarkably well with no glitches or breakup. It has 802.11 b/g/n Wifi and can be used as a hotspot which, again, it seems to do beautifully. There’s Bluetooth 4.2 with A2DP which presents no problems pairing up and sounding great through headphones and my home hifi. There’s A-GPS and Maps Go works very quickly locking onto position working every bit as well as its big brother on better spec’d devices. What’s not here is a fingerprint scanner or NFC so no way to use Android Pay. A deal breaker for most of us in 2018 but, again, not for target market.

Don’t Nit-Pick
This is one of those occasions where I have to include the term ‘for the price’ to almost every observation here in assessing this unit - and maybe ‘for the target market’ as well. If you take those two caveats into account, what you get here for £60 is a terrifically capable smartphone which has super connectivity quality and options. It’s built of plastic but feels like it’ll last. Start nit-picking the components and you’ll chuck it in the bin. But this is not designed for most people reading this - it’s for people in developing economies and people with low income who Google want to get into their system and who want to be able to communicate with the world with little or or no resources.

Go Lite
I’m actually surprised that it has been released in the UK but I also think that it would be a great backup phone for the car, bag or certainly for a child’s first phone. With well thought out access to apps, either Go, Lite or normal, this will get people connected and using the internet as well as providing for voice services. We will be instantly annoyed by the horrible lag everywhere and not take it seriously, but others will just be happy to be connected and not notice. Go is something that we should not ignore and if it were to make its way into devices with a bit more size and spec’s (as components get even cheaper) it might even become acceptable to many more.