Motorola Moto E5 Play - Review 2022

Motorola'due south E series has ever focused on no-frills phones with solid performance for an affordable cost. The new Moto E5 Play follows conform, with a capable Snapdragon processor, plenty RAM to handle most mutual tasks, and an increasingly rare removable battery. The E5 Play isn't the fastest or most middle-catching telephone on the market, but it's available for as little as $39.99 depending on where yous purchase information technology, making for a solid, reliable upkeep handset.

Pricing and Carriers

The Moto E5 Play is available on several low-cost carriers in slightly unlike variants. Information technology's nearly affordable on Cricket Wireless, where it'south branded as the Moto E5 Prowl, lacks a fingerprint sensor, and costs a mere $39.99, provided you're signing upward for a new line or upgrade. Prepaid on Verizon Wireless it volition run you $69.99. On Boost Mobile the E5 Play likewise doesn't come up with a fingerprint sensor and costs $99.99. Finally, you have the Xfinity Mobile model (an MVNO operated by Comcast, which uses Verizon towers) for $119.99, at which point you're improve off buying the more capable Moto G6 Play.

Nosotros tested review units for Heave Mobile and Cricket Wireless. A fully unlocked version of the E5 Play isn't available.

Design, Brandish, and Features

The E5 Play follows the pattern language of the Moto E4, with a similar lightweight black plastic construction and a removable dorsum embrace. Information technology feels sturdy and durable, despite not being officially ruggedized, with a h2o-repellent coating that can withstand accidental spills and splashes, simply not full immersion in water.

In terms of size, the E5 Play measures half dozen.0 by 2.9 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.three ounces. It'due south about the same size and weight equally the Alcatel 1X (5.8 past 2.viii past 0.4 inches, five.iii ounces), and quite a bit lighter than the chunky G6 Play (half dozen.i by ii.viii by 0.4 inches, 6.2 ounces), which has a drinking glass-and-metal body and a supersized battery. While the E5 Play won't weigh downwardly your pocket, information technology's not the easiest to use with one hand due to a thick top and bottom bezel.

At that place's a volume rocker and power button on the right, a 3.5mm headphone jack upwardly superlative, and a micro USB charging port on the bottom. The back cover is removable, letting yous swap out the bombardment and giving y'all access to the SIM and microSD card slots, the latter of which worked with a 256GB card. As mentioned earlier, the Boost and Cricket versions of the E5 Play lack a fingerprint sensor, while the other carrier models take one on the back. Aside from this, other concrete aspects of the phone are the same beyond the various carriers.

The E5 Play'south display is ameliorate than we typically see in this price range. It has a 5.ii-inch i,280-by-720 IPS panel that works out to 282 pixels per inch (ppi). That'south much sharper than the grainy 480p panel on the Alcatel 1X (208ppi). Viewing angles are skilful and colors are bright and accurate, though the screen tin be reflective outdoors.

Network Operation and Connectivity

The E5 Play supports LTE bands 1/2/3/four/v/vii/8/12/13/14/17/25/26/29/thirty/38/41/66, allowing information technology to work well on several dissimilar carriers. We tested network performance primarily on Boost Mobile, which uses Sprint's network, and saw average network performance in midtown Manhattan.

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The telephone as well has Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. Dual-band connectivity is something we typically see on more costly phones, so it'due south a nice surprise here. At that place's too Bluetooth 4.two for wireless listening, but no NFC and then you lot tin't use mobile payments.

Call quality is mixed. Earpiece volume is reasonably loud, letting you take calls outdoors, but clarity and noise cancellation aren't the best.

Processor, Battery, and Photographic camera

The E5 Play is powered by either a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 or 427 processor depending on where you buy it. The divergence between the 2 chipsets in fairly negligible in terms of functioning, but for the purposes of testing, we used the Boost Mobile version which has a Snapdragon 427 clocked at i.4GHz and 2GB of RAM.

In the PCMark benchmark, which measures a diversity of tasks including spider web browsing and photograph and video editing, the E5 Play scored 3,477, much better than the MediaTek MT6739-powered Alcatel 1X (two,842). It tin can handle a reasonable amount of multitasking, but there's definitely some sluggishness when switching between apps, and I experienced some crashes. High-end gaming is also out of the question. That said, for average daily apply (calls, texts, web, social networking, etc.) the E5 Play works simply fine.

Bombardment life could be meliorate. The phone'south 2,800mAh jail cell clocked 4 hours, 8 minutes in our rundown test, in which we stream full-screen video over LTE at maximum brightness. That's a lot shorter than the 4,000mAh G6 Play, which outran our 12-60 minutes test video with juice to spare. The similarly sized Nokia six.i, meanwhile, clocked 5 hours, 5 minutes. The i advantage the E5 Play has is that its bombardment is removable, allowing you to swap it out for a fresh prison cell if you lot run out of juice. Information technology's also capable of fast charging with the included 5V/2A adapter.

The phone'due south 8MP rear photographic camera hasn't significantly improved from the E4. It takes passable photos in skillful lighting, but images lack in fine detail. In lower lighting the drop in quality is abrupt. Outdoor test photos taken on a cloudy twenty-four hour period were dull and dirty, while indoor shots were blurry and out of focus. Manual controls let you bump upwards settings like ISO, but doing this results in grainier images without significantly improving clarity, then you're better off using the default.

The Play is capable of recording 1080p video at 30fps, merely footage is jittery when panning effectually and frames drop in darker areas. The 5MP front photographic camera is on the soft side outdoors, but does have a front-facing LED flash for amend indoor shots and video.

Software

The E5 Play comes running Android eight.0 Oreo with Motorola'south clean UI layer that makes few visual changes to the stock interface. The only extra functionality yous go is Moto Display, which can show time, date, and notifications while the residue of the screen is off; keep the screen on while you're looking at it; and suit screen colour temperature to warmer colors at night.

At that place's some bloatware on the Heave Mobile model of the phone we tested, with 12 preinstalled apps including 1Weather, airG, five Amazon apps, two Boost apps, Tidal, and Uber. Fortunately, all of them can exist uninstalled aside from Gadget Guardian, a mobile antivirus and malware scanner. Out of 16GB of internal storage, you lot take x.2GB available for utilize. Yous tin also use a microSD card.

Conclusions

Whether you lot buy it for $forty or $120, the Moto E5 Play offers solid value if you're looking for a no-frills smartphone that tin can handle your basic app, browsing, and telephony needs. It has smoother performance and cleaner software than the similarly priced Alcatel 1X. That said, if you lot're considering ownership the E5 at the higher end of its price range, you might want to consider the Moto G6 Play instead. It's available for as low as $130 at some carriers, and offers more powerful hardware and a bigger battery, earning our Editors' Choice for budget-friendly phones.