Motorola One Zoom Review: For the Love of Great Pictures

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Motorola One Zoom: At First Glance

Since Lenovo took over Motorola in 2015, they’ve been letting us know that they ain’t playing in the smartphone space. Prior to the Motorola One Zoom, Lenovo had previously released the Motorola One Action and One Vision.

Now that the One Zoom is out, we expect that this smartphone will exceed the specifications of its previous siblings. This is perhaps why it costs a whopping sum of about $400 (as of November 2021) than its younger siblings.

If you’re also wondering why it’s called the “zoom”, you’ll definitely have to read on to find outǃ

Motorola One Zoom: Design, Dimensions, and Weight

Looks is all that matters for the Motorola One Zoom. At first glance, you’ll think this smartphone is metal but it’s actually frosted gorilla glass with an aluminum frame.

To be precise, the back of this phone has a metallic gradient finish to the glass back. Such an aluminum frame and glass back are high-end design features that suit the price tag of this phone.

The combination of these materials gives this phone a smooth, sleek, and premium look that’s loveable. Due to its bodywork, expect to use a case for this phone because it gets slippery in the hand.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about its weight because it’s quite comfortable in the hand. The Motorola One Zoom weighs 190 g.

This smartphone weighs lesser than the Motorola One Fusion+ which weighs 210 g. Lighter high-end smartphones would be the OnePlus 7 at 182 g and the Google Pixel 3a XL at 167 g.

As for dimensions, the Motorola One Zoom is 158 x 75 x 8.8 mm in dimensions. In comparison, the Motorola One Fusion+ is wider at 162.9 x 76.9 x 9.6 mm.

This means you should expect that the One Zoom is more of a handful than the One Fusion+. Not to forget, the One Zoom comes in brushed bronze and electric grey color options.

The top area of this phone screen has a notch cut out for the selfie camera. Fortunately, thick bezels are nothing to worry about on this phone.

Screen to body ratio is 85% which is pretty good. In case you don’t know, the screen-to-body ratio refers to how much space the screen occupies when compared with the entire body of the phone.

In this case, 85% is pretty impressive for a 2019 smartphone. This also means that the lower bezel is slightly thick but nothing unattractive.

The side bezels, on the other hand, are very slim and the top has almost no bezel at all. Away from the bezels, there’s the headphone jack and USB Type C charging port.

Surprisingly, the single speaker on this phone is located at the top area of the phone. This is surprising because we often see phone speakers on the lower end.

Despite its position, this speaker produces good sound quality that won’t disappoint you. Asides from the location of the speaker at the top, Motorola also placed the dual nano sim slot tray at the top as well.

This is also a different location from the usual location of the SIM slot tray by the left or right of the phone. Even though it’s a dual SIM slot, one of the SIM slots may have to be sacrificed for the micro SD card.

To be precise, it means that if you decide to get a micro SD card, you cannot have two SIM cards and a micro SD card at once on the phone. Moving on, you’ll find the power and volume control buttons on the right side of the phone as usual.

It’s worth noting that this phone isn’t fully water-resistant like its other siblings. The One Zoom is spill-resistant and this means it can handle some splashes – not a bucket of water!

The particular design feature of this phone that’ll draw your attention is on the phone’s back. There’s the rectangular camera bump and the LED flash beside it.

It is on that camera bump you’ll see the “M” LED notification logo that indicates when something needs your attention. Even though it’s an impressive design tweak, this notification LED may not get your attention because of its position – at the back of the phone.

At the lower end of the phone’s back, there’s the “Motorolaone” text logo.

In a nutshell, the Motorola One Zoom is sure to turn heads. For that reason, the Motorola One Zoom deserves a nine out of ten in this design review section.

Motorola One Zoom: Display Features

In the aspect of the display, three components make up the display of any smartphone. There’s the display resolution, display size, and display type.

To start, the One Zoom has the OLED display type which stands for organic light-emitting diode.

The OLED display is preferred over the IPS LCD because it has a brighter display. Another reason is that despite having a brighter display, the OLED still preserves battery life.  

The OLED display type is a big improvement from Motorola because the other Moto One series comes with an IPS LCD instead. As you’ll expect from this OLED display, contrasts and sharpness are good and in their purest form.

Notably, OLED displays are expensive for the manufacturer and that’s probably why this smartphone has such a price tag.

Also, the brightness level of this phone’s display is good at 500 nits and boosts up to 700 nits in auto mode. Colors are also very pronounced on this display.

That aside, let’s talk about the display resolution. The One Zoom has an FHD+ (2340 x 1080) display resolution.

This resolution is top-notch when it comes to viewing videos with every detail and general image quality. To complement such a good viewing experience, this smartphone has a 6.4” display size.

With the overall display features, you’re sure to enjoy gaming and video streaming on the Motorola One Zoom.

In a nutshell, we can say that Motorola’s aimed to impress with its display features. Such impressive features are deserving of a nine in this Motorola One Zoom display review.

Motorola One Zoom: Camera Features

The camera features of the One Zoom have to be the main highlight of this smartphone. This is where the phone gets its name “Zoom” from.

According to Motorola, this phone has a hybrid optical zoom of up to 10 times more than the average smartphone camera. This means zooming into the object is sharp and clear without blur.

The quad rear-facing camera setup of this phone comprises the 48 MP main camera with ƒ/1.7 aperture. Next is the 16 MP with ƒ/2.2 aperture.

There’s also the 8 MP with ƒ/2.4 aperture and lastly is the 5 MP with ƒ/2.2 aperture. The front-facing camera, on the other hand, has 25 MP with ƒ/2.0 aperture.

If the word “aperture” is strange to you, this is an important aspect of photography. To be exact, aperture refers to the wideness of the camera lens and how it accommodates light when taking a picture.

Interestingly, a lower figure of aperture means better image quality than a higher figure. In essence, a higher megapixel (MP) and lower aperture are two important qualities of a good camera.

As for camera quality, when taking selfies, this camera is crispy, clear, and sharp. It gives images its simple and good color reproduction.

In good light situations, the 48 MP camera produces bright light and detailed shots. Phase detection is also a breeze.

When night mode is activated, pictures in the dark come out clean and clear even without an adequate amount of light.

Recording videos with this back camera is also clear thanks to the EIS. Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) is responsible for how stable a camera is while you’re making a video.

This further prevents blur and overall low-quality videos. Also, this phone can record videos at 4K for the back camera and 1080p for the selfie camera.

In a word, it appears that every single camera on this smartphone has been carefully designed to take great pictures. Looking at the camera features, I will be rating this Motorola One Zoom a nine out of then in this camera review.

Motorola One Zoom: Battery Life and Talk Time

The Motorola One Zoom is powered by a 4000mAh non-removable battery. A battery of this kind with its size and non-removable feature is what you’ll typically expect from a 2019 smartphone.

Unfortunately, having a non-removable battery means you can’t replace the battery when it gets bad or simply needs to be replaced when low. If it must be replaced, you’ll have to send it back to Motorola.

Because of this new development, phone manufacturers have been coming up with large battery sizes. That way, even if they can’t be replaced, at least they have good battery life that won’t disappoint.

Speaking of battery life, the Motorola One Zoom lasts 10 hours 42 minutes on continuous web browsing over Wi-Fi. On the other hand, the Redmi 9T Pro with the same 4000mAh battery lasts 12 hours 42 minutes on the same continuous web browsing.

Still in comparison, the ASUS ZenFone 6 beats them both. This ZenFone with its 5000mAh battery lasts as long as 13 hours 31 minutes on continuous web browsing.

Noa that you know about its battery life, you may also be curious in knowing how long it takes to charge this phone. Thanks to the fast charger in the box, this phone will fully charge from 0-100% in 2 hours.

When compared with the Redmi 9T Pro, One Zoom doesn’t quite match up. The Redmi gets a full charge from 0-100% in one hour.

Finally, even though the fast charging feature of Motorola One Zoom is not the best out there, two hours is a fair time to wait. That being said, I am happy to rate the Motorola One Zoom a nine in this battery review section.

Motorola One Zoom: Storage Options and Performance

Storage on the Motorola One Zoom is quite good as you would expect for the price. More precisely, 128 GB storage is what you’ll get on this phone.

Motorola didn’t offer different models with different storage options as we often see in recent smartphones – but that’s not a flaw anyway. As much as 128 GB is very adequate for a 2019 smartphone, there’s the option to expand this storage.

Actually, you can expand this phone’s storage with a micro SD card up to 1 TB. Such maximum storage is also an impressive part of this phone.

The reason is that most smartphones often have 256 GB or 512 GB maximum storage. We sure appreciate the 1 TB capacity of this phone.

That said, a combination of all that storage will definitely be enough for your media files. I guess a good camera tempts for more pictures which will, in turn, requires a lot of storageǃ

All-in-all, Motorola understood the need for storage and this phone does well in that regard. That said, I will rate this phone a nine in this storage review.

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Motorola One Zoom: Security Features and Sensors

Sensors aim to enhance the use of any smartphone. This means that a smartphone without sensors cannot be regarded as a smartphone after all.

The sensors on the Motorola One Zoom are the accelerometer, ambient light, fingerprint, gyroscope, and proximity sensors.

For emphasis, the accelerometer is the sensor responsible for how the phone measures acceleration. It provides a comfortable viewing experience to the users by switching the position of the device from portrait to landscape and vice versa.

Moreover, the accelerometer is also responsible for how the camera of this phone opens. Actually, you can quickly load the camera by turning your wrists twice.

Moving on, you know when your phone display suddenly goes dim? Yeah, the ambient light sensor is responsible for that.

This sensor reduces the display brightness of a phone when you’re already in a brightly lit environment.

Moving on, unlike its siblings with the rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, this Motorola product has an on-screen fingerprint sensor. You’ll actually have to wake up this screen before you can unlock the device with your fingerprint.

Unfortunately, this sensor on the One Zoom takes a second to do its job. Asides from this fingerprint sensor, there’s also the face unlock feature for more security.

By registering your face with the selfie camera, you can unlock the phone just by looking at the camera.

When it comes to the gyroscope sensor, it is used to enhance the angular velocity of the phone. To make more sense, this is the sensor that helps you navigate that racing game on your phone.

Finally, there’s the proximity sensor that makes your phone screen light go off when you’re on a phone call. Whenever the phone is close to your ear or face, the screen goes off and this helps in preserving the battery life.

In brief, sensors are fully packed on this phone especially with both the fingerprint and face unlock feature. For that reason, I will rate the Motorola One Zoom a nine in this sensor review.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Overall, the Motorola One Zoom is a smartphone that we can say is worth the price. Packed with a quad-camera setup that delivers amazing pictures, a big OLED display, and a face unlock feature – this phone is well worth the money.

However, if you need more in terms of battery, you have a better option. You can very well get a phone with a 5000mAh battery like the ASUS ZenFone 6 for around this price except with such great picture quality.

Not forgetting its not so remarkable fast charging feature. Also, the single speaker on this phone may be of concern to you especially when you’re a gamer with little use of headphones.

At the end of the day, this Motorola product pretty much checks all the boxes. It also doesn’t have so many flaws depending on what concerns you.

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