Moto X Style vs. Moto X Play: Six Key Differences

The company has smartly priced its new Moto X Style to compete against the likes of upcoming LG Google Nexus 5X, which will be available at Rs. 31,900 for the 16GB internal storage variant. Motorola has lately been expanding its Moto X range of smartphones in India with Moto X Play (Review) and Moto X Style launching within span of a month. To recall, Motorola had launched the Moto X Play smartphone in India at Rs. 18,499 for the 16GB variant.

Despite being from the Moto X family, both smartphones are poles apart in terms of innards and price. Here we take a look at some differences between the Moto X Style and Moto X Play.

1. Display
To start with, the biggest noticeable difference between the two is display sizes. While the Moto X Style features a large 5.7-inch TFT LCD display, the Moto X Play comes with a 5.5-inch display. The screen resolution also differs on both the handsets with the Moto X Style sporting a Quad HD (1440x2560 pixels) resolution with a pixel density of 520ppi while the Moto X Play sports a full-HD (1080x1920 pixels). Both the devices however come with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on top of the display to protect from daily scratches.

2. Chipset
Under the hood, the Moto X Style packs a 1.8GHz hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 (MSM8992) processor coupled with Adreno 418 GPU. Notably, several high-end smartphones have been launched with the Snapdragon 808 SoC including the LG G4 and LG V10.

The Moto X Play, on the other hand, features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor clocked at 1.7GHz coupled with Adreno 405 GPU. Notably, the Snapdragon 615 chipsets have been used in majority of affordable and mid-range smartphones including the Sony Xperia M4 Aqua Dual, HTC Desire 826, Oppo R7 and R7 Plus. It is certainly the most underwhelming aspect of the Moto X Play at its price.

3. Memory
The Moto X Style also features a 3GB of RAM compared to 2GB RAM found on the Moto X Play. The greater RAM value will simply help the Moto X Style to carry multitasking with ease.

4. Camera
One of the biggest difference between the Moto X Style and Moto X Play, despite both featuring a 21-megapixel rear camera module is 4K video recording capability. The Moto X Style supports 4K video recording at 30fps. The Moto X Play only support full-HD (1080p) recording at 30fps. For shutterbugs, Motorola has also fitted a font-facing flash into the Moto X Style to lighten the low-light shots. Notably, there is no front-facing flash on the Moto X Play. Both the handsets sport a 21-megapixel rear and 5-megapixel front-facing camera modules.

(Also see: Moto X Play vs. OnePlus 2: The Mid-Range Battle)

5. Battery
Battery department also marks a major difference between the two handsets; the Moto X Style features a QHD display but packs just 3000mAh battery. On the contrary, the Moto X Play featuring a full-HD display offers a large 3630mAh battery, which in our review performed decently, but not spectacularly.

No doubt that the Moto X Play's massive 3630mAh battery was one of the standout specifications of the handset. We will have to wait for out full review of the Moto X Style to see what the battery performance in real world is.

6. Body
Motorola has been adding a water repellent coating on its majority of Moto handsets that save it from occasional water splashes but doesn't guarantee a waterproof body. We saw the original Moto G launched in 2013 featuring the water repellent coating and since then almost every Moto handset features the coating.

The Moto G (3rd Gen) however was an exception as it featured IPX7 certification making it waterproof. The Moto X Style comes with IP52 certification.

This makes the handset protected (via DSMT) from limited dust ingress and also protected from water spray less than 15 degrees from vertical. The Moto X Play only comes with water repellent coating.