Motorola Moto E5 Play UK SIM-Free whatsapp sim 16GB Smartphone, Black

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The E5 Play's display is better than we typically see in this price range. It has a 5.2-inch 1,280-by-720 IPS panel that works out to 282 pixels per inch (ppi). That's much sharper than the grainy 480p panel on the Alcatel 1X (208ppi). Viewing angles are good and colors are bright and accurate, though the screen can be reflective outdoors. Network Performance and Connectivity The Moto E5 Play contains a sizable 5.2-inch LCD display, though you don’t expect a super fancy screen on a smartphone this cheap. Its 720p resolution is considered HD, and it matches the resolution of the 1st-gen Moto G. This, however, is where things begin to go slightly awry and it’s performance that begins the erosion of the Moto E5’s appeal. The culprit is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425, a chipset I haven’t come across in a smartphone before. The paltry 2GB of RAM doesn’t help either. In the PCMark benchmark, which measures a variety of tasks including web browsing and photo and video editing, the E5 Play scored 3,477, much better than the MediaTek MT6739-powered Alcatel 1X (2,842). It 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 use (calls, texts, web, social networking, etc.) the E5 Play works just fine. First impressions count for a lot, and it’s here that the E5 Play falters. It has an uninspiring design, performance is let down by the limited amount of RAM, and its display is awful.

As long as you’re not planning to read lots of full books from the Moto E5 Play, its screen is perfectly adequate. What it's like to use The Moto app that handles those features is actually the only add-on software we spotted on the phone. The Moto E5 Play is a great example of how clean Motorola keeps Android on its phones. Everything else pre-installed was the typical Google fare, like Chrome, calculator, maps, and the G Suite. (Different mobile carrier options may come pre-loaded with different apps, though.) is crisp enough on some smaller screens, but for a 5.2-inch display, we could see some of the softness. App icon edges weren’t entirely smooth. Looking from a much sharper display to this one, it can seem blurry. There’s one big compensation for this, however, and that’s battery life. In our test, the Motorola Moto E5 lasted a stonking 19hrs 39mins, which is four hours longer than its nearest rival in this category, the Moto G6 Play, and miles better than the rest of the competition. Significantly, the Honor 7A lasted 11hrs 39 in this test, a full eight hours short of the Moto E5.

Motorola’s E5 Play has its flaws, but its sub-£100 price and capable camera save the day

The Moto E5 Play launched as US exclusive, though a different phone with the same name is now available in the UK (more on that below), while Australia is only getting the Moto E5 or Moto E5 Plus. The E5 Play supports LTE bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/13/14/17/25/26/29/30/38/41/66, allowing it to work well on several different carriers. We tested network performance primarily on Boost Mobile, which uses Sprint's network, and saw average network performance in midtown Manhattan. Despite its name, this phone isn’t cut out to play games. You can fire up Candy Crush or Temple Run, but don’t expect to play PUBG Mobile on it. And if you’re wondering why the E5 Play outperforms all its rivals in the onscreen tests, there’s a simple answer: its lower resolution screen is less taxing on the hardware. Video looks great, too. The Moto E5 can only capture clips at 1080p and 30fps with no image stabilisation but, just like the E5’s stills, videos look crisp, with balanced exposure and loads of detail.

READ NEXT: Vodafone Smart N9 review: No better than last year’s Smart N8 Motorola Moto E5 Play review: Display 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 Camera Like the Moto G6, the Moto E5 comes in three different flavours: the regular Moto E5 which is on review here, the Moto E5 Plus, which comes with a ridiculously large 5,000mAh battery, and the E5 Play, which is the baby and cheapest of the bunch. We did experience some sluggishness with Google Maps, but it’s still smooth enough to do the job. More demanding apps, like photo and video editing apps, can be slow on this phone, but those uses aren’t really what someone should be looking to do with the Moto E5 Play.

As simple as a smartphone should get

You don’t get a dual camera on the Motorola E5 like you do with the Moto G6 phones and so there’s no portrait mode. In fact, the camera offers a pretty basic roster of facilities, with very few extra modes beyond panorama. Despite only having a rear 8-megapixel f/2.0 and front 5-megapixel single lens camera, the E5 Play captures plenty of light and detail. As a Motorola phone, the Moto E5 Play does have some of the Moto actions, but not all of them. There’s no chopping gesture to turn on the flashlight, and twisting the phone twice won't activate the camera. A 3-finger tap can take a screenshot, and flipping the phone over can silence notifications. The features offered are handy, if not game-changing.

If you like taking selfies, you’ll be pleased to know that the 5-megapixel front-facing camera is very impressive. The E5 Play is able to capture plenty of detail, and colours and skin tones look natural. It copes well in low light, too, as the phone has a forward-facing flash. Despite the limited hardware performance, we managed to get some gaming in. The Moto E5 Play is fast enough for even PUBG Mobile. The graphics aren’t great, and we struggled to spot enemies, but at the lowest settings, the gameplay was smooth enough most of the time for an acceptable experience (i.e., we won, handedly). In low light conditions, the E5 Play holds its own, but isn’t as impressive as its Vodafone counterparts. Here, the Smart N8 and N9 perform better. In the image below, you’ll see that on the left-hand side, the Smart N8 has much less image noise, has a better colour accuracy (on the vase and pens), and has more punch to its captured images. READ NEXT: Alcatel 1 review: Android Go can’t save this bargain bin handset Motorola Moto E5 Play review: PerformanceMake no mistake, the E5 Play looks like a budget phone. The all-plastic build and uninspiring looks aren’t going to win any design awards, but the phone feels robust and the removable plastic rear cover allows you to easily replace the phone’s 2,100mAh battery, access the 128GB microSD card expansion, or swap out the nano-SIM. As you’ll see from the graph above, the phone looks on-par with other budget phones, but in practice it’s a different story. Motorola’s decision to pair the 1.4GHz quad-core processor with only 1GB of RAM is regrettable. By comparison, the regular E5 has 2GB, while the Vodafone Smart N8 has 1.5GB. That extra bit of RAM goes a long way; it allows for a more fluid experience, and especially when you’re switching between apps. Sensors - Fingerprint Reader†, Proximity, Accelerometer, Ambient Light, Magnetometer (e-Compass), Sensor Hub

With flash enabled, image noise is suppressed on the E5 Play, but there’s still a discrepancy in colour accuracy and the flash makes colours look a tad warmer. The Moto E5 Play is protected from splashes and light rain by a water-repellent coating, like many of Motorola’s other phones. But don’t confuse this with waterproof. It’s not a very water-resistant phone. The entire handset measures 151 x 74 x 8.85mm and weighs a light 150 grams.The hardware you do get looks pretty good, though: a 13-megapixel camera at the rear, with an aperture of f/2 and phase-detect autofocus, capable of shooting 1080p video at up to 30fps; plus a 5.5-megapixel f/2.2 camera at the front. Unusually, there’s an LED flash at both the rear and the front. Motorola is frequently one of the best manufacturers offering clean Android experiences in quality budget phones. The Moto E5 Play successfully continues that tradition. Release date and price By comparison, the 5.7in E5 and 6in E5 Plus both have an 18:9 720p IPS display. All three phones have the same processor and have the latest iteration of Android Oreo pre-installed. The E5 Play isn’t waterproof, though Motorola claims the phone is ‘water repellent’ due to ‘advanced nano-coating technology’ – so it should survive the odd accidental splash of water. Just don’t take it in the bath. The front of the phone is all glass with a thin protective plastic lip around the perimeter. The 5.2-inch screen only covers about two-thirds of the front, meaning there’s a large bezel above and below it. The front-facing camera and flash are above the screen, situated on each side of the earpiece that also serves as the only speaker.