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Best Motorola phones: What are the best Moto mobiles right now and coming soon?

We review the very best Motorola Moto phones that you can buy in the UK and here’s our favourites available right now. From great-value budget mobiles like the latest Moto E handset, to premium flagship phones like the Moto Z series – which can be expanded with Motorola’s own Moto Mods accessories – there’s something here for everyone.

Motorola has had a bit of a turbulent time in recent years, but is still putting out great smartphones that appease to pretty much every type of user, regardless of budget.

Why buy a Motorola Moto phone?

Of course, all of Motorola’s Moto smartphones offer solid value for money, from the cheapest sub-£100 handsets that come packing solid battery life and performance, to the premium Moto Z flagship phones. Those budget mobiles, including the new Moto E4, often sport the kind of features you’ll never find on other rival handsets at that price point – such as fingerprint sensors and metal design work.

Meanwhile mid-range Motorola handsets such as the Moto G5 boast a great all-round experience, even for quite demanding users, without breaking the bank. You can expect a clean Android interface and some handy gesture support, for ease of use. These Moto phones are a solid choice for smartphone newbies as well as anyone after solid specs for a good price.

Even the flagship Moto Z phones stand out from the Samsung and Apple crowd, with their Moto Mods support. This means they can be expanded using bolt-on accessories, with new Moto Mods launching all of the time.

Best Motorola Moto phones you can buy now

Here’s our pick of the very best Motorola Moto phones you can buy right now in the UK, as well as the best new Moto phones coming in late 2017 or 2018.

Moto Z2 Play

Price: £369
Release Date: August 2017
All you need to know: Motorola Moto Z2 Play review

While the Moto Z2 Force looks to be a seriously premium handset, it also comes packing a premium price. Which is where the Moto Z2 Play comes in.

This excellent remake of the Moto Z strips back some of the specs, for instance reducing the Quad HD display to a Full HD panel and replacing the super-powered processor with a more energy-efficient Snapdragon 625 chipset.

The result is a great all-round handset that boasts full Moto Mods functionality, as well as incredible battery life, for a fraction of the cost of the Moto Z2 Force.

Moto Z2 Force

Price: £719
Release Date: October 2017
All you need to know: Motorola Moto Z2 Force preview

Motorola’s rather good Moto Z2 Play mid-range mobile offers the same great Moto Mods experience of previous Z-series phones for an affordable price tag. Although you might expect the new ‘Force Edition’ model to simply be a rugged version of the Play, you’d be very wrong indeed.

The Moto Z2 Force actually boasts significantly upgraded specs, including a sharper Quad HD screen, improved performance thanks to the Snapdragon 835 platform and a new 12-megapixel dual-lens camera for snapping your life.

Like the Z2 Play, you can of course snap on those Moto Mods to expand the functionality of this phone too. That’s a seriously strong proposition, which other flagship rivals can’t offer. We’ll be bringing you a full Moto Z2 Force review soon.

Read next: Moto Z2 Force vs Moto Z2 Play, what’s the difference?

Moto X4

Price: £349
Release Date: October 2017
All you need to know: Motorola Moto X4 review

We thought that Motorola had killed off its X series smartphones, which used to be the flagship models until the Z series came along. However, X is well and truly back in 2017 with the release of the Moto X4.

This £350 phone sits neatly between the G series handsets and the Moto Z series, and on paper offers quite similar specs to the Moto G5s Plus, with a few extras thrown in. For instance, you get a shiny glass and metal design, an overhauled dual lens camera experience that improves on the Moto G5s Plus snapper and full water resistance.

Of course, performance is still limited and for just a little extra you could buy the Z2 Play, which offers full support for the Moto Mods. The choice is yours.

Motorola Moto G5 Plus

Price: £259
Release Date: July 2017
Our Review: Motorola Moto G5 Plus review

We’ve been big fans of the Moto G series of smartphones for yonks, with last year’s Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus proving to be two of the best affordable phones of 2016. However, recent months have seen the release of some seriously strong handsets around the £200 to £250 price point, including heavyweights like the Lenovo P2 and Wileyfox Swift 2 X.

Thankfully the G5 and G5 Plus can match these mobiles blow for blow. They’ve slimmed down compared with the G4 handsets, while once again packing solid specs and dependable camera tech for an impressively low price. In fact, the G5 Plus’ camera is one of our favourite budget-friendly smartphone snappers right now.

Check out our long-term Moto G5 Plus review to see how this great phone holds up after a few months.

Motorola Moto G5s Plus

Price: £269
Release Date: September 2017
Our Review: Motorola Moto G5s Plus review

The G5s Plus is a ‘special edition’ version of the standard G5 Plus, launched just a few months after the original smartphone. You get a bigger 5.5-inch screen, refined design work and a new dual-lens camera, which is pretty damned decent – as you’ll see from our G5s Plus camera review. Not to mention a really good selfie cam for those Instagram shots.

Overall, the Moto G5s Plus improves on the already-great G5 Plus, offering a lot for less than £300 here in the UK. It’s a great choice if you can’t stretch to the X or Z-series handsets, but still demand a premium experience.

Check out the differences between these Moto blowers in the video below.

Motorola Moto G5

Price: £159
Release Date: July 2017
Our Review: Motorola Moto G5 review

Motorola’s most popular phones have to be the excellent Moto G series handsets, which offers incredible value for comparatively little money.

The new Moto G5 launched in 2017 stays true to the G family formula, with a strong focus on key aspects like design, battery life, camera tech and – at £169 here in the UK – affordability. Certain elements, like storage, fall a little short of the mark admittedly.

However, for the most part, the Moto G5 packs in plenty of character and functionality, with appeal for social media fans or the budget conscious.

Motorola Moto G4

Price: £169
Release Date: June 2016
Our Review: Motorola Moto G4 review

The 2016 update of the Moto G packs a large 5.5-inch design, plus a Full HD screen for enjoying your media on the move. And with the respectable Snapdragon 617 processor packed inside, along with Motorola’s usual slimline Android interface, this handset can still cut it – if you can find it at a great price.

Motorola Moto G4 Plus

Price: £199
Release Date: June 2016
Our Review: Motorola Moto G4 Plus review

2016 was the first time Motorola introduced a ‘Plus’ version of its Moto G handset. Despite that name, it’s no bigger. Rather, it packs in a couple of extra features including an upgraded camera and a fingerprint sensor for an extra £30.

If you want to see more details on the differences between the Moto G4 and the Moto G4 Plus, check out our full G4 vs G4 Plus comparison review, complete with video.

Motorola Moto E4

Price: £119
Release Date: August 2017
Our Review: Motorola Moto E4 review

After an affordable handset to replace your old blower? Or perhaps you need some kind of secondary device for festivals and other messy times? Well, the Motorola Moto E4 is one of the best Motorola phones for you, then.

With a SIM-free cost of just £119, this is one of the most affordable mobiles that you’ll find outside of the likes of Sony’s Xperia E5 and some of Vodafone’s own-brand efforts. You can grab it from the likes of Tesco Mobile from just a tenner a month on contract, which is hard to sniff at.

Despite that low asking price you still get HD visuals, a simple yet sleek metal design, pretty solid battery life and performance that isn’t frustrating. Therefore it’s a great choice for students and anyone else hunting for an affordable device.

Moto Z

Price: £500
Release Date: September 2016
All you need to know: Motorola Moto Z review

Moto Z press image

The original Moto Z flagship phone is undoubtedly Motorola’s brightest and best flagship smartphone so far. First off, it’s a stunning sandwich of Gorilla Glass banded by a metal frame. Like the G4 Plus it packs a fingerprint sensor and there’s a 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED display on offer too, for a visual feast.

However, two things really make the Moto Z stand out from the other Android flagships. First, this phone is so thin (just 5.19mm) that it lacks a headphone jack altogether – although a microUSB to jack adapter comes in the box, just as with the iPhone 7. Secondly, and more importantly, the Moto Z supports the company’s new MotoMods modular accessory system.

Read next: What are MotoMods and what MotoMods will launch with the Moto Z?

Whether it’s the extra boom of an attachable JBL speaker, an additional bit of battery power from Incipio, a bolt-on projector or just a nice wood finish, the Moto Mods change the look and functionality of the Moto Z depending on your specific needs.

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