Lenovo recently launched the Zuk Z1 in India which is owned by Lenovo and also the much awaited Moto G4 Plus also has been revealed by the company last week. Both the smartphones are priced around the same price segment and battle head to head in terms of specs and hardware. Let us see where they stand when pitted against each other.
Specifications Comparison
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Lenovo Zuk Z1 Vs Moto G4 Plus Comparison [Video]
Design & Build
Both the smartphones are very different in terms of design and build, and the only common feature is the 5.5 inch display size. Both the phones have a decent look and feel, it totally depends on you to choose between the designs as G4 Plus is made up of plastic and Zuk Z1 is a metal clad phone.
The Moto G4 Plus measures 76.59 x 153 x 9.8 mm and weighs 155 grams, whereas the Zuk Z1 measures 155.69 x 77.3 x 8.9 mm and weighs 175 grams. You can easily make out that the G4 Plus is 20 grams lighter than the Z1 but it is 0.9 mm thicker at the sides. The extra weight on Zuk Z1 is due to the heavy battery packed inside.
As far as looks are concerned, the G4 Plus carries the old Moto G plastic design with slight improvements in the design. The Zuk Z1 has a metal and glass body with curved back and rounded edges. One thing that I liked about the Zuk Z1 is that it has backlit navigation keys and a physical home button with inbuilt fingerprint sensor, whereas the G4 Plus has navigation keys and home button on the display. In my personal opinion, I like the Zuk Z1 more in comparison with the G4 Plus, rest we leave it on you to take a call on the design.
Display
Both the phones boast of a 5.5 inch full-HD IPS display panel with a pixel density of 401 ppi. However, the display on G4 Plus has Gorilla Glass 3 coating on top, which is not available on the Zuk Z1. The brightness, visibility, colours and details are good on both the phones and we could not say which one is better while looking at it with the naked eye.
Camera
The Lenovo Zuk Z1 comes with a 13 MP rear camera which has Sony Exmor RS sensor, 5 element lens, f/2.2 aperture, and blue glass filter. The camera UI is very simple to use and gives a good view of the scene, it offers features like burst mode, panorama, face detection, and HDR and more. It has a 8 MP camera on the front side with f/2.2 aperture.
On the other hand the Moto G4 Plus has a higher resolution camera with a 16 MP sensor on the rear with features like phase detection auto focus, laser auto focus, f/2.0 aperture, dual LED flash lights, professional mode, Burst mode, Auto HDR, panorama, video stabilization, and slow motion video feature. It has a 5 MP camera on the front that has f/2.2 aperture.
Both the handsets are decent camera performers but the G4 Plus feels much faster than the Zuk Z1 in real time. The picture quality on both the phones was quite alike, although the pictured from Zuk Z1 looked rich in colours and a bit over saturated in some cases. You can see the camera samples for a better idea.
Camera Samples
Hardware and Storage
The Moto G4 Plus comes with 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 octa-core processor and Adreno 405 GPU. There are 2 variants of the G4 Plus including 2 GB RAM and 16 GB of internal storage and 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage. The Moto G4 Plus has more powerful 2.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor, Adreno 330 GPU, 3 GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage. Two important things worth noting is that the 2 GB variant of G4 Plus comes at the price of Zuk Z1 which is INR 13,499 and also that the Moto G4 Plus has a microSD card (up to 128 GB) whereas the Zuk Z1 has not provision for memory expansion.
Gaming Performance & Benchmark Scores
The Lenovo Zuk Z1 is powered by a more powerful processor compared to Moto G4 Plus, which comes with the latest Snapdragon 617 processor. We played Modern Combat 5 on both the phones, it was pretty smooth in the beginning on both the phones. Both the phones perform equally in terms of gaming but Zuk Z1 felt smoother in few areas. I was able to aim, shoot and control better on the Zuk Z1, that does not mean Moto G4 Plus was performing poor. You could not differentiate the gaming performance in light games, but you can clearly see Zuk Z1 providing more power when you’ll move to heavier games like Asphalt 8 and Nova 3.
Benchmark Scores
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Battery Performance
Moto G4 Plus comes with a 3000 mAh battery and the Zuk Z1 has a massive 4000 mAh battery. Both the phones offer quick charging but only the G4 Plus comes with a power charger. It is quite obvious to guess the better one among the two as it has a huge difference in the battery size. The Zuk Z1 has a USB Type-C port and the Moto G4 Plus has the usual microUSB port.
For more information about the battery stats, you can refer the table below. [table id=531 /]
Lenovo Zuk Z1 Points In Favor
Massive 4000mAh battery64 GB inbuilt-storage9 mm slimmerPhysical navigation keysMetal built
Moto G4 Plus Points In Favor
It is 20grams lighterBetter camera resolutionMemory card supportSupports FM RadioOcta-Core
Verdict
At INR 13,499, the Lenovo Zuk Z1 has a better overall offering, which includes a better processor, metal body, bigger battery and some more features. But if we compare it with the 3GB version of Moto G4 Plus the deal gets more confusing. Moto G Plus offers simpler UI, Android Marshmallow, expandable storage, dual SIM 4G and more, but at a cost of INR 14,999. So, it’s on you to decide, weather you need a phone with stock Android experience or a metal built phone with a faster processor.
