Motorola Moto Z3 Play Tips and Tricks

Android 8 (Oreo)
Phone: Motorola Moto Z3 Play
Factory OS: Android 8 (Oreo)

Have you updated your Operating System?
Then view tips for the most recent OS version(s): Android 9 (Pie)
Or view tips for all Android versions

If you call someone regularly this can be useful as you will have a shortcut to them handily placed on your homescreen.

To bookmark a Contact on your Home Screen, then first go into your Contacts App.

Find the Contact you want to add to the Home Screen and press on them.

Then press More or the Menu key and select Add shortcut to home.

Then go to your Home Screens, find the Contact you’ve just added. Press, hold and drag to another position.

To lock your screen while you are watching videos, simply press the power button.

This will disable the touchscreen buttons while the video is playing, but it won’t turn the screen off like the lock key normally does.

Note, this will only work on video files that you are playing that are stored on your phone. It won’t work for videos played within websites, such as YouTube videos.

Looking for a charger for your Motorola Moto Z3 Play? Our guide shows you the best deals and provides advice on charger types.

Important: We take no responsibility for chargers purchased that are incompatible with your device. Please check your user manual or product descriptions before you buy.

The good news is that unless you own an iPhone (which uses the Apple Lightning Charger), almost all smartphones on the market today use the standard 5 watt Micro USB connection. This is great for consumers because it means you can normally borrow a charger from someone else if your phone is out of juice (unless they own an iPhone of course). Many shopping centres and events also provide charging stations for this connection.

Charger types
Chargers can be classified into the following four categories:

USB Charger– This is normally a simple cable that connects from your phone (micro USB port) to your laptops or desktop PCs (normal USB port). They’re super cheap and super convenient. They are often included in your phone box, but we recommend you buy extras so you can leave one at home, one at work, one at friends place etc.

Mains Charger– These also normally come in your phone’s box, but it’s also useful to have them dotted around the house or workplace so you’re never far away from a re-charge.

Car Charger– If you have a car, you should get a car charger. These simply plug into your cigarette lighter and the other end plugs into your phone. We recommend buying one for each car that you own.

Portable Charger – Also known as an external battery pack, these are great for camping, festivals or going anywhere where you may not have a mains power supply. They come in many sizes ranging from tiny portable ones providing one charge, to large power packs allowing you to charge your device multiple times.

Get the best chargers!
To help you choose, we’ve listed the best-selling chargers for the Motorola Moto Z3 Play. Simply click on the products below to find out more (if you don’t see any products below, make sure you pause any ad blocking software):





To delete or remove homescreen widgets, simply press and hold. Then drag the widget to the top-right corner of the screen and into the Trash icon.

To take a screen shot, hold down the Volume Down and Power Buttons together (i.e. exactly the same time).

This will save the current screen to your phone’s memory card. They will be stored in the folder /Device Storage/Pictures/Screenshots. You can get to this folder by going to your My Files App.

When browsing on your phone you may notice images are quite blurry. This is because your telecom provider is compressing the images before they are downloaded on to your phone.

There is no way to prevent this, but if you have a WiFi connection nearby, then you can turn that on. This will mean that all browser downloads come through the WiFi connection, rather than the carrier, and your images will appear normally.?

This also depends on your service provider and data package.

The Do Not Disturb is a very useful feature if you are in a meeting or somewhere where you want to block incoming calls or messages.

To enabled Do Not Disturb, drag down your notifications and go into Settings – Sounds and notifications. Then under the Notifications section, press Do Not Disturb.

Once this is setup, you can allow exceptions for certain Apps. To set these up, press Allow Exceptions, then App notifications. You should now see a list of all of your Apps. Choose one and then select Set as priority.

Now, when notifications come in via this App and you have Do Not Disturb enabled, you should see the notifications.

By default, your phone will recognise swear words, but insert x’s instead of the word. To change this, go to Settings – System – Language and input – Virtual Keyboard- Google Voice Typing

Then you may need to select your voice input system. Then toggle the Block offensive words option.

Android has a feature allowing you to update Applications automatically. This is turned off by default, but you can turn it on.

Open the Play Store App and press the Menu icon in the top left of the App. Then select Settings and in Notification section you can turn Auto-update apps on.

From here you can chose to do this over WiFi only or using your Data connection.?

To change the backlight screen timeout, drag down your notifications screen and press Settings. Then under System select Display. Then under Screen timeout you can set the screen time out duration.

You can also tell the phone screen to always stay lit when it is plugged in via USB. Go to Settings – System – Developer Options. Then check Stay Awake.

Note: Developer Options is not always enabled by default. To enable, go to Settings – System – About Device. Then tap on Build number 7 times to enable this secret option.