I was thinking that it is time for an update on my smartphone adventures. Months and months back, I went through an intense period of research as I prepared to purchase my very first smartphone. I ended up with a mid-range Samsung Galaxy J7. I was very happy with that phone, and I tricked it out with a 64 GB memory card and a fancy Samsung original flip wallet case. I can’t even count the number of hours I invested in learning how to use that phone and setting it up with all my various apps. Then, in one awful second, it was gone, stolen by a thief on a motorcycle in Indonesia.

I wanted to buy a replacement phone right away in Indonesia. I was quite dependent on Google Maps and the other features a smartphone offers by that point. Unfortunately, I could not find a suitable phone at a reliable store. I ended up buying a very cheap phone as a temporary replacement. I bought an Asus Zenfone C. Owning that phone has been a good learning experience because it showed me plainly why you don’t buy a cheap phone. I took for granted what the Samsung Galaxy J7 did. It just did everything and did it well without complaint. It took nice pictures. The battery lasted a very long time. With my low usage patterns, the battery would go for days without needing to be recharged. All the apps performed flawlessly and nothing every crashed. And I could read the screen easily no matter what the light conditions. My Asus Zenone C could do none of those things.

Right out of the gate, my Asus Zenfone C was a disaster. I couldn’t even make it to noon without the battery dying. Apps wouldn’t install or load properly. They crashed constantly. The camera was brutally bad. And it was impossible to read the screen outdoors in any kind of sunlight. On top of that, it was super slow, and it got so hot that it was difficult to even hold onto it. It would actually feel like it was burning my fingers, it got that hot. It was clear that processes and apps were running in the background, heating up the processor and draining the battery. This would happen even when all apps were closed and nothing was running. I never could solve that riddle. Luckily, the phone cost about a quarter of what my Samsung had cost, so it wasn’t a big investment. And it taught me why you pay more for your smartphone and go for at least a mid-range phone. It’s worth the extra money.

I did try to buy a better phone while in Indonesia. At one point, I talked myself into buying a Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro. I even went to the store with money in my pocket. But when the clerks at the store opened the box, I was disturbed to see that the paperwork – the warranty card and instruction booklets – were for a different phone entirely. The phone looked to be a genuine Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro, but the incorrect paperwork made me nervous, and I bailed on the purchase. I decided to wait until I returned to Kuala Lumpur to buy a better smartphone.

My search for a good phone in Kuala Lumpur was not as easy I expected. I had this idea that KL would be rich hunting grounds for a good phone. After all, KL is packed with electronic shopping malls. However, there appeared to be a lot of restrictions on what could be imported into Malaysia. All the phones that I was most interested in – models from Motorola and LG – were not sold here. Not only that, the brands that were sold here all seemed to come very late to the Malaysian market. The 2016 Samsung Galaxy J7, for example, was being sold all over Asia. You could buy one in the Philippines and in India. That’s the phone I wanted – the updated version of the phone that had been stolen. But for reasons that I don’t understand, the 2016 Samsung phones are not available in Malaysia. They sell only the 2015 models. The same goes even for popular Chinese brands like Xiaomi. In Indonesia, I could buy any phone I wanted from the full Xiaomi line-up. But in Malaysia, only two or three models are available. The Redmi Note 3 Pro, for example, isn’t sold here. You can’t go into a store and even see and buy any Xiaomi phones. And when you go to the Xiaomi Malaysia website, nearly all the phones are listed as sold out. Instead of a smartphone paradise, I found in Kuala Lumpur something of a smartphone desert.

I won’t go through my long, long shopping process. This involved lots more online research and visits to electronic markets as well as to the retail outlets of shady online grey market importers. In the end, after much trouble and many problems, I laid down my cash at one of these grey market importers and walked out with a Motorola Moto X Play. I don’t understand at all how these grey market importers work, so I was taking a risk. I had no idea if this phone would be in good condition or if it was genuine or fake or if it would receive official updates or if there was any kind of enforceable warranty. It was probably a dumb purchase, but it’s what I talked myself into. And this purchase certainly came with no feel-good components. The customer service at this place was about the same kind of service you would get at a maximum security prison. No smiles or chit-chat there. And when I opened my box back at my guesthouse, I found that though the paperwork matched my phone, it was all in French. So however this phone ended up in the back room at Satugadget in Kuala Lumpur, it began its life for sale in a country with French as its official language.

The jury is still out on whether this was a wise purchase. I don’t have any complaints about the phone itself. I bought it because it ticked all the right boxes for me: stock Android; bright, crisp, sharp screen with good outdoor visibility; very good 21-megapixel camera; great battery life; excellent build quality; SD card expandability; and more. The phone so far has delivered on all of those promises, and I like it a lot. It also has a few extra features. When I was doing my shopping, I tended to view features like these as gimmicks, but they are proving to be surprisingly useful. In fact, these features are turning into the things that I like the most about the phone. For example, I can turn on the camera by simply twisting the phone in my hand twice. I don’t have to touch any buttons or do anything else. I just turn my wrist twice and the camera is on. This happens even when the phone is locked. It’s a fantastic feature, and I use it all the time. Also, the phone shows notifications on the lock screen. There is no need to turn on the phone to see them. Every time I pick up the phone, it automatically shows me my notifications in the form of icons for the various apps. If I want to see the content of the message, I just press on the icon. I press on the Facebook icon, and I see all the Facebook notifications in full. Same for Twitter, Instagram, Messenger, Outlook, Gmail, etc. To be honest, when I read the reviews of this phone, I didn’t understand at all how this feature worked or why it was beneficial. But now I get it, and I wonder how I lived without it.

There are some things I don’t like about the phone. Though the build quality is excellent and the shape very ergonomic, I do find it weird and difficult to hold onto. I think it is because the edges are so thin. The phone has a rounded back, which makes it very comfortable in the hand. But this rounded back leads into fairly narrow edges. I guess that is stylish, but I find the narrow edges annoying. I don’t remember ever having a problem picking up or holding my Samsung. It was thicker and chunkier, especially when I put on the flip wallet case. But this Motorola just feels delicate somehow. It slides through my hand as I try to use it and I find my fingers and palm accidentially press on icons when I pick it up. It’s just fidgety in my hands. Plus, it’s so uniform, that I don’t know which way is up. I have to think about it every time I pick up the phone and I’m constantly holding it upside down. I’m fairly certain a half-decent case will fix that issue.

I’ve owned the phone for only a short time, so the jury is still out. However, I really like it overall. In terms of the camera and the screen, it is clearly a step or two above my old Samsung Galaxy J7. Being a mid-range device, I suppose you could argue that it is missing some features. I’m thinking particularly of a fingerprint scanner. Other mid-range devices – like the Redmi Note 3 – do have fingerprint scanners. They’re almost expected now. But I think those phones skimp in other areas in order to keep the price low while including a fingerprint scanner. The Motorola Moto X Play is a solid, solid device. It’s extremely well-made and well-engineered in every respect. I trust it in the way that I wouldn’t trust a Chinese brand like Xiaomi or Huawei. Those brands offer much higher specs at an equivalent price, but I don’t think they put their components together well or optimize the software nearly as well. I know that technically Motorola is now also a Chinese brand since the company was purchased by Lenovo, but the X Play still feels like a traditional Motorola with the great build quality and reliability the brand was known for.