Motorola has moved onto its next generation of smartphones, with the listing of the Moto G9 Play on the UK online store. The Moto G9 Play appears to be the same spec as the Moto G9 that was spotted on Flipkart in India recently.

In previous years, Motorola has started with a couple of quiet launches for a new series and the emergence of the Moto G9 Play is likely a move to get the entry-level Moto G device out of the way so that the company can focus on the big hitters of the family - the Moto G9 and the Moto G9 Plus. 

The Moto G9 Play is a typical entry-level device, equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 and 4GB of RAM. That's a step lower than the Snapdragon 700 series devices that are defining 2020 with impressive performance for the price, but Snapdragon 600 devices are often very capable. 

There are going to be options for 64 or 128GB storage too, with support for microSD cards up to 512GB.

There's a 6.5-inch MaxVision display on the front of the phone, with a 1600 x 720 pixel resolution for 269ppi and this is where the phone is likely to show its weakness as that's not a high resolution given the size of the display.

There's a whole selection of cameras on the rear of the phone, but don't be seduced by the spec sheet. The main camera is a 48-megapixel f/1.7 snapper, but the other two cameras are essentially junk, with a 2-megapixel macro and 2-megapixel depth sensor. The front camera is 8-megapixels.

There's an impressive 5000mAh battery with 15W charging and we'd expect to get the cited 2 days of battery life from it. 

There's also a 3.5mm headphone socket, so the Moto G9 Play looks like it's going to tick a number of affordable boxes when it goes on sale. Currently we don't know when that's going to be - and we also don't have confirmed prices.