The purchase of the Motorola Z4 was the most impulsive smartphone purchase I've made. I was tired of the shortcomings of my Convoy 2 as a personal phone, and a commercial for the Z4 hit me at just the right time. It advertised its camera as 48 Megapixel and had supreme night capturing abilities. On a whim, I looked it up and it was on sale for $250, with a 24 month monthly payment plan. If you wanted to pay for it outright, the cost is the full $600 MSRP. This is what they do now instead of making you sign a 2 year contract with exit fee. They force you into a payment plan to get a sale price, but then you pay for the full MSRP of the phone if you cancel service. But I digress.

Upon getting the phone I was mostly unimpressed. Motorola stays out of your way and includes almost no custom software. The Motorola lock screen was really useless, so I disabled it by stopping the process.

So Motorola has a loosening grip on a niche market, and that's the "Moto Mod" market. These are magnetic attachments that make your phone better. These include, but not limited to lenses with optical zoom, battery packs, and a speaker you can slap on there (pictured) to make it sound pretty great.

The speaker in question (JBL Soundboost 2) retails for $80. This is ridiculous. It cannot be used with any non-Motorola Z series phone. There is no external input jack. There is no bluetooth. You may be able to use it, with the Z4, with another device but I haven't found a good answer on that. I bought it on sale for $34. It is worth that, but not more. An $80 bluetooth standalone speaker can make your phone sound super. This mod makes it sound great (better than good, but not super)).

The biggest downside to the mods is that if you want to use them, you have to use them with the Motorola phones that have this specific form factor. The Motorola One has four rear cameras. Your Moto Mod compatible phone does not have more than one.