MOTI Play Pod Kit Review: Slim, Powerful, & Futuristic

The MOTI Play is the latest pod vape from MOTI and it’s different from any other pod vape that you’ve seen before. It features an interesting card-shaped design that is very thin, complete with a 0.96” screen that seems to hover underneath the clear casing.

Lately, MOTI has been releasing futuristic looking devices, such as their collaboration with VAPORESSO, the MOTI X MINI. The MOTI Play is similarly futuristic and brings with it a number of features that make it an attractive purchase if you’re looking for a new pod device.

The MOTI Play has adjustable wattage from 5-30W and comes with a built-in, non-removable 900mAh battery. This battery charges with 1A Type-C charging. It comes with one pod that will hold up to 2ml of ejuice and takes replaceable coils. The MOTI Play comes with one 1.0Ω coil in the box. It also features an adjustable airflow dial located on the bottom of the device.

Does the MOTI Play deliver the vaping experience of the future? I spent some time testing and reviewing it to find out.

This device was sent to me by MOTI for the purpose of this review.

Box Contents

• 1 x MOTI Play Device
• 1 x MOTI Play POD
• 1 x MOTI Play 1.0Ω Coil
• 1 x Type-C Cable
• 1 x Warranty Card
• 1 x Lanyard
• 1 x User Manual

Specifications

• Size: 80mm x 44mm x 12.5mm
• Pod Capacity: 2ml
• Uses Pods with User-Replaceable Coils
• Draw/Button activated
• MTL or RDL/DL draw
• Battery Size: 900mAh
• Max Wattage 30W
• Charging: 1A Type-C
• 0.96” Screen

Design & Build Quality

The MOTI Play has a different design than most other pod vapes that you’ll see. This piqued my interest right from the beginning and added a novel feeling to opening up this pod vape that I don’t usually experience. At this point in the vaping industry, almost every design has been tried and marketed, but the MOTI Play manages to be different.

Rather than having a ‘bar’ or a chunky box shape, the MOTI Play has a card-like design that is rectangular and thin. It’s 80mm tall, 44mm wide, and only 12.5mm thick which makes it very thin for a pod device. This slimness allows it to easily slide into the coin pocket on my pants or into my back pocket without me really feeling that it’s there.

The Play is primarily made out of aluminum but it has a fair amount of weight to it. It feels good in my hand and the weight makes it feel like a premium and durable device rather than as one that is too heavy. The weight is something to consider if you’re after a lightweight device.

You can get the Play in seven colors, all of which look futuristic and stylish. The difference between the colors isn’t immediately obvious, as all of the colors have either a primarily black, silver, or white body on the front. What changes with your color choice is the color of the back of the device, as well as the color of the area right around where the pod connects. Your color choice is really more of an accent color choice, but nevertheless they all look good.

I’ve been using the ‘Mirror Silver’ and ‘Cyber Blue’ colors for this review and the finish on each one is different. Mirror Silver has a shiny finish, while Cyber Blue (and the rest of the colors) have a matte finish. The mirror finish picks up fingerprints very easily and starts to look smudged up fast, so it wouldn’t be my first pick. On the other hand, the matte finish of my Cyber Blue device stays looking clean and does not hold fingerprints at all. 

The front of the MOTI Play features a clear casing which gives it a futuristic and 3D look. Underneath this clear casing there’s a decorative layer with a large X (or two arrow heads pointing at each other) which is holographic and looks 3D. There’s also a MOTI logo and MOTI PLAY printed on this layer.

At the top of the device is a large 0.96” display. Since it’s under the clear casing, it also looks 3D and almost like it’s floating. You can see some of the internals around the screen and it’s overall just a really neat look. This display is bright, crisp and neat, but it’s black and white which will lose it some points.

On the side of the device there’s the Type-C charging port, and just above it is a rectangular button. This is the power/fire button. It’s a little small and I found myself having trouble finding it at times. It’s also quite shallow, so sometimes the Play would stop firing because I wasn’t putting full pressure on the button. Since the button is so narrow, it can be difficult to fully press the button, and the power cutting in and out while vaping can get annoying.

On the top of the device is another similar button, the wattage adjustment button. This button feels more responsive than the fire button, however since you don’t have to constantly press it down it’s not as much of an issue.

Located on the bottom of the Play is the airflow adjustment dial, which is made of plastic. It looks like it’s made of metal, but that’s just the way that it’s painted. How do I know this? Well after only a single drop (it was on my lap as I got out of my car), I’m missing a chunk out of the dial. The rest of the device is fine, but apparently you have to be careful not to drop the MOTI Play. 

The airflow adjustment dial is also less firm than it should be. It’s too easy to completely change the airflow by putting it in your pocket, or even by just holding it to vape. The position of the dial makes it prone to being changed accidentally, so having a firmer dial would have been better for the Moti Play.

I’ll go into more detail on the buttons and airflow dial a little later in the “Features” section of this review.

Pod & Coils

The Moti Play comes with one pod and one coil. The pod will hold up to 2ml of ejuice and is filled through a port on the side of the pod. The coil that you get with the Play is a 1.0Ω mesh coil, but there is also a 0.45Ω coil available. The coils and their recommended wattage ranges are:

• 1.0Ω Coil (10-16W)
• 0.45Ω Coil (18-25W)

Each coil is restricted to a certain wattage level in order to prevent you from burning the coil. For the 1.0Ω coil it will restrict you to a maximum of 16W, while the 0.45Ω coil will allow you to go to the full maximum output of 30W from the Moti Play.

The pod is completely clear, which is nice to see. The entire pod remains visible when inserted into the battery portion of the MOTI Play, so you can easily see how much ejuice you have left in the pod at any time. 

The pod attaches with very strong magnets and it sits on the top corner of the MOTI Play. From the look of it, you might think that the pod would come out too easily. However, it’s actually a rather secure fit and it takes some effort to remove the pod. It’s an interesting way to connect a pod and MOTI have implemented it in a way that is secure and correct.

Coils simply push fit into the bottom of the pod. Once inserted, it’s still easy to remove them with just your fingers.

One neat feature of the MOTI Play Pod is that the mouthpiece is removable and can be rotated. This allows you to easily clean it out, and also allows you to vape the Play by holding it in whichever orientation that you wish.

Features

For a pod vape, the MOTI Play is feature filled and gives you a lot of ways in which you can customize your vaping experience. 

My favorite feature is the display. Although it’s black and white, it’s still very crisp, clear, and high resolution. This screen is 0.96” in size and displays everything that you need to know about your vape. This includes your battery life with a 5 bar indicator, your puff time, wattage, coil resistance, voltage output, and a puff counter. 

You can change the wattage by pressing the adjustment button located on top of the Moti Play. You can click it to increase the wattage upwards by one, or hold the button to quickly scroll up the wattage. Once you hit the maximum for your coil, the wattage will round robin back to 5W and you can increase your wattage again to your preferred setting.

The Moti Play features both draw and button activated firing, but I found it best to use it with the button. The draw activation isn’t sensitive enough with the 1.0Ω coil unless you’re using the pinhole airflow, and even then it can cut out sometimes. The button activated firing can be frustrating too because it also cuts out if you don’t fully press the button, but I found it’s the better of the two ways to vape this device.

The airflow adjustment dial is located on the bottom of the MOTI Play. It’s red and simply spins around to adjust the amount of air entering the device. On the airflow control dial there’s one small airflow hole, and one wider airflow slot. 

You can rotate the dial to line these slots up with the airflow opening on the bottom of the Play, which is right on the outer bottom corner of the device. I mentioned this before, but the airflow dial is too loose for my liking. The location of the dial also makes it too easy to accidentally change the airflow by simply putting the device in your pocket.

Moti Play Button Combinations

• Power On or Off: Press the power button five times.
• Adjust the wattage: Click or hold the button at the top of the device.
• Lock the device (including adjustment buttons and button activated firing. Draw activated firing will still work): Hold the power and fire button together.

Battery & Charging

A strong point of the Moti Play is its battery life. How long it will last on a single charge is heavily dependent on the coil and wattage that you use the device at, but generally the battery life is very good. 

While using the 1.0Ω coil at 12W, I averaged around 550 puffs per charge, which is a few days worth of vaping. With the 0.45Ω coil you’ll get shorter battery life, but you can still expect a day or two out of the battery depending on how high you set the wattage.

The Moti Play will recharge in just about an hour using the included cable and a standard charger. You can also vape while it charges, so you won’t be stuck without it even if it dies.

Performance

The MOTI Play comes with only a single coil, which is a 1.0Ω mesh coil. There is also a 0.45Ω coil which is available to be purchased separately. In this review, I will be going over both of these coils. I used the 1.0Ω coil with nicotine salt ejuices from 25-35mg, both in a 50/50 ratio. For the 0.45Ω coil I used a 6mg regular nicotine ejuice with a 65VG ratio.

The 1.0Ω coil has a recommended wattage range of 10-16W. At 10W with a nicotine salt ejuice the draw is already very strong and delivers a lot of vapor. Increasing the wattage only makes the draw stronger and more dense. I pushed this coil all the way up to 16W and, while the flavor is better and the vapor is warmer, the draw is too strong for my liking. 

I found this coil to be the best at 12W. Here it provides a very strong draw and throat hit with 25-35mg nic salts, but it’s not so strong that I choke up while vaping. Flavor is very good with this coil too, which is surprising for how low of a wattage I vaped at.

This coil can achieve anywhere from a loose MTL draw down to a MTL draw, depending on how you set the airflow. However, because of the loose airflow dial and how prone it is to changing itself in my pocket, I mostly just vaped this coil however the airflow was set. After a certain point I gave up on adjusting the airflow to my liking and just vaped the MTL draw however the airflow decided to change itself.

Moving on to the 0.45Ω coil, it’s completely different from the 1.0Ω coil. This coil provides a DL or slightly restricted DL draw depending on the airflow. It’s a big difference in airflow — more of a difference than I thought possible from the airflow setup on this device.

The flavor is similarly good to the 1.0Ω coil. This coil has a recommended wattage range of 18-25W, and the Moti Play automatically sets the wattage to 18W when you first insert the coil. I found 18W to be too cool of a vape, so I slowly bumped it up until I ended up at 25W as the perfect wattage for this coil. There’s much more warmth to the vapor than at 18W, and the draw has a nice density and strength to it even with a 6mg freebase ejuice.

Oddly enough, the draw activation worked better with the looser airflow of the 0.45Ω coil than with the more restricted 1.0Ω coil. This leads me to believe that it has something to do with the wattage, and not necessarily the amount of airflow, which is strange.

Neither coil had any trouble with the ejuices that I used. The 1.0Ω coil handled 50/50 without leaking or wicking issues, and the 0.45Ω did well with a 65VG ejuice. Both coils kept the battery dry for the entire time that I used them, which is 7+ refills for the 1.0Ω coil and more than 5 refills with the 0.45Ω coil. The coils have also maintained their flavor and performance up until this point, which is impressive.

Verdict

The MOTI Play is a futuristic looking device that brings a lot of good features to the table. I think that the design is a big selling point of the MOTI Play because it just looks so different from any other device out there. In addition to the design, the flavor from both coils is great, as is the wicking capabilities and leak resistance. I also like how easy it is to adjust the wattage and how easy it is to just use the device.

While there are no major issues with the MOTI Play that would prevent me from recommending it, there are a bunch of minor issues that you should be aware of. The most frustrating is the fire button having to be pressed with full force at all times while vaping, otherwise it cuts out. A close second issue is that the airflow adjustment dial doesn’t stay where it’s set. There are a few other minor cons, but those are the two that most prevented me from fully enjoying the device.

Still, I can’t help but like the MOTI Play. It’s just such a different pod device than others that are out there and when you have it working, it works well. Even without the issues that I faced, I still liked using the MOTI Play and perhaps you will too. With everything in mind from this review, you can make the decision yourself as to if these are issues that you can live with or not.

Have you used the MOTI Play? What do you think of the device? Leave me a comment down below.

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