Motorola Droid Turbo review: Moto vs Moto

Better late than never here is my Motorola Droid Turbo review. So in case you haven’t noticed Motorola’s been kinda killing it this year. In 2014 they had one of the most liked wearable the whole year, and now they have one of the best small smart phones of the whole year, and one of the best budget phones of the whole year, and they had one of the best big phones of the whole year (you get the point I am making right now, correct?), and they’re latest release here in the face of the Droid Turbo (or Moto Max on some other carriers) is actually I think one of their best experience phone yet.

So essentially the Turbo offers the same software experience as the Moto X, and I’m talking about that more in my review of the Moto X, and how they sticking to near stock Android to give quick updates and adding few features on top to enhance the experience so the turbo does this too and some other software difference really is that it has Android specific widgets. So to best describe this phone I’m going to give you all the way is that its different from the 2014 model of Moto X and the first way its different is the build quality and materials they had used. In the back of the phone we are looking at here is the black material called “Ballistic Nylon”. Motorola actually is giving us two choices of material – the Ballistic Nylon or Kevlar. The Kevlar version comes in red and it only have a 32 Gigabyte version. It looks a lot smoother but honestly also a little bit slipperier in my view. I haven’t held one to determine if that’s true but the ballistic nylon looks is much more textured, in fact it’s more textured then any other phone I’ve held in recent years. Its a super 3d moving pattern – kinda like a carbon fiber but much thicker. Actually it is so thick that sometimes it catches lint and dust or whatever is in your pocket, and stuff near the camera, and the Motorola logo which I hate but still prefer having that a little bit of texture over something totally smooth, on a phone that is curved like this (also bonus here is that there is no Verizon trade stamp).

Overall the Motorola Droid Turbo is well build like the previous Droids and it feels really durable, really solid to hold in hand and has some slight carving’s near the edges that makes the phone feels less like a brick, and also the edges in the glass are curved a bit as well – so the corners aren’t sharp, and the power and volume buttons are both textured. Fun fact incoming – the SIM card tray sits behind the volume keys, so you actually have to remove them to change your SIM card but overall the Droid Turbo is build like a tank. Speaking about curved glass that brings us to point number two in this review, and that’s the display on the front. The Motorola Droid Turbo is rocking a 5.2 inch Quad HD display so 2560 by 1440 resolution at 565 pixels per inch and it’s Oled display, and it’s razor sharp so basically what I’m saying here is that rivals should take note for. The note that they need to take is for one of the best screens on any phone, and I’m not saying this because of the number of pixels per inch. It’s just simply great. It’s really bright and it has awesome colors, very deep blacks because its Oled and it doesn’t color shift nearly as much as the Nexus 6 when you dim it all the way. Overall it’s a beautiful panel for using the OS, web browsing, using apps, watching photos, movies, watching videos on YouTube or whatsoever. Now a lot of people have complains that Quad HD is just to much on a phone or even unnecessary. But as in the review of the LG G3 (while I was doing it), I kept on hearing from people that it could take hit on the battery life for having such a display – so let’s jump right into that.

Number three is the battery. Now the Droid Turbo has a 3900 mah battery, and that is massive. So you can see by the specs and pictures that it’s not exactly a thin device – 11.2 millimeters thick and it got some curves. There’s no dimple on the back anymore as you can see in the picture below. It’s just that big flat battery in the back. What lies inside is the Snapdragon 805 and Adreno 420 processors, and they are more than capable to run the software smoothly on the Quad HD display. So this combination of hardware has the Motorola Droid Turbo lasting still a long time on battery. Now it doesn’t last longer than the best in the 1080p phones out there as you’d expect despite having a huge battery, but it is pushing extra pixels we must not forget, and in exchange it gives you an awesome media experience for an extra long time, so 5:30 (five and a half) hours on screen time is what I get most of the time on the Motorola Droid Turbo. While I’m usually getting about 6:00 hours on the OnePlusOne (as you can read in the upcoming review of this phone). Which is probably one of the best of any 1080p phones, so that’s really good for quad HD smarphone, and it’s actually the best battery life I’ve gotten of any 1440p phone including the Note 4 and the LG G3 to date, so that’s super impressive. Obviously if it had a 1080p display on the front it would lasted even longer but I think this is a nice trade-off. Motorola did a pretty good balancing act, and I’m very impressed once again with the battery life of the Motorola Droid Turbo. Now if you don’t like the Droid or Motorola in general for me your only other option in consideration should be the LG G3 or the Note 4. (Especially when you can find the LG off contract for such a low price).

Let’s get back to the star of this review – now the last major change for the Droid Turbo versus the Moto X is the new camera. The Turbo is striking in an impressive 21 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, and let me tell you it is a HUGE (excuse me for the caps lock) improvement over the Moto X. Actually it’s the best camera Motorola has ever put in a phone, and not just because the number 21 megapixels but it is actually a really good camera – great sensor, sharpness is on point as you would expect, colors and dynamic range are decent, not over sharpened or over processed like lets say the Galaxy S5 or Note 4. The images you get out of it look pleasing, and it takes 4k video as a bonus. You get some really high quality, relatively noise-free images in anything but the worst lighting. Overall when you take a step back, and look at all the changes between the Droid Turbo when compared to the Moto X you can see that Motorola did take time to make a good quality phone. Pretty much everything I’ve mentioned here is an improvement – the camera is better, the battery is bigger, the display is sharper and better looking. I mean everything seems like it’s taking a step forward and that’s why I say the experience with the Motorola Droid Turbo is top notch.

Maybe the biggest disappointment actually on the Turbo for me was the speaker on the front. It’s a front facing speaker, and I love talking about those, and how great they are but it’s only one at the top of the phone, and it’s just a small driver on the left hand side corner. It’s not a big old speaker like the grill might imply. It just didn’t sound very pleasing at high volumes at all. You lose out on the stereo audio on the phone when the phone is sideways but even so I’d still take it over any rear facing speaker so that’s it – the Motorola Droid Turbo. If you are on Verizon it’s pretty much between this and the Note 4 for the best phone you can spend your money on. Motorola really hit the nail on the head here and I don’t really think you can go wrong with between the two. Thanks for reading my review/comparison of the Motorola Droid Turbo.