Gadgetory

for the sixth year in a row motorola has built a droid and for Verizon Wireless and this one's tougher than most but do a huge battery and a shatterproof display justify the new turbos price tag i'm michael fisher with pocket now and let's find out in our video review of the Motorola Droid turbo to the turbo twos design is best described as polarizing lots of commenters have called out its wide bezels and chunky frame it's pockmarked face plate but we dig it because the turbo 2 owns its ugliness rather than trying to be something it's not all those casing penetrations stand for different features the proximity sensors for Moto display the front-facing flash for the selfie camera the twin front firing speakers and the biggest port of all accommodates a one-of-a-kind display a 5.4 inch AMOLED that's now really blue on the whites and frankly not as bright as we'd like it to be in sunlight but at quad HD its pixel packed and yes it's very nearly impossible to shatter to test that claim we dropped the Droid turbo to a lot heights ranging from 4 to 9 feet surfaces including hardwood and stone tile even with impact after impact there wasn't a spider web in sight this is thanks to the 5 layer construction of the shatter shield display which uses flexible plastic OLED a redundant touch sensor and two lenses mounted to the phone's aluminum frame there's not a bit of glass in the whole thing but that means there's nothing brittle to shatter which is good but it also means the screen materials are softer which is bad even with the hard coat on the exterior lens this is a surprisingly easy screen to scratch Motorola says the outside lens is easily replaceable by users thankfully so the company will start offering lens replacements for sale at some point the turbo 2 is the first Droid to be featured on moto maker so you can build one to your own custom style and finish it with soft touch silicone pebbled whore wine leather or a revised version of the original turbo's ballistic nylon the aluminum frame and dimpled camera bezel come in various shades with accent colors custom engraving and boot greetings all customizable the leather version is a little more expensive but it's worth it if you want a little more luxury in your hand feel the turbo two's build of Android lollipop is almost identical to the Moto X pure editions so we'll just touch on what sets this phone apart that starts with Verizon's customizations which are littered throughout the software the signal strength indicator persistent Wi-Fi banner and the notification shade the circular time weather calendar widget that evokes the Moto 360 and that honestly we actually kind of like then there's the bloatware Verizon is packed in a ton of preloaded apps 22 distinct titles to be exact several of which lead to redundant paid services that Google already offers for free all carriers do this to an extent but when one of the nation's most expensive operators feels the need to nickel-and-dime its customers like this it seems especially picky then there's the update situation the turbo 2 is already launching on an outdated Android version and we're not holding our breath for marshmallow anytime soon not after it took the first turbo a half a year to get promoted to lollipop once you get past this stuff the turbo 2 software is vintage Motorola just pull the phone from a pocket and motor display will show you your waitin notifications raise it to your ear and moto voice will automatically come on so you can tell the phone to do anything from calling your brother to setting an alarm or if you don't have a hand freak call out to it with your custom key phrase gutentag hair turbo and you can get it to do your bidding without laying a finger on it what's the forecast for Saturday if someone texts you while you're driving the phone will dictate the message to you and let you reply by voice and yes the turbo 2 also offers the chop-chop hand gesture for quick access to the flashlight and the wrist twist shortcut to fire up the camera the same simple utility defines the camera software which is again identical to that of the Moto X pure edition if you aim the camera at a barcode or a QR code it will provide a link to open the browser take a flurry of burst shots and the phone will offer its suggestion for which one is the best the camera hardware is identical to the pure editions to a 21 megapixel Sony sensor and performance is right in line with its cousin there's no optical stabilization so a steady hand is necessary when shooting especially in low-light where an automatic night mode kicks in to brighten things up a bit you'll still get better night captures on Google's Newton excesses but the turbo 2 does better than most Motorola phones in low-light and its HDR mode brings highlights to the shadows without washing everything out selfies taken with the 5 megapixel front-facing camera are also quite nice and at night you've got a front-facing flash to help out as well video has its highs and lows on the bright side you've got excellent digital stabilization when shooting in 4k and if you've got a microSD card you don't need to worry about wasting space because of the phone's storage expansion but the lack of higher frame rate options means fast pans are pretty blurry and there's plenty of digital noise when shooting indoors even in brightly lit areas on the whole the droid turbo 2 packs a serviceable set of cameras it's not the best camera phone on Android but it's better than Motorola has managed in the past and for most folks it'll be more than enough while the turbo 2 offers Motorola's typical water resistance it packs no impact resistance rating of any kind at least none that the company has mentioned so in addition to scratching up the display our repeated drops have damaged the phone's speakers making them sound tinny and horrible that's a shame but keep in mind that the damage happened after repeated worst-case-scenario drops a lesser phone would probably have come away with broken speakers too and a shattered display to boot generally speaking the phone does well in day to day use the SIM stayed firmly seated in its slot no matter how hard we dropped the phone the Adreno 420 GPU kept up with us in asphalt 8 the Snapdragon 810 didn't stutter when scrolling pages in chrome and the three gigs Ram let us shuffle between open apps with a plum we were quite pleased with Verizon's network performance - we spent much of our first day with the phone using it as a mobile hotspot from the heart of Manhattan to the middle of Amtrak's notoriously barren Northeast Corridor big red only stumbled in the deep boonies with few exceptions voice calls went through as they should the reception was never an issue in Greater Boston Verizon Wireless may be expensive but you sure do get your money's worth that kind of performance takes a ton of energy so the droid turbo 2 comes with a boatload of battery power in our case it was enough to take us through 16 hours of moderate usage with five hours of screen on time on one occasion the heaviest of users will still need to top up throughout the day of course and the droid turbo 2 comes with a very fast 25 watt charger right in the box if like us you find cables so 20th century you'll be happy to know that the turbo 2 has both Qi and PM a wireless charging built right in the droid turbo 2 went on sale yesterday for 624 dollars in its 32 gig configuration or 720 for the 64 gig trim more expensive version comes with a bonus - if you get tired of your phone at any time within two years of purchase Motorola will let you exchange it for an entirely new droid turbo - with a new design that's pretty cool still those are some mighty steep prices when you consider that the Moto X pure Edition comes with almost as much power for about $200 less so the Droid turbo - isn't for unlocked phone shoppers or deal hunters it's for a class of customer will call the Verizon lifer the loyal subscriber who knows that he or she is going to be with big red for the next two years at least and wants a high-end phone to last the duration a two-year installment pricing the Droid turbo - maxes out of 30 bucks a month pricey but doable the kind of customer who can afford Verizon in the first place in exchange they get high-end specs clever feature set one of the biggest batteries around and a display that's basically impossible to shatter it's still too expensive if you ask but if you've got the money and you know you're going to be on Verizon for the foreseeable future there are few phones that offer this level of power in more ways than one and just be sure to factor in the cost of a replacement screen protector you're probably going to need one if you want more info on the turbo to folks you know where to go our full review is at pocketnow.com and it's linked in the description below it follow us on the feeds too I'm captain 2 phones on Twitter and PocketNow is PocketNow until next time this has been michael fisher urging you to keep your droid on a restraining bolt and thanking you for watching we'll see you next time