Gadgetory

Verizon Wireless is pitching it as the phone you can rise to the moment with and considering all the power Motorola's crammed into it's beefy frame that makes sense everything about the newest droids branding emphasizes speed power and pure capability so does the device live up to the bold messaging I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow and let's find out in our video review of the Motorola Droid turbo as we said in our moto X comparison video the drej turbo is a tank of a smartphone that's true for the metallized glass units and doubly so for our ballistic nylon covered special edition model which is thicker and heavier than it's already chunky siblings it's the kind of phone that's unlikely to impress fashionistas but that's not who it's made for it's for people who want a phone they can drop on a dusty dashboard or a damp dock we have a few minor quibbles like mushy feedback on the side keys and capacitive buttons that give it an old-school feel but after 2 weeks of testing we feel confident that the droid turbo could definitely last two years of rough handling especially given Verizon's one-time screen replacement offer for those who managed to shatter that gorilla glass 3 face as for the display made it to that face it's very respectably sized at 5.2 inches with a quad HD resolution that also makes it one of the sharpest on the market whether you actually need that added resolution is something of an open question the added pixel density definitely makes it tougher for the back light to shine through so this droid suffers from readability problems in direct sunlight an annoying handicap for anyone who works outdoors and given this phone's target audience that's kind of a head-scratcher of an oversight still on a phone called turbo its admittedly nice to have every possible spec maximized and that carries through under the hood as well here you'll find the most advanced Qualcomm processor you can get in a modern smartphone with maxed out specs supporting it at every level the only thing missing here is microSD expansion but with available storage options up to 64 gigs and some of the fastest 4G throughput we've ever seen on a US carrier that's not as big a deal if you make use of cloud services and if you live and work in one of Verizon's X LTE coverage areas sitting atop Android is a very Spartan Motorola skin with a home screen anchored to the far left position and a single pre-installed widget serving up time weather and calendar info it's about as simple as it gets until you hit the custom Moto suite and here a small time investment in learning something new goes a long way if you've seen our Moto X coverage you'll be familiar with this the Droid turbo can read text messages aloud when it detects that you're driving or when it knows you're at home and you can dictate replies to it as well the phone can automatically silence itself when you're sleeping or during meetings when it lets you know of inbound alerts it only uses the pixels it needs and only then when you reach for it or pull it from a pocket and you can control the phone remotely using just your voice hello mojo what's up hello the time is 3:17 p.m. nothing what's going on right now now this moto suite is one of our favorite parts of Motorola smart phones but its reliability frankly comes and goes sometimes it's quick as anything and sometimes it takes so long to execute a voice command that you definitely could do it more easily and quickly using a finger also even given moderate background noise the turbo is more likely to keep listening after you've finished speaking meaning it just hangs there and won't execute whatever command you're giving it elsewhere this being a verizon phone we've got a fair amount of carrier bloatware ranging from the purely redundant to the mildly interesting most useful if you share a lot of photos is droids app which allows for instant Bluetooth sharing to nearby phones that also have zap and even provides a voice command to share a screenshot zap my screen gimmicky yes but it's nice to see third-party apps tying into moto voice like this hello moto you can use voice to launch the camera too but it's much easier to use Motorola's double-crank gesture it may look funny but it really is the quickest and easiest way to get to the viewfinder in a hurry that viewfinder is the same one we've seen from Motorola for the past two generations and it's not our favorite it's awkward to get focus and slow to snap photos and the interface we cheered as simple and fun last summer has now come to feel very limiting on the upside the image is produced by the 21 megapixel camera can come out very nicely given the right lighting of course you can say that about any smartphone camera but the added zoom ability from the higher resolution gives the turbo a bit more breathing room than its Motorola contemporaries of course low-light shots are still challenging if you miss qu the dual LED flash and given the slow viewfinder response time the turbo wouldn't be our first choice for action shots either all those bizarre James Franco commercials bragging about a quick and powerful camera they're overstating the case it's tougher to see the holes in video so we like the 1080p footage here a little better it can shoot 4k as well by the way there's no optical stabilization here but the software does a good job of smoothing trembles and bumps and audio pickup is nice too as long as there's no blowing wind in the way any smartphone priding itself on power better blaze and in day-to-day performance the turbo of course keeps pace with other flagships but does it blow others away now as the Android landscape continues to homogenize it's harder and harder to see differences in things like general responsiveness and even high-end gaming performance for what it's worth the turbo does get an A+ in both categories but don't expect those three gigs of RAM or the Snapdragon 805 to eliminate every last bit of lag like other smartphone platforms androids architecture assures you'll occasionally be kept waiting for things like the multitasking ribbon and from what we've seen of the newest version of Android on devices like the nexus 9 and those occasional bumps aren't going anywhere even after the turbo gets upgraded to lollipop so to further justify the powerful reputation its branding suggests Motorola has imbued the turbo with a monster of a battery the same sized pack as Huawei used on its ascend mate to the one we called the everlasting smartphone it's a huge power pack and it should result in huge endurance but sadly the company has over-promised and under-delivered here we were never able to get more than five and a half hours of screen on time on a single charge over two weeks of testing in very good coverage areas to be clear this phone will last you all day and for some people that's enough it's not horrible it's average and with the battery that size you should be getting more than average endurance and in our experience that's just not the case fortunately the turbo does come with a high speed charger in the box which gets us from a dead battery to a half charge in about 45 minutes if you're judicious with your juice and prudent with your plugins the turbo charger will come in very useful indeed for what Motorola calls pit stops finally there's audio quality Motorola added a fifth microphone to its crystal talked noise reduction rig here but callers told us they could still hear plenty of background even in a moderate breeze earpiece quality on our end wasn't terrific either with most callers sounding pretty fuzzy Verizon's CDMA network can probably take the blame for at least some of that when we switch to Skype or Google Hangouts clarity was much higher the front firing speakers phone isn't the loudest we've heard but it's in the right place and it has enough oomph to make itself audible in most settings the Droid turbo is an absolute powerhouse both outside and in no it doesn't quite live up to the hype but then again what smartphone does if you're on Verizon Wireless and you're looking for a durable smart phone that also brings features you can't find almost anywhere else the droid turbo runs for $1.99 to 249 with contract along with some uncharacteristically generous trade-in and early upgrade programs from Verizon that makes the turbo one of the best deals you can find on America's largest network and all things considered one of the best contract values you can find anywhere are you stuck between the Droid turbo and the Moto X but we've got just the video for you click above for the straight comparison and also check out our Moto X review here on YouTube and at pocketnow.com until next time this has been michael fisher with pocket now captain to phones on twitter reminding you to get your device info from reviews and not actors on bicycles we'll see you next time you