Motorola and Verizon swapped out the Moto X’s perfectly acceptable 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor for a slightly faster 2.7GHz chip in the Turbo. It’s paired with 3GB of RAM, and you can get 32 or 64GB of storage (for a $50 premium).
In theory, those upgrades should make the Turbo perform noticeably better than the X, but that hasn’t always been the case. Apps open quickly enough, and the Droid Turbo is certainly fast, but it’s not significantly better than the already-quick X, which makes me wonder why anyone should bother. More troubling is the weird jelly-like effect on the Turbo when scrolling within apps that isn’t present on any other smartphone I’ve used this year.
An example of the jelly-like scrolling on the Droid Turbo
The Turbo’s camera is significantly higher resolution than the Moto X’s — 21 megapixels vs. 13 — and it often takes sharper, better photos than the X. But it’s oddly slow: slow to launch, slow to focus, and slow to actually take a picture, which makes it annoying to use. I missed countless shots because my subject (usually my toddler) moved out of frame before the Turbo finally took a picture. Contrasted with the X’s lightning-fast camera, the Turbo is frustrating to take pictures with, even if they often come out looking good. I’d rather have a faster camera that takes decent pictures than a slow camera that takes better ones.
The real reason most people will consider the Turbo over the X is for its giant battery. The Turbo has a 3,900mAh cell, one of the largest I’ve ever seen and certainly the biggest among phones in the Turbo’s size class. Verizon and Motorola proudly boast 48 hours of mixed usage between charges, but my real-world tests didn’t quite match that. Over a quiet weekend, I got the Turbo to stretch to 31 hours before kicking the bucket, and on busier days its stamina was closer to 24 hours. Those aren’t shabby numbers by any means (and they are notably better than what I get on the Moto X), but they aren’t exactly mind-blowing or even up to what Verizon and Motorola claim. The Turbo’s battery life is comparable to what I get from a good phablet, like Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4.
Included with the Turbo is Motorola’s Turbo Charger, which promises to provide eight hours of life from just 15 minutes of charging, similar to what the Samsung Note 4 and Motorola Nexus 6 also offer. I put that claim to the test, completely draining the Turbo and then charging it back up while powered off. It went from zero to 15 percent in the 15-minute window, which correlates to 7.2 hours of use based on Motorola’s 48-hour claim. Going by my real-world best of 31 hours, that’s closer to 4.65 hours of use from 15 minutes of charging. Neither are bad results, but they also don’t match Motorola’s claims. A full charge from zero took roughly two hours with the Turbo Charger, which is perhaps more impressive.
Like many of Verizon’s smartphones, the Droid Turbo supports wireless charging, which the Moto X lacks. It’s super convenient to plop the Turbo down on a wireless charger and top it off, but it will take much longer to charge than with the Turbo Charger.
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