10 Cool Features Of The New Motorola Droid Turbo

At The Top Of Its Game

After launching the second generation of the Moto X in September and manufacturing Google's new flagship smartphone in the Nexus 6, Motorola has launched its own flagship phone in the Droid Turbo.

Motorola was acquired by tech giant Lenovo, which plans to use the Motorola Mobility brand to expand its reach into the U.S. market. Lenovo is one of the top smartphone vendors in its local China market, and is the third largest vendor in the world. The company plans to use the Motorola Mobility brand to expand into the United States.

What this means is we're seeing a lot of Motorola right now and can expect to see a lot more going forward. This starts with the Droid Turbo, Motorola's new high-end smartphone that packs the specs to compete with even the most popular phones currently on the market.

Display

The Droid Turbo boasts a durable 5.2-inch AMOLED display (1,440-x-2,560, 565 PPI) made of Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The sharp, bright display boasts 16 million colors and is on par with the best high-end smartphone displays on the market. Motorola went so far as to call it "the sharpest display of any smartphone."

The screen size of Motorola's new flagship phone is smaller than the Google Nexus 6 (5.9 inches), the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and Edge (5.7 inches) and iPhone 6 Plus (5.5 inches). Yet it's still large enough for phablet lovers to enjoy. It is a half-inch larger than the smaller iPhone 6 model (4.7 inches) and packs more pixels per inch than all four devices.

Camera

Motorola packed a 21MP camera into the Droid Turbo, making it an eyebrow raiser for smartphone photographers.

Now megapixels aren't everything, as the 8MP camera on the iPhone 6 is widely considered one of the best on any smartphone. Having said that, the camera of the Droid Turbo is no slouch as it packs f2.0 aperture and dual LED flash, leading to better shots in low-light settings.

The camera has 4x digital zoom, can capture 4k video, slow-motion video, burst mode, auto HDR, panorama and auto focus.

The secondary 2MP camera is perfect for self-portraits and video chats as it can capture 1080p HD videos.

Battery Life And Turbo Charging

Here is one of the phone's most impressive features.

Motorola says the Droid Turbo has "the largest battery of any smartphone." Despite packing in a high-resolution display and a 21MP camera, Motorola says the Droid Turbo can get up to 48 hours of battery life. What may be even more impressive is that once you go two days without charging your phone, it doesn't take much time at all to get a meaningful charge.

With its Turbo Charging ability, once the Droid Turbo's battery is depleted, it only takes 15 minutes of charging for the device to reach eight hours of battery life. Definitely a very handy feature.

Operating System

The Droid Turbo runs on Android 4.4.4 KitKat, but will be upgradable to Android 5 Lollipop at a later date.

Google's Nexus 6 gets first dibs on the new Android OS, so Motorola has to wait in line with Samsung, HTC and others for their devices to get the update.

Android 5 Lollipop packs a slew of new features including a new look, a smoother and better user interface, interconnectivity features and more.

The Droid Turbo doesn't have Android 5 yet, but it's coming. However, Motorola's new phone does pack some impressive new Motorola apps.

Moto Voice

Moto Voice is Motorola's impressive digital voice assistant that competes with Google Now, Siri and Cortana.

First appearing on the Moto X smartphone that launched in September, users can use Moto Voice to control their device without ever touching their phone. Even when the display is turned off, users can use a pre-set launch phrase to start up its voice command prompt at any time. Once Moto Voice's voice command prompt is up, users can schedule alerts, set up driving directions, take notes and do web searches, all without ever touching the phone.

Definitely a handy...or useful feature.

Internal Specs

The Motorola Droid Turbo runs on a 2.7 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor. It packs 3GB of RAM and boasts 32GB to 64GB of internal storage. It also has a MicroSD card slot for upgradable storage.

The phone also packs a slew of other features including Bluetooth 4.0 LE technology and NFC technology and Google Wallet for mobile payments. It also hosts an accelerometer, gyroscope and infrared among other sensors.

When compared to the specs of the top devices on the market, the Droid Turbo holds its own against the rest.

Noise Cancelation

Behind the high-resolution cameras and displays, web surfacing, photo sharing and text messaging, it's sometimes hard to remember that at the end of the day, it's still a phone. And what are phones made to do? They take and make calls.

With the Droid Turbo, users can be confident in having clear and crisp conversations. The smartphone features Motorola's advanced noise cancelation technology, eliminating background noise and improving call quality and voice recognition.

You'll be coming in loud and clear in all your calls.

Model Design

The casing of the Droid Turbo is made of premium ballistic nylon, offering a lightweight durable material that is easy to grip.

Motorola also offers a metalized glass fiber design for the rear cover that is reinforced with a layer of Kevlar fiber.

Motorola says the casing has a water-repellent coating, protecting the device from rain and everyday spills.

The phone weighs in at 6 ounces, is 143.5mm tall, 73.3mm wide and is 7.8-10.6mm thick with its curved frame.

Moto Action And Moto Display

Moto Action and Moto Display are other useful Motorola app features in addition to Moto Voice.

With Moto Action, the Turbo uses its infrared sensor detect when users make hand motions in front of it. When you wave your hand over the screen, it turns on the display so you can check the time and all your notifications. Users can also wave their hands over the screen to silence an incoming call or snooze their alarm.

With Moto display, users will have a better and easier time checking their notifications. When a new email or text message appears on your screen, you can press and hold the icon to see a short preview of the message. Users can then opt to swipe the icon to the side to dismiss the alert, or swipe up to open the message or notification in the residing app.

Price, Carrier And Availability

Droid is a Verizon brand name, so you may have guessed that Verizon is the exclusive carrier of the Droid Turbo. The Droid Turbo launched last week and is currently on the market in the United States. For phone lovers outside the country, earlier this week Motorola rolled out an international version of the Droid Turbo in the Moto Maxx. The phone was released in Brazil and Mexico, and it's not yet known what other markets the phone will wind up in.

The Droid Turbo starts at $199 with a two-year contract and 32GB of storage. The phone retails for $599 without a contract. The 64GB option is $50 more at $249 with a two-year contract and $649 without.