Droid Turbo, a great phone for cheap

[Plester]

I have been a longtime LG G2 (over 2 years unable to find reason to upgrade) user but began looking for another more current 5.2" phone with good battery life. The droid turbo became the leading candidate and last week I picked one up for $120 off of craigslist (there is usually plenty of used stock for $140-170 on Swappa). I spent $25 to unlock the bootloader as Verizon saw fit to go against Motorola's trend of allowing users to unlock. Its dead easy to unlock, root and install any CM based rom made for the Moto Maxx (GSM version) on the Verizon version. I am using the Verizon version (XT 1254) with a Straight Talk ATT sim and it gets full HSPA+ speeds which is plenty fast for me (7-8mbs down), lasts for 2 days with 5-6hrs of screen on and is flagship spec'd (Snapdragon 805 at 2.65ghz, Adreno 420, 3mb ram, 32gb, Amoled 1440 x 2560 screen, 3900mah battery, 21mp camera, etc...) highly recommended for other cheapskates like me...

 

[chitwood]

Turbo or Turbo 2?

the basic impression I got from the Turbo 2 was, borderline indestructible phone, good but not great specs, and mediocre screen. And when we were at Verizon in January getting the wife her new iPhone, the sales guy was ready to cut off his own foot just to sell me one.

 

[Plester]

I am talking about the first iteration, see specs below:

Origional Turbo from late 2014/early 2015

 

[vi edit]

I mostly liked my turbo during the time I had it. Screen was nice. It was ultra responsive, battery was a monster. It was also comfortable to hold due to the shape and the rubbery texture on the back. Moto add-on's were also nice. As was wireless charging.

The camera was a dud in any condition that wasn't bright daylight and there was a terrible delay between when the shutter processed and it actually captured the image. Can't tell you how many pictures I had of a floor or a motion blur as I was putting the phone down. It just had an awful delay in taking the picture.

I also hated how they formed the ear speaker. That lip around the top edge would dig into my ear after long conversations. It needed to be flush.

 

[Plester]

I haven't had the slow camera problem, initially I was using the CM 12.1 camera app which was fast (1 sec or less to shoot) but not very feature filled. I installed the Moto camera app which was sluggish at first until I realized HDR was set to auto, turned that off and it is pretty responsive, maybe 1.5 secs to take the pic... Agreed the lens is a bit slow at f2.0 but if there is good light I think it takes great pics.

 

[midwestfisherman]

The Turbo is an all around great phone. I've had one for about a year now. No complaints.