You guys know this phone—this is the Motorola DROID Turbo, the absolute specked beast of a phone featuring a QHD 2K display, a Snapdragon 805 Quad-Core processor, 3GB of RAM and a beastly 3900mAh battery. This DROID Turbo features a red Kevlar back, while the guy right here features a Ballistic Nylon back cover. Both are different and are for two different types of consumers so I want to voice my opinion of the two designs. But first, let’s run through the overall design of the device.
On the front of the Turbo, we have a long strip of speaker on the very top of the device. This is a front-facing stereo speaker, which is really nice to see. The only complaint would be that it’s not spread out so you don’t have one speaker on the top and one on the bottom of the phone. You just have one big grille here up top. I mean, I’ll definitely take it but it would be nice to see stereo speakers separated like on the Nexus 6 but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
We also have a 2MP front-facing camera below the speaker grille. And down below that are capacitive touch buttons for the back, home and overview multi-tasking. Personally, I’d prefer software buttons but the capacitive touch buttons do work well here. And it’s nice to see a dedicated multi-tasking button and not a settings button. Motorola definitely got it right this time around in that regards. But overall, it does add to the bezel sides. But it’s really not all that bad. They do work just fine.
On the left hand side, we don’t have any sort of ports or buttons; just a rubberized soft touch coating. On the right hand side though, we do have a power sleep on/off button and volume up/down controls. It also doubles as a SIM card slot. But the buttons are very nice to press as they are metal and they textured, which makes them very easy to press. I actually really like that subtle addition Motorola threw in there. On top of that, we will find our 3.5mm headphone jack and then on the bottom of the phone, we will find the micro USB charging port and that is about it as far as ports and buttons go.
On the back of the DROID Turbo, this is where things get a little bit interesting. So on one hand, we have the Turbo with a Ballistic Nylon back cover and then on the other hand, we have the red Kevlar back cover. Both phones do feature a 20.7MP rear-facing camera sandwiched between the dual LED flash.
I was using the red Kevlar back version of the DROID Turbo initially, without ever trying the Ballistic Nylon version. And I really didn’t like it that much. I really like texture, something that gives me some added grip and the Kevlar version just doesn’t provide that. Granted, it doesn’t feel terrible. It’s just a bit sleek. What it does do is look very stylish. I can definitely see how people might think it’s too flashy. But in my opinion, the red they chose isn’t really all that bright and vivid. It has sort of a darker tone to it that looks really good and it has a Ballistic Nylon padding on it below the plastic. But it feels, still, like plastic.
Now this, on the other hand, is the black DROID Turbo with the Ballistic Nylon back coating. And this is the version you’re looking for if you want a textured back cover. The Ballistic Nylon feels very unusual in the hands for a phone. But it’s unusual in a good way. It’s just something that I’m not really used to and I really love it about the phone. I’d say the texture sort of reminds me of a metal speaker grille, if that makes sense. But it feels good. It’s definitely more subtle than the red Kevlar back cover.
So basically, if you’re looking for a stylish and a bit flashy-looking phone, the Kevlar red DROID Turbo is the phone for you. But if you want something that feels different in the hand with a more subtle look, I think you’re really going to enjoy the black Ballistic Nylon version of the DROID Turbo if you’re in the market for a DROID Turbo.
And side note: the Ballistic Nylon version doesn’t have any sort of Verizon tramp stamp at all around the phone, whereas the red Kevlar back version does. So that might be something you might seriously want to consider. So hopefully, this helps someone out there who is not sure about which version DROID Turbo to go with.
