Look out iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5, on paper there is a new king in town. Having already turned heads by outgunning its biggest rivals, Motorola’s new ‘Droid Turbo’ smartphone has revealed another exciting piece in the puzzle: it will have the world’s largest phone battery. How big? A massive 3900 milliamp hours (mAh). For context that is significantly larger than any battery seen in rival smartphones or even most phablets:
Leading Smartphones
Apple AAPL -1.06% iPhone 6 – 1810mAh
Samsung Galaxy S5 – 2800mAh
HTC One M8 – 2600mAh
Motorola Moto X – 2300mAh
Sony Xperia Z3 – 3100mAh
Leading Phablets
Apple iPhone 6 Plus – 2915mAh
Samsung Galaxy Note 4 – 3220mAh
Sony Xperia Z Ultra – 3050mAh
Motorola Droid Turbo (image courtesy of motofirmware.com)
This information comes after Droid-Life discovered the Turbo’s battery on Alibaba-owned retailer Taobao after matching its ‘Motorola EQ40’ reference to the same EQ40 battery reference Motorola tagged in the phone’s FCC filing. This also ties in with language used in the Droid Turbo’s leaked manual (pdf link) which explains that the boundary pushing handset has a “high-capacity long lasting battery”.
Motorola is no stranger to fitting very large batteries in its phones after the Motorola Maxx was sold with a 3500mAh battery (interestingly reference code: EU40) in August 2013. The Maxx was one of its last handsets Motorola released before its Google GOOGL +0.64% revitalisation and relaunch which has so far produced budget marvel the Moto E, midrange champ the Moto G and the flagship Moto X (my smartphone of the year).
Read more: New Motorola Smartphone Leaves Galaxy S5 And iPhone 6 Outgunned
Leaked Droid Turbo 3900mAh battery (image courtesy of Droid Life)
Jaw Dropping Specifications
Furthermore, the upcoming Droid Turbo’s monstrous battery is set to be part of a handset with a truly mouthwatering specifications list. The aforementioned manual confirms it will have:
The first 5.2-inch 2k (2,560 x 1,440) display
A cutting edge Snapdragon 805 chipset with Krait 450 GPU
Phablet-matching 3GB of RAM
21 megapixel camera
Needless to say these specifications suggest a good battery is a requirement, rather than an option, but a capacity of 3900mAh has the potential to see it be classed in days instead of hours.
Let Downs
Disappointments? There are a few. Firstly the manual confirms no microSD support and secondly there is just 32GB of onboard storage, which is low for a handset with such a large camera sensor. Thirdly the Droid Turbo appears to have capacitive rather than onscreen keys, something which will split opinions, and finally the name implied this is a Verizon exclusive – at least initially.
Of course at this point it is important to note that specifications alone are far from the only requirement in making a good smartphone. As I noted in my iPhone 6 review, perhaps the greatest triumph of Apple’s new handset is in how it competes so effectively with Android-based rivals despite having far weaker specifications on paper.
That said what excites about the Droid Turbo is that up to now Motorola has been the Apple of the Android world. It uses virtually stock Android and (in my opinion) currently has the best budget, midrange and premium smartphones available in the Moto E, Moto G and Moto X despite rivals having higher specifications. So what can Motorola achieve when it lets its hair down with the Droid Turbo?
Read more: Motorola Moto X (2014) Review: The Year’s Best Smartphone
Verizon Droid Does Teaser Page
Availability – Two Weeks
Happily we shouldn’t have to wait long to find out. Verizon today relaunched its ‘Droid Does’ website signifying a two week countdown (screengrab above) and, given all the Droid Turbo leaks, it is almost impossible the launch could be for anything else.
With the Motorola-built monstrous Nexus 6 also expected to be announced tomorrow and Lenovo’s takeover of Motorola set to close shortly, this is a company loving its new lease of life.
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