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Now reading: Motorola Moto X Force / Droid Turbo 2 camera review 44 comments

Motorola Moto X Force / Droid Turbo 2 camera review

Published Jun 2, 2016 | Lars Rehm

1 Introduction

The Moto X Force is the international version of the Verizon-exclusive US model Droid Turbo 2 and the current flagship model in the Moto line. With a Sony 1/2.4-inch 21MP IMX230 sensor, F2.0 aperture, 4K video and a flash-equipped 5MP front camera, the Force's imaging specification is very similar to the Moto X Style. However, it comes with higher-end processing components, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset and 3GB RAM.

DPReview smartphone reviews are written with the needs of photographers in mind. We focus on camera features, performance, and image quality.

The Moto X Force's stand-out feature is its AMOLED display. At 5.4" it is a little smaller than the Moto X Style's 5.7" IPS variant but offers Motorola's new ShatterShield protection which means it's guaranteed not to crack or shatter. The device body is water-resistant with a solid metal frame and a back that is covered with a rubberized material, making the Moto X Force an ideal phone for use in rougher surroundings.

Key Photographic / Video Specifications

21MP 1/2.4-inch SONY IMX230 BSI CMOS sensor
F2.0 aperture
4K video
Dual-LED flash
5MP wide angle front camera with flash

Other Specifications

5.4-inch Quad-HD AMOLED display (540 ppi) with ShatterShield protection
Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 Processor with 2.0 GHz octa-core CPUs
3GB RAM
32/64GB of storage
MicroSD support up to 2TB
3760 mAh battery with quick and wireless charging technology (Qi and Powermat)
Water-resistant

Our 9-page review

We've considered every aspect of the Motorola Moto X Force with the photographer in mind. We examined the user interface of the native camera app and its special features. We experimented with the camera's performance when taking stills and video, and had a play with the device's many special feature modes.

Tags: review, mobile, android, motorola

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Comments

All (44)

Most popular (2)

Editors' picks (0)

DPR staff (10)

Oldest first

Marcel

Love Motorola smartphone's even if i can't pay it, has this one LTE as well ? Make some smart tool to put this one behind a telescope lens.

1 day ago*permalink

Jacques Cornell

"Moto X Force"? Are they marketing these to 13-year-old boys? What's next, the "Moto Titanium Testosterone PowerForce X14 Protein-Enhanced Ab Ripper & Male Enhancer"?

1 day agopermalink

EthanP99

Is it better than touchwiz? How about coolpix? Or cybershot? What about powershot?

1 day agopermalink

DJPogoff

What's next is the "Moto ED Force", marketed to men over 50.

1 day agopermalink

Jacques Cornell

Better than touchwiz for sure, but way too testosterone-insecure. What is it about American culture that marketers always go with "manly" chest-thumping power-obsessed messaging? You know Nissan's fire-breathing 300ZX sportscar from the 1990s? Know what it was called in Japan? Fairlady. I kid you not. Can you imagine the masculinity panic an American buyer would have at the car dealership? Everything here is Ram and Challenger and Power this and Pro that. Really, I don't know which is more lame, the fact that marketers come up with these silly names or that marketers have reason to believe they actually work.
Fortunately, Apple doesn't feel compelled to counter with a new Nuclear Armageddon I Spit on Your Grave Phone.

1 day ago*permalink

Timbukto

Corners go from being slightly soft, to horrendously soft. So either its just not a consistent shooter...has something to do with OIS or shifting focal distances, or even lens copy variations (which still exist even in the smartphone world). Either way the samples here do not make me envy anything as the lens I have on my S6 remains pretty sharp to the edges. Also the jpeg engine is hideous. I also do not like my Samsung camera app compared to the Google camera app. What camera app do you guys use?

1 day agopermalink

wetsleet

"The Moto X Force comes with Qualcomm's current top-end chipset Snapdragon 820 ..."
If only! But I thought it came with the 810?

2 days agopermalink

Lars Rehm

you are of course right, got that wrong on the Performance page, everywhere else it was correct. Thanks for pointing it out.

2 days agopermalink

wetsleet

And thanks for reviewing this phone. It has not received much limelight, so it is good to read a solid camera review. I never buy phones anywhere close to launch price, so your slow but thorough approach to getting things done is fine by me!

2 days agopermalink

Howard

Motorola smart phones are junk. I'm saying from experience (owned 2 Droid phones which I sorely regret).

2 days agopermalink

Lars Rehm

when was that?

2 days agopermalink

sh10453

My experience with Motorola phones is the opposite.
I have been using Motorola phones since the mid 1990s (long before digital cellular), and before I ever heard of Google! :)

2 days agopermalink

Howard

@Lars: a few years back, the original Droid with the stupid keyboard, then the Droid something without a keyboard which I thought to give it a try. Regretted both times. I don't think I will ever buy another Motorola.

1 day agopermalink

Howard

@sh10453: I am talking about smart phones.

1 day agopermalink

Lars Rehm

well, I agree that Motorola models a few years back weren't all that great but after the Google-Takeover things improved dramatically in my opinion and Motorola is making some really nice devices, the Moto G for example is one of the best value for money smartphones you'll find.

1 day agopermalink

DJPogoff

Howard,
Like sh10453, my experience with Motorola, both smartphones and those before smartphones, has been quite satisfying. The most important aspect of their performance -- for me -- is Motorola's signal reception, which I've found superior to other brands. I've also been told, repeatedly, by Verizon salespeople that Motorola has the best reception.

On the other hand, I really have nothing to offer regarding Motorola's smartphone cameras.

1 day agopermalink

Alphoid

It'd be nice to have a Compared To (and specifically in this case, the Xperia Z series, which is more waterproof, less drop-proof, and has a camera with very similar paper specs).

2 days agopermalink

Betico

It is hard to get bad pictures when you travel in Spain.

2 days agopermalink

LFPCPH

Am I correct that this article does not mention anywhere the focal length of the camera being tested ?

2 days agopermalink

Lars Rehm

it is not mentioned because the equivalent focal length is hardly ever provided by the manufacturers and the actual focal length (4,67mm) doesn't tell you much, in any case you can see it in the samples' Exif data. That said, pretty much all high-end smartphones have an equivalent focal length somewhere between 28 and 31mm these days, so there's really not much of a difference.

2 days agopermalink

Boissez

Some phones do have wider lenses than that. The latest Sonys have a 24mm eq. wide angle while the LG G5 has an 18mm eq. auxilliary camera.

2 days agopermalink

Lars Rehm

well, yes, as you point out it's on the secondary lens on the LG and the Sony has a multi-aspect ratio sensor, you only get the 24mm in 16:9. At 4:3 it is 28mm if I am not mistaken. My statement above was a general one, I am sure there are some exceptions.

2 days agopermalink

Boissez

Technically the lens on the Sony Z5/X is 23mm which yields a 24mm equivalent in 4:3.

Generally speaking, as smartphones have gotten thinner, their lenses have become quite a bit wider (the iPhone used to have a 35mm eq lens). Now the iPhone 6/6S are 29mm, Galaxy S7 is 26mm, Huawei P9 is 27mm, LG G5 is 28mm.

It's all academic of course, but I just thought it is worth pointing out.

2 days ago*permalink

LFPCPH

I don't think is's academic. I think it is a specification that matters to me. But if the manufactures does not provide it - then - well......

1 day agopermalink

PKDanny

DISLIKE Motorola Moto!

2 days agopermalink

EthanP99

For what reason...

2 days agopermalink

PKDanny

That's not my taste!

2 days agopermalink

Thematic

I hate cheeseburgers!

2 days agopermalink

waffel and co

I dislike ordering cheeseburgers with a Motorola Moto but that is all completely irrelevant

2 days agopermalink

justmeMN

What company will own Motorola brand cellphones next? :-) If memory serves, the company was sold to Google, who sold it to Lenovo.

2 days agopermalink

Lars Rehm

well, the Lenovo takeover was formalized not too long ago, so I guess that's where Moto will be for some time.

2 days agopermalink

Podz

Is there any chance of adding smartphones to the studio scene comparison tool? ^^'

2 days agopermalink

Lars Rehm

they are already in there...we're looking to add this one as soon as possible.

2 days agopermalink

Podz

I meant to add smartphones along with cameras , and making shots at different ISO levels (as with cameras).

2 days agopermalink

Lars Rehm

this would be much more difficult than it looks at first. Many phones actually do not have any manual control over ISO and shutter speeds which would be needed for this and when they have it, adjustments are not nearly as precise as on a DSLR. Also, with most users using smartphone cameras in Auto mode and cameras using night and other modes it just doesn't make the same sense it does for "real" cameras.

2 days agopermalink

Podz

Ok, it makes sense. I just wished to have more direct comparisons, since the gap in IQ between the two device types has become narrower in recent years.

1 day agopermalink

situman1

Are you guys seriously reviewing a phone that's been out for more than 9months that was completely irrelevant even before it came on market? And a mediocre phone at that with outdated software? And everyone that was interested in these phones read all the reviews there are out there already and the conclusion is the camera is worse than mediocre

2 days agopermalink

Lars Rehm

the Moto X Force was announced in November last year, so it's not quite as old as you make it out to be. Ideally we'd have reviewed it sooner, but just as with cameras, for a variety of reasons that's not always possible. I don't agree about your statement regarding its irrelevance though. In any case, if you think it's irrelevant nobody's forcing you to read this article :)

2 days agopermalink

mailman88

Hey Lars. ..if I can read 3 or 4 reviews on the web before DPReview does it...you're too late.
If DPReview wants to be the leader in this market, you need to work harder to maintain it.

2 days agopermalink

Lars Rehm

see my comment above...but in any case, of course there's many general reviews out there but none of them focus on the camera in the same way as we do.

2 days agopermalink

Glen Barrington

You might be confusing the Droid Turbo with the Droid Turbo 2. My wife has the Turbo, and while the camera isn't all that great, it is more than adequate for the sort of shooting she does with it.

This series of smartphones are NOT for people who want state of the art in cameras, or in, well, everything else. These are phones who want upper mid-level performance at an upper mid-level price. People who buy these smartphones don't expect them to break new ground, instead, they expect it to cover the old ground really well.

It is silly to expect that your particular view of the world should take precedence over other people's view.

2 days agopermalink

oklaphotog

A snapdragon 810 chip, runs Android Marshmallow, and with a camera that ranks #4 in dxomark mobile? I would hardly call that mediocre.

2 days agopermalink

situman1

Lars I didn't read the article simply because you're 7 months too late, sorry I was off by 2 months. Secondly, are you really telling potential readers to not read your articles and in turn lead to not visiting your site simply because they do not agree or like one of your articles?

@Glen, the Droid Turbo 2 was meant to be a flagship. It's great that DXo ranks it wherever it wants. Real world usage and usability is another (handling, software, AF, responsiveness, UI...). With it being a flagship why shouldn't people compare it to other flagships and expect top level performance? The fact that Verizon abandoned it without updating it to the latest android system says a lot about its relevance.

2 days agopermalink

Impulses

I normally don't knock late reviews, specially from the likes of DPR or Anandtech (exhaustive reviews worth reading anytime), and I'm not gonna now... But I WILL say it'd be pretty hard to justify paying $400+ for any phone running a Snapdragon 810 right now, it's thermal throttling and poor efficiency are well documented by now and there's already several 820 flagship models out (and cheaper devices from Xiaomi/ASUS or Moto itself otherwise, if you don't mind not having the latest SoC).

2 days agopermalink

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DxOMark Mobile report: Motorola Droid Turbo 2 Oct 27, 2015	Super charged? Motorola Droid Turbo 2 preview and samples Oct 27, 2015	Motorola launches Droid Turbo 2 with shatterproof display Oct 27, 2015	New VSCO app for Android and iOS is coming soon Jun 3, 2016

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