This may be the Droid you are looking for

I'd have to describe our family as walking on the Apple side of life as my wife and I both have iPhones and iPads, most of our songs and movies are downloaded off of iTunes, and my kids' favorite games and educational tools are from the App Store.  That being said, I still like to stay up to date on the functions and features provided by competing brands.  So I appreciated that the folks at Verizon loaned me the new Motorola DROID TURBO smart phone and provided access to their 4G LTE wireless network over the holiday week between Christmas and New Years to see how androids compare.  I have to say we had a pretty positive experience and if you are in shopping mode for a new phone this may be the droid you are looking for.

The Motorola Droid Turbo has a great big screen which is especially great if you enjoy watching video, playing games or just appreciate your type and images being bigger and easier to see; yet the phone really isn't that bulky so it doesn't feel like you are carting around a tablet with you.  For an HD display though I wasn't that impressed by its graphic capabilities when it came to the touch screen applications or surfing the net, but the screen images when you turned on the 21-megapixal camera where very impressive and made me go wow! - especially when I held up my iPhone5S and compared the capabilities next to one another.  Just don't try to take quick shots with the Droid Turbo as it has a second or so lag time for the camera to adjust to give a good crisp HD image.

We used the smart phone to call my brother up who lives on the other side of the country from us in Seattle so my kids could say thank you for their Christmas presents he had mailed to them and I could catch up with what he has been up to lately.  The sound quality using the Motorola DROID TURBO and Verizon's 4G LTE wireless network was exceptional...it sounded as if my brother was sitting right next to us when we were talking to him with no static or lag time although he was more than 2,000 miles away from us during our conversation.  You can tell from seeing the phone in my 6 year old daughter's hand that it has a big frame yet it really isn't bulky or heavy to hold and it is impressive how much of the front of the phone is covered by the screen rather than casing.  If you have kids who are rough with your gadgets or if you  may be clumsy like myself, you may also want to take note of the protective elements they have incorporated into this smart phone.  Motorola has added Metallized Glass Fiber to add strength to the phone's body and also reinforced it with DuPont Kevlar fiber for increased durability.  A water-repellent nanocoating has also been added to protect against spills or getting caught out in the rain although that still won't protect the phone if it were to be say dunked in a toilet or dropped in a lake.  Still a little protection from every day mishaps is better than no protection.  Another nice protective touch added to the Droid Turbo is scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 3 which guards the 5.2 inch Quad HD display on this smart phone.  With all these features you may be able to avoid having to add a bulky protective case to safeguard this phone and who doesn't hate adding those on to their phones?!

A few other features I appreciated and wanted to point out.  The Droid Turbo has great battery life and I only had to recharge it twice during a week of use.  It has a nifty feature that is really convenient called turbo charging which will give your phone 8 hours of power within 15 minutes of plugging it into an electrical outlet.  It can be torturing when you are in a hurry and need your phone charged and that bar just doesn't move....with this device bing bam boom you are powered up and ready to get back into the world. Another "turbo" feature of this smart  phone is its 2.7 GHz quad core processor which allows for switching between functions with no lag time as I pleasantly was able to quickly flip between my Google calendar, a phone call, my e-mail and the web during a work conversation without any freezes, hitches or hiccups as I multi-tasked through the applications. Awesome! I often find myself having to search my calendar, look for an email, or research something quickly on the web when I'm on the phone so I need a device that has the processing power to let me run multiple features at once and the Droid Turbo absolutely met that criteria for me.

I don't know if it is from familiarity or convenience, but ios still seems a more comfortable fit for me when it comes to an operating system.  There are little nuances with android that just irk me so for the time being I'm sticking with my iPhone; but if Apple keeps issuing ios updates that tend to throw off my enjoyment and the ease of use of their products than I may one day be looking for a droid myself.  If that time comes, I'd have no qualms about picking myself up a Motorola Droid Turbo after my recent test run with the product. 

Disclaimer:  the opinions and views expressed in the post are my own.  A Geek Daddy Blog did not receive any financial compensation from Motorola or Verizon for this post.  I was provided the use of a Motorola Droid Turbo and access to the Verizon wireless network at no charge for three weeks to test and review the phone and Verizon's service.  I am currently a customer for my own personal wireless service with another provider.

Rocking the Holidays with a Wireless JBL Charge 2 Speaker

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.

We always go all out at Christmas time to celebrate the holidays at our house - a huge blowup snowman in the front yard, the glow of our home shining from being covered in LED lights, a pleasant wreath on the front door, stockings hung above the fireplace with care, and of course a decorated tree with cookies and milk for Santa.  Something seemed to be lacking though; but I just couldn't put my finger on it.  It hit me the other day when I was driving home from work and realized they were playing Christmas songs on the radio...we hadn't been rocking our home with holiday music.  I was going to have to fix that by getting some Bluetooth compatible speakers for our house.

We haven't had a nice stereo receiver or speaker system in our house to make listening to music that worthwhile.  When my wife and I tend to listen to music it is on the radio in the car, at the gym with our mp3 player, or via the playlists we have stored on our iphones. Our children are at an age where they really don't listen to music much. So while our house was decked out for the season the musical component of the holidays had been lacking because we just didn't have an outlet for enjoying Christmas carols and tunes at home. Thanks to #CollectiveBias we were given a JBL Charge 2 Speaker because tis the season for #GiftingAudio and now it appears our family is going to be a lot merrier through the holidays being able to incorporate music into our festivities.

I have to say that this speaker has exceeded my expectations.  Its little body belts out the tunes with power, clarity and bass that rivals the bulky monstrous four foot high box speakers I used to take a lot of pride in from my bachelor pad days.  It was very easy to sync the JBL Charge 2 speaker to my iphone so that my children and I were very quickly listening to some holiday tunes via Pandora through this connection.  I was actually somewhat surprised just how exceptional the sound quality was especially with how I was playing music through a wireless connection with my phone.  We really had the jingle bells rocking as I cranked up the sound to enjoy the music of Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  I kid you not the speakers delivered such a rich bass that it felt as if we could have been at a concert.  You can actually see the speaker working to provide a rich listening experience as you can see the twin passive radiators (the silver discs on either side of the speaker) pulsating to the beat of the music which is quite impressive to observe.

So what is on your Holiday Playlist this year?  Here are a few of the favorites from our family playlist:

Christmas Don't Be Late - Alvin and the Chipmunks
Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer - Elmo & Patsy
Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Bruce Springsteen
Little Drummer Boy - Bing Crosby & David Bowie Duet
Do They Know it is Christmas - Band Aid
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year -Andy Williams
Joy to the World - Mannheim Steamroller
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - The Bare Naked Ladies
Carol of the Bells - Trans Siberian Orchestra
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas -  Judy Garland
Frosty the Snowman by Jimmy Durante

There is such a focus on the visual elements of the holiday season through the lights and decorations, but the musical aspect is also an important part of celebrating the holidays and was something we had been neglecting the last few years.  Being able to pull out this convenient portable speaker and easily play holiday songs from our itunes playlists or Pandora is really going to enhance the Christmas spirit for our family. My kids were so excited when they heard the holiday tunes pouring through our house as they jumped around like reindeer singing the lyrics to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman.  It was so convenient just being able to pull out my phone, hit play and have the music flow wireless between devices and through our home.

Speaking of convenient, it was really nice to have this great speaker delivered directly to my front door rather than drag myself out to the store to search for one.  If you are looking to get a JBL Charge 2 for yourself or maybe as a gift for someone keep in mind the convenience of shopping online.

It is so convenient to get one of these online now too because JBL is having a special holiday promotion on its website. If you purchase a Charge 2 from www.jbl.com, they will provide FREE ground shipping plus FREE extended returns.  I hate paying for shipping for online purchases so that is a real plus for me!  Another perk that I appreciated is JBL provides lifetime support for your purchase when you buy it online directly from their website!  The JBL Charge 2 is $149.95 and while my preference was black you can choose from five colors to personalize your selection: blue, purple, red, white or black.

While the JBL Charge 2 is going to make our holiday celebrating more enjoyable it is also going to be very useful throughout the rest of the year as well.  Often times when we call grandma and grandpa our kids are fighting to grab the phone to talk to their grandparents...now we can use the Charge 2 as a speaker phone routing the call through it so the kids can both hear the conversation at the same time and also talk through the speaker's built-in microphone.  That featured turned into an unexpected treat which we are going to be using a lot all year long.  Based on the sound quality that I've experienced so far I may also use this speaker phone application for some of my work conference calls too.

Another great feature that is really nice if you are taking the Charge 2 with you on a family road trip or on business travel is that you can actually use the speaker to charge your phone when you are on the go.  The Charge 2's 6000mAh Li-ion battery can play up to 12 hours of music or if it outlasts your phone or other portable devices you can recharge them through its USB port.  No more having to look for an electric outlet to plug into at a highway rest stop while you are traveling to recharge your phone or tablet when you have this speaker with you.  This speaker really is the gift that keeps on giving.

In the spirit of Gifting Audio, our friends at Collective Bias and JBL are giving away 30 speakers for the holidays.  Just complete the steps below for a chance to win.  Good luck everyone!


JBL.com #GiftingAudio Sweepstakes