Motorola Droid Turbo 2 can survive a 900ft drop, putting all other smartphones to shame

Modern phones are not designed to be durable. If you take a current-generation smartphone and you drop it, chances are you will end up with a shattered screen and a dent in the frame. Or, if you're not careful enough, it can develop massive scratches. Considering how expensive they can be to repair, it might be cheaper to just buy a replacement. We've been slowly eased into this, no doubt helped by carrier contracts which allow us to get a newer handset every two years or even sooner.

But not all modern phones are this fragile. Take Motorola's Droid Turbo 2 for example. It's a top-of-the-line smartphone, with a price lower than the typical players in that segment, but with a display that still works after the device is dropped from 900 feet. In fact, the handset itself looks pretty good after that, all this considered.

The test was conducted by UnlockRiver.com, which attached a Droid Turbo 2 to a quadcopter. At an altitude of 275 meters above ground, the smartphone was dropped on a parking lot, hitting the pavement with its upper left corner. After bouncing back and spinning a couple of times in the air, it landed on its back.

The result? The shatterproof display protector, which sits atop of the panel, has only been damaged in the upper left corner. The screen did not shatter, as we have come to expect to see in drop tests; it still works, in fact. A Samsung Galaxy Note 5, subjected to the same drop test, had a shattered back panel, a bent frame and a display that wouldn't turn on.

The results are quite impressive. But, it's unlikely that other manufacturers will try to compete with Motorola in this area. If consumers buy phones that don't break easily, how will they be "encouraged" to upgrade to the latest and greatest when it's time to renew that contract?