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The modern smartphone arms race of late has mostly been a pissing contest over screen resolution, processor speed, megapixels, thinness, and extraneous software features. Yet, for the last couple years, everyone has somehow been content to let Motorola walk away with what is perhaps the most important spec of all: battery life.

After all, your awesome screen, super-fast processor, and mega-megapixel camera are rendered worthless once your phone runs out of juice. Motorola created the Droid RAZR MAXX followed by the Droid RAZR MAXX HD. Both phones had terrific battery life, but they just weren"t very remarkable phones. The 2013 model is different. This year, Motorola has dropped the RAZR and made the Droid Maxx, a phone which not only boasts heroic battery life, but is actually an excellent phone, too.

What matters most is that this phone performs well, and will perform well for two days before it needs a charge.At first glance, there isn"t much that stands out about the Droid Maxx. It has a 5-inch 720p AMOLED display, a dual-core 1.7GHz CPU, and 2GB of RAM. Perhaps I"ve become jaded, but those specs don"t come near the 1080p displays with the quad-core 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processors that will come standard on high-end phones being released in the next couple months. But forget the specs for a moment. What actually matters most is that this phone performs well, and will perform well for two days before it needs a charge.

Again, the battery is the banner feature here. Motorola has crammed a 3,500 mAh battery into this phone, yet it has managed to keep the device from looking like a fat monstrosity. At just 0.33 inches thick, it"s technically right between the HTC One (0.37 inches) and the Samsung Galaxy S4 (0.31). That alone is quite a feat – though the HTC One feels thinner because of its rounded back.

In my testing, I never made it the full 48 hours that Motorola claims is possible, but I was using the phone very heavily. I used Navigation without plugging it in, made long phone calls, played HD games, streamed audio, constantly sent emails and texts. Even with that abuse, I always made it past 8 p.m. on the second day before hitting the 15 percent battery mark. It"s simply the best battery performance I"ve ever seen on a smartphone.

In addition to that, the software on the phone is actually really great. It"s the first Maxx Motorola has made since being fully taken over by Google. As such, the software is extremely close to stock Android. It"s minimal, fast, and smooth, and it looks great. It"s basically the opposite of Samsung"s TouchWiz. Oh, and remember all of those software features Mat Honan loved on the Moto X that he mentioned in his review? The Droid Maxx has all of them.