It took a while for Motorola to get this out to the consumers but they finally got the Droid Bionic out. After being announced and then delayed to be redesigned, the newest 4G phone on the LTE block for Verizon is here. The Bionic hopes to live up to its name by being the first LTE device for VZW to offer a 1GHz dual-core processor along with a 4.3inch qHD display w/ 960 x 540 resolution, running Android 2.3.4 w/ Blur UI, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage + 16GB microSD card included, dual cameras (VGA in front & 8MP w/ LED flash in the back capable of 1080p HD video capture), Wi-Fi b/g/n support, a GPS, Bluetooth 2.1, and a 1735 mAh battery. Was it worth the wait or could this have arrived a lot sooner for consumers? Read on for our two pennies on the matter.
This is the Android LTE device consumers were waiting for. Being the first armed with a dual-core 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM definitely helps the Bionic live up to its name in comparison to its other LTE brethren. This offers a speedy experience especially when you can enjoy watching YouTube in HD without any buffering. But the occasional hiccup when trying to start an app still does occur but still an better experience.
Motorola wanted to give this device something different from the Atrix, Droid3/X2, & the Photon by adding a Gorilla Glass w/ an anti-reflecting coating to its 4.3inch display. This makes for a different touchscreen experience for an Android device. Definitely something you would have to demo to see what I’m talking about. As far as the phone part of the Bionic is the crystal clear thanks to a noise-cancelling mic on the rear of the device and VZW’s stellar network. No worries of dropped calls (like AT&T is known notoriously for).
The Bionic is armed with a massive 1735 mAh battery (the biggest on any smartphone) but being a LTE device, the battery life isn’t as long as you may have hoped. I’ve found with my time with the Bionic, I was only able to pull out a little over 10 hours while switching between Wi-Fi, 3G, & 4G coverage areas. On straight 4G, I only got only a little over 6 hours of juice. Even with the bigger battery, consumers will still receive average LTE battery life. Manufacturers have yet to perfect a LTE device that can provide 12 hours or more of battery life using the fast network.
The Droid Bionic is equipped with a VGA in front & 8MP in the back. The VGA shooter works for video chatting via Google Talk, Tango, etc. Works as well as you may expect, other than having grainy quality for front-facing photos or video recorder. The 1080p HD video recording works quite well, unfortunately better than the 8MP rear shooter.
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| Droid Bionic sample shots |
The 8MP rear-facing camera on the Bionic perform better than the Droid3 but not as great as I would hope. The rear shooter takes great photos but even with the LED flash, still requires great light. The Bionic takes a few seconds to focus before a shot and another few seconds to process the photo. Other than this, some photos come out with dull colors instead of being vibrant. This definitely affected our grading of it.
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| The Droid Bionic uses a PenTile Matrix display and up close you see most of the pixels on lighter colors which maybe a problem for some consumers while others may not care about. |
With everything good & bad about it, the Bionic was worth the wait. This is still the best LTE Android device for Verizon at the moment. I think the Droid Charge is the only device that comes close to it, personally since the ThunderBolt has been quite buggy/sluggish in need of some Gingerbread love. It easily shows its dominance on the performance level over the rest of Motorola high-tier devices like the Atrix & the Photon 4G. It’s interesting how the original rendition had it looking like the Atrix, not sure if this was the better design choice since the DroidX2 (which the Bionic resembles) already was released. The pricing maybe a huge turn-off for many being $299.99 on contract but Amazon has already slashed it down to $179.99 for you deal seekers out there. To wrap things up, anyone seeking to escape a slow Android experience, you answer is here with the Droid Bionic.
