Thursday, September 15, 2011

Decent phone, not going to "blow you away"

4.0 out of 5 stars Decent phone, not going to "blow you away" September 10, 2011
Reviewer:  CENturian  (Washington, DC) -
A long time smart phone buyer (anyone remember the Samsung i730?), I am still waiting for the perfect phone. I upgraded from the HTC Incredible but I also have an AT&T iPhone 4 (employer-provided), so I have the best of both worlds. The phone is upstairs on the charger as I write this, but here are my impressions after a day of use:

- handset feels lightweight and wide compared to my other phones. It seems to be of good quality, but not as solid as the iPhone. I tend to prefer metal phones and don't mind the added weight, so I'm probably in the minority here. Nice soft-touch back makes the grip feel solid.

- Very responsive, smooth interface. Few lags even when jumping between applications while downloading and updating marketplace apps. No cons here.

- Screen is a mixed bag. I can see it in the daylight which is better than any smart phone that I've used. The downside is that it has a very digital feel to it - almost like you're viewing it through a window screen, if you can picture that. It's not natural looking like the iPhone 4 and it isn't even as nice as my HTC Incredible, but it didn't bother me after the initial impression wore off. This will definitely be an issue for some people, so make sure you try before you buy.

- I kept it on the home wireless except for a brief road trip, so I can't comment on 4G battery life. The fully charged battery only survived 12 hours with moderate-to-heavy use (wifi on, bluetooth on, push mail for 3 accounts, loading apps and setting up environment, played games for less than 30 minutes, phone calls of less than 10 minutes). I don't have 4G at the house, so 3G did the heavy lifting when cruising the neighborhood. I'm eager to try it out, but that won't be until my work week starts.

- Motorola and Verizon didn't get *too* heavy-handed with the bloatware. VZ Navigator is everywhere, but that's about the worst of it. I miss some of the HTC widgets, but I can find replacements in the marketplace. I do like Motorola's 4 interchangeable icons that remain static on each homepage screen as well as the contacts manager and account manager. I think the Motorola overlay improves things and the few differences are easy to adjust to.

- ZumoCast is AWESOME! I don't know if I *need* the ability to open files on my phone that are residing on my Windows laptop, but it sure was fun to play an mp4 on my phone that I didn't have to transfer first. Audio and video weren't a perfect match, but they were close enough. I have more trouble trying to do the same thing with my iPad and iTunes (using this same laptop), so this is nothing short of amazing in my opinion.

- Photo quality is not good - no better than my nearly 2 year old HTC Incredible. I wasn't expecting a high-end, point-and-shoot quality camera, but this was still a disappointment. The iPhone camera is significantly better. Video is pretty decent, though. I haven't transferred one to a PC yet, but on the phone it looks great. I'll take good quality videos over pictures in this instance, but I wish I didn't have to.

- I only did limited tests of call quality by calling the home number and alternating the mute between phones. My outgoing voice comes in loud and clear on the other end, but I have some concerns about incoming calls. If I talked in a normal, clear voice from the home phone then everything was fine. If I talked in a quieter voice (think library), I could barely hear myself on the Bionic. Whispers were completely garbled. I realize these were hardly ideal testing methods, but I'm reporting it nonetheless.

- Accessories are okay, but much more plastic than the original Motorola Droid accessories and a bit pricey if you don't get them in a packaged deal like I did. The night table dock doesn't force the phone into proper alignment, so I have a bit of trouble seating it. The car adapter is similar, but I like the way they integrated the plug into it this time. The spare battery charging dock with phone charging adapter on the side is a nice touch. If you go with the better Amazon pricing and forego the accessory package found in a certain unnamed big box store, I don't think you'll miss out on anything.

That about sums it up. The Bionic is a good quality phone, a definite step up from the HTC Incredible, and it does a great job of running my favorite mobile OS. I suspect there will be better phones on the market in the next couple of months (rumor of a Verizon Nexus phone), but if you are in the market now, you want an Android phone, and you are a Verizon customer, then I think this is your best bet.

No comments:

Post a Comment