Solid entry to Verizon Wireless' LTE family. September 10, 2011 Reviewer: M.D.C. "The Franchise" (San Diego, CA) -
For the record, I have used many phones over the years. A lot of the devices focus too much on features and very little on functionality. I prefer phones that meet 3 basic criteria:
1: Can last at least 18 hours with regular data usage, including web, email, and Market.
2: Are physically attractive, feel good to the touch, and are not clunky to use.
3: Can make and receive calls when needed, which isn't often, but still.
The Droid Bionic meets objectives 1 and 3. It doesn't do so good with objective #2. But before I get to that, let me give you some background on the device.
The Droid Bionic is actually quite a bit tardy. It was scheduled to come out at least 3 months ago, but got delayed and nobody really understood why. Various leaks showed specs that admittedly were not impressive compared to others such as the Droid X2, but the Bionic has the singular distinction of being the first dual core 4G LTE smartphone on the market. Additionally, the base specs of the Bionic were stronger than most other dual core phones in the arena. It was speculated that Verizon temporarily passed on the Bionic so as not to cut into potential sales of the Apple iPhone 4, which it started carrying some months ago, but that's never been confirmed.
On the surface, the Droid Bionic does not look any more impressive than any of the other Motorola Droid phones. It bears a striking similarity to the others in general form factor, if not a little bit smaller, but it's the internals that make it stand out. Featuring a dual core 1GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, 4GB of application storage, 8GB of internal memory, and an included 16GB SD card, this phone is packed to the gills with power. It seamlessly runs the 2.3 Android Gingerbread operating system. There is also a front-facing camera capable of decent shots in daylight, and a rear-facing camera that shoots at 8 megapixels with automatic focus and lighting adjustments. It also can shoot 720p video, and with the SD card, you'll be able to do quite a bit of shooting before you need to buy another card.
SCREEN AND BATTERY
The screen on the Bionic is large and fairly bright, but it isn't going to surpass that of the Droid Charge or any other AMOLED screen in terms of contrast. That's okay, because even at near maximum brightness, the included battery barely breaks a sweat under continuous use. Coming from the HTC Thunderbolt where one could easily run the battery down 10% in an hour, the Bionic barely shrugged at continuous 4G and WiFi data access, marrying both corporate and personal push email, web browsing, Amazon Cloud Player streaming, Market downloading, and YouTube video watching. It got to the point where I was purposely trying to get the battery to yell, to no avail. That's the way the phone battery should be - working FOR the user, not against it ala the Thunderbolt.
The newer Gingerbread features some power savings features that likely would help with the Thunderbolt if they ever release it for that device. There is a battery mode that works similar to the way Windows manages power profiles. You can even create your own custom profile, which has replaced the old data usage peak/off peak by applying it to the whole system. You can designate periods of time where your phone will work at peak processing power, and other times where your phone will not, which conserves battery when you're in different locations or situations. There's also a data saver mode, where you can force applications such as the browser and email to work in a limited capacity (but still do their job) while the saver is on. Combined with the screen auto brightness, it's really easy to manage power on the Bionic.
All that said, I want to tell you that data saver is NOT on, battery mode is on maximum performance, email is push and background data is enabled (I don't leave GPS on though for security reasons). I have streamed Amazon Cloud Player and YouTube, and I have navigated the Market extensively getting my apps back. It's been 1 hour since I charged the device and the battery is still at 100%. That's absolutely insane. Mathematically, that means the device will still have juice tomorrow even if I don't charge it. As it should be.
Caveat: Motorola's batteries count in increments of 10%, rather than 1%. So this statement effectively means that with heavy usage, and considering how battery hungry 4G and the screen can be, I was still well above 90% battery an hour later. This might seem to be overstating, but again, dual core + 4G + bright screen + wafer thin battery + push email + Market downloads + continuous usage? It's impressive no matter how you slice it.
SOUND AND AUDIO
Speaker quality was quite good, though I did notice at louder levels that there was some static distortion coming from the speaker grill itself. My guess is that the speaker membrane had a difficult time with certain lows; the speaker is definitely cleaner sounding than the Droid Charge, louder than the Thunderbolt, but not quite as rich. That's partially due to the SRS enhancements found in the Thunderbolt that lend themselves to more distinct bass; the Bionic absolutely spanks every other phone I've heard in general treble and clarity of audio. You'll hear instruments you didn't know were in your favorite songs. Mind, the Bionic does feature equalizer settings and presets, but they just can't hold a candle to SRS or even Beats Audio for true "punch". This may or may not be important to you, but I note it for reference.
CALL QUALITY (womp, womp, waaa...)
I could only find one true letdown on the Bionic: outbound call quality. Inbound was fine, because as I said before, the speaker is clear and crisp no matter what you're listening to, but the outbound was just not up to par for a device this expensive. Obviously the focus these days is on the data experience, but I had hoped that the Bionic would buck this trend. Sadly it did not: the microphone muffled my voice so badly that even I struggled to understand what I was saying when I heard it played back to me. This applied whether I was doing straight mouthpiece or speakerphone calling and I'm not sure why it was so bad. I can only guess that Motorola was attempting to do some noise cancellation and overdid it, or that the microphone itself is of poor quality. In this day and age of Bluetooth headsets that can make you sound like you're standing in front of a person talking, I found this rather inexcusable given the price point.
HDMI ON BOARD
The Bionic also features a mini HDMI port that can be used to mirror the phone's display to an HDMI-supporting device. I should point out that when I say "HDMI-supporting", I really mean HDCP supporting, because some devices will not accept the input correctly. Most newer TVs will not have an issue, but some receivers may flicker in and out as they struggle to maintain the HDCP handshake necessary to sustain an HDMI connection. This isn't a big deal for most people, but some may try to buy the dock or a mini HDMI cable thinking they're guaranteed to stream their Netflix out only to find it not working; that's not the device's fault, and you may need to do some retooling (read: buy newer versions of) your media equipment.
CAMERAS AND VIDEO
The quality of the camera is a mixed bag. The front facing camera is definitely superior to other "Not quite smartphones" like the Xperia Play, but it pales in comparison to others such as the iPhone 4. It'll do, if you're filming yourself outside or in a brightly lit room, but don't expect photo-realism out of the front. The rear camera is something totally different: sporting a rather high 8 megapixels, it can give you decent 4x6 prints if you want it too. Any larger and you'll notice quite a fair amount of noise to the picture; most of the noise is chromatic noise, which means you'll see a lot of what look like "dirty" color speckles when the photo is zoomed in. You can obviously do post-processing to clean this up, but again, I note it for reference.
Where the Bionic does well is with close-up color correction. Taking photos at a distance yields decent-looking photos, but the problem is that the color correction tends to be a bit much, losing the true intent of the shot. If I were shooting a lake surrounded by mountains during an overcast afternoon, I might expect that the water is a darker blue or even clear, since it's not reflecting a clear sky. The Bionic will attempt to "color" the water a little, destroying the moment somewhat. It's not a deal breaker, and obviously you can do manual corrections, but I do look for a little more intuition out of camera phones if I'm paying for them.
This doesn't apply to close-ups: in a close up, you want to capture the moment, but correction becomes even more critical, as there is likely some focal point to the shot and you want it as detailed as it can get. This is where the Bionic shines - fine details, where it can blur and layer backgrounds with the best of DSLRs. The image quality isn't going to outdo a $600 camera, obviously, but I was impressed with what I got out of the Bionic in close-up shooting.
As well as static photos, you can also do video recording at 720p. I would put the quality of these videos somewhere between a FlipCam and the "kinda sorta HD camcorders" you buy for $80 at Best Buy. The thing to note is that the Bionic will obviously last longer, and comes with the capacity to manage all of the videos you shoot. Also, depending on what apps you use, you can send videos straight to your DropBox, email/MMS them to a friend, or send them straight to YouTube (this I wouldn't recommend, but you could, ala Zack Ryder).
BUILD QUALITY AND CHASSIS
General build quality was around a 7 out of 10. While it felt like a solid device - as do all Motorola Droid devices - I was really not impressed with the flimsy plastic back. The snaps on the bottom especially are just waiting to break with repeated removal to get access to the SD card (which fortunately is not located under the battery as with HTC devices). It didn't really make the device that much lighter, as according to my scale, it's the exact same weight as the Thunderbolt, whose plastic battery cover is a little less flimsy. I was also secretly wishing for a kickstand, but I know that would have cut into the $40-$100 docks that they like to sell these days. I had no complaints about the front of the device though, featuring a very attractive smoked chrome finish and the Corning Gorilla Glass on the screen. It's mind boggling that they went to such expense for the front, but not the back, of such an otherwise awesome device. Something else that still confuses me is just how thin the battery is: it's wafer thin, yet somehow has more mAh than other phones with batteries nearly twice the thickness. Are we nearing battery technology improvement at last?
I mentioned early on that the Bionic did actually fail in my second criteria. That's not a knock on the build quality, rather the design, for being mostly uninspired. There are some questionable decisions with regard to the shape of the device - it's not conducive to holding it in one hand at all. Normally, a phone feels better when its back is curved to match the natural curves of one's hand, but maybe I'm unique in that opinion. Also, when attempting to remove apps or widgets from any of the various home screens, placing the trash at the top seems a very odd design decision. I can see why it might make sense in some cases, but maybe having the trash in both the top and bottom of the window would have been more practical. I'm much more comfortable with a bottom-placed trash than a top one. Obviously I don't do much widget or app management, but just saying. Also, on a selfish note, I am getting slightly irritated with the tendency towards right-handed phone owners, speaking of the volume rocker. It's not just Motorola, all of them are guilty of this one, but I generally will just use the on-screen sound manager instead.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that people considering the Bionic are either (A) Thunderbolt converts or (B) Blackberry holdouts who want 4G but don't like any of the current crop of devices. The Thunderbolt converts are really going to have to think about the decision: the Bionic definitely has superior battery and is a fast, seamless experience, but the cost is nearly 3 times that of the Thunderbolt for the same 4G signal. One must ask themselves if the battery boost is really worth $200 more dollars AND a new contract that may remove the previous 5G/$30 package if you do a new agreement.
In the end, the Bionic is a solid contender for anyone considering a great device with great speeds. You'll want to be cognizant and aware of the potential for overcharging due to Verizon Wireless' new data plans and the caps, and the form factor and build quality may be a turn-off for some. Still, if you're itching for the best on the market, the Bionic is it...for now.
1: Can last at least 18 hours with regular data usage, including web, email, and Market.
2: Are physically attractive, feel good to the touch, and are not clunky to use.
3: Can make and receive calls when needed, which isn't often, but still.
The Droid Bionic meets objectives 1 and 3. It doesn't do so good with objective #2. But before I get to that, let me give you some background on the device.
The Droid Bionic is actually quite a bit tardy. It was scheduled to come out at least 3 months ago, but got delayed and nobody really understood why. Various leaks showed specs that admittedly were not impressive compared to others such as the Droid X2, but the Bionic has the singular distinction of being the first dual core 4G LTE smartphone on the market. Additionally, the base specs of the Bionic were stronger than most other dual core phones in the arena. It was speculated that Verizon temporarily passed on the Bionic so as not to cut into potential sales of the Apple iPhone 4, which it started carrying some months ago, but that's never been confirmed.
On the surface, the Droid Bionic does not look any more impressive than any of the other Motorola Droid phones. It bears a striking similarity to the others in general form factor, if not a little bit smaller, but it's the internals that make it stand out. Featuring a dual core 1GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, 4GB of application storage, 8GB of internal memory, and an included 16GB SD card, this phone is packed to the gills with power. It seamlessly runs the 2.3 Android Gingerbread operating system. There is also a front-facing camera capable of decent shots in daylight, and a rear-facing camera that shoots at 8 megapixels with automatic focus and lighting adjustments. It also can shoot 720p video, and with the SD card, you'll be able to do quite a bit of shooting before you need to buy another card.
SCREEN AND BATTERY
The screen on the Bionic is large and fairly bright, but it isn't going to surpass that of the Droid Charge or any other AMOLED screen in terms of contrast. That's okay, because even at near maximum brightness, the included battery barely breaks a sweat under continuous use. Coming from the HTC Thunderbolt where one could easily run the battery down 10% in an hour, the Bionic barely shrugged at continuous 4G and WiFi data access, marrying both corporate and personal push email, web browsing, Amazon Cloud Player streaming, Market downloading, and YouTube video watching. It got to the point where I was purposely trying to get the battery to yell, to no avail. That's the way the phone battery should be - working FOR the user, not against it ala the Thunderbolt.
The newer Gingerbread features some power savings features that likely would help with the Thunderbolt if they ever release it for that device. There is a battery mode that works similar to the way Windows manages power profiles. You can even create your own custom profile, which has replaced the old data usage peak/off peak by applying it to the whole system. You can designate periods of time where your phone will work at peak processing power, and other times where your phone will not, which conserves battery when you're in different locations or situations. There's also a data saver mode, where you can force applications such as the browser and email to work in a limited capacity (but still do their job) while the saver is on. Combined with the screen auto brightness, it's really easy to manage power on the Bionic.
All that said, I want to tell you that data saver is NOT on, battery mode is on maximum performance, email is push and background data is enabled (I don't leave GPS on though for security reasons). I have streamed Amazon Cloud Player and YouTube, and I have navigated the Market extensively getting my apps back. It's been 1 hour since I charged the device and the battery is still at 100%. That's absolutely insane. Mathematically, that means the device will still have juice tomorrow even if I don't charge it. As it should be.
Caveat: Motorola's batteries count in increments of 10%, rather than 1%. So this statement effectively means that with heavy usage, and considering how battery hungry 4G and the screen can be, I was still well above 90% battery an hour later. This might seem to be overstating, but again, dual core + 4G + bright screen + wafer thin battery + push email + Market downloads + continuous usage? It's impressive no matter how you slice it.
SOUND AND AUDIO
Speaker quality was quite good, though I did notice at louder levels that there was some static distortion coming from the speaker grill itself. My guess is that the speaker membrane had a difficult time with certain lows; the speaker is definitely cleaner sounding than the Droid Charge, louder than the Thunderbolt, but not quite as rich. That's partially due to the SRS enhancements found in the Thunderbolt that lend themselves to more distinct bass; the Bionic absolutely spanks every other phone I've heard in general treble and clarity of audio. You'll hear instruments you didn't know were in your favorite songs. Mind, the Bionic does feature equalizer settings and presets, but they just can't hold a candle to SRS or even Beats Audio for true "punch". This may or may not be important to you, but I note it for reference.
CALL QUALITY (womp, womp, waaa...)
I could only find one true letdown on the Bionic: outbound call quality. Inbound was fine, because as I said before, the speaker is clear and crisp no matter what you're listening to, but the outbound was just not up to par for a device this expensive. Obviously the focus these days is on the data experience, but I had hoped that the Bionic would buck this trend. Sadly it did not: the microphone muffled my voice so badly that even I struggled to understand what I was saying when I heard it played back to me. This applied whether I was doing straight mouthpiece or speakerphone calling and I'm not sure why it was so bad. I can only guess that Motorola was attempting to do some noise cancellation and overdid it, or that the microphone itself is of poor quality. In this day and age of Bluetooth headsets that can make you sound like you're standing in front of a person talking, I found this rather inexcusable given the price point.
HDMI ON BOARD
The Bionic also features a mini HDMI port that can be used to mirror the phone's display to an HDMI-supporting device. I should point out that when I say "HDMI-supporting", I really mean HDCP supporting, because some devices will not accept the input correctly. Most newer TVs will not have an issue, but some receivers may flicker in and out as they struggle to maintain the HDCP handshake necessary to sustain an HDMI connection. This isn't a big deal for most people, but some may try to buy the dock or a mini HDMI cable thinking they're guaranteed to stream their Netflix out only to find it not working; that's not the device's fault, and you may need to do some retooling (read: buy newer versions of) your media equipment.
CAMERAS AND VIDEO
The quality of the camera is a mixed bag. The front facing camera is definitely superior to other "Not quite smartphones" like the Xperia Play, but it pales in comparison to others such as the iPhone 4. It'll do, if you're filming yourself outside or in a brightly lit room, but don't expect photo-realism out of the front. The rear camera is something totally different: sporting a rather high 8 megapixels, it can give you decent 4x6 prints if you want it too. Any larger and you'll notice quite a fair amount of noise to the picture; most of the noise is chromatic noise, which means you'll see a lot of what look like "dirty" color speckles when the photo is zoomed in. You can obviously do post-processing to clean this up, but again, I note it for reference.
Where the Bionic does well is with close-up color correction. Taking photos at a distance yields decent-looking photos, but the problem is that the color correction tends to be a bit much, losing the true intent of the shot. If I were shooting a lake surrounded by mountains during an overcast afternoon, I might expect that the water is a darker blue or even clear, since it's not reflecting a clear sky. The Bionic will attempt to "color" the water a little, destroying the moment somewhat. It's not a deal breaker, and obviously you can do manual corrections, but I do look for a little more intuition out of camera phones if I'm paying for them.
This doesn't apply to close-ups: in a close up, you want to capture the moment, but correction becomes even more critical, as there is likely some focal point to the shot and you want it as detailed as it can get. This is where the Bionic shines - fine details, where it can blur and layer backgrounds with the best of DSLRs. The image quality isn't going to outdo a $600 camera, obviously, but I was impressed with what I got out of the Bionic in close-up shooting.
As well as static photos, you can also do video recording at 720p. I would put the quality of these videos somewhere between a FlipCam and the "kinda sorta HD camcorders" you buy for $80 at Best Buy. The thing to note is that the Bionic will obviously last longer, and comes with the capacity to manage all of the videos you shoot. Also, depending on what apps you use, you can send videos straight to your DropBox, email/MMS them to a friend, or send them straight to YouTube (this I wouldn't recommend, but you could, ala Zack Ryder).
BUILD QUALITY AND CHASSIS
General build quality was around a 7 out of 10. While it felt like a solid device - as do all Motorola Droid devices - I was really not impressed with the flimsy plastic back. The snaps on the bottom especially are just waiting to break with repeated removal to get access to the SD card (which fortunately is not located under the battery as with HTC devices). It didn't really make the device that much lighter, as according to my scale, it's the exact same weight as the Thunderbolt, whose plastic battery cover is a little less flimsy. I was also secretly wishing for a kickstand, but I know that would have cut into the $40-$100 docks that they like to sell these days. I had no complaints about the front of the device though, featuring a very attractive smoked chrome finish and the Corning Gorilla Glass on the screen. It's mind boggling that they went to such expense for the front, but not the back, of such an otherwise awesome device. Something else that still confuses me is just how thin the battery is: it's wafer thin, yet somehow has more mAh than other phones with batteries nearly twice the thickness. Are we nearing battery technology improvement at last?
I mentioned early on that the Bionic did actually fail in my second criteria. That's not a knock on the build quality, rather the design, for being mostly uninspired. There are some questionable decisions with regard to the shape of the device - it's not conducive to holding it in one hand at all. Normally, a phone feels better when its back is curved to match the natural curves of one's hand, but maybe I'm unique in that opinion. Also, when attempting to remove apps or widgets from any of the various home screens, placing the trash at the top seems a very odd design decision. I can see why it might make sense in some cases, but maybe having the trash in both the top and bottom of the window would have been more practical. I'm much more comfortable with a bottom-placed trash than a top one. Obviously I don't do much widget or app management, but just saying. Also, on a selfish note, I am getting slightly irritated with the tendency towards right-handed phone owners, speaking of the volume rocker. It's not just Motorola, all of them are guilty of this one, but I generally will just use the on-screen sound manager instead.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that people considering the Bionic are either (A) Thunderbolt converts or (B) Blackberry holdouts who want 4G but don't like any of the current crop of devices. The Thunderbolt converts are really going to have to think about the decision: the Bionic definitely has superior battery and is a fast, seamless experience, but the cost is nearly 3 times that of the Thunderbolt for the same 4G signal. One must ask themselves if the battery boost is really worth $200 more dollars AND a new contract that may remove the previous 5G/$30 package if you do a new agreement.
In the end, the Bionic is a solid contender for anyone considering a great device with great speeds. You'll want to be cognizant and aware of the potential for overcharging due to Verizon Wireless' new data plans and the caps, and the form factor and build quality may be a turn-off for some. Still, if you're itching for the best on the market, the Bionic is it...for now.
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