Droid Bionic (Verizon) Review of Reviews

Droid Bionic

Droid Bionic Rated 4.25 out of 5 by Wireless and Mobile News' Review of Reviews

Reviewers of the Droid Bionic all agreed that it is the fastest smartphone on the Verizon network and gave it the honor of Editors' Choice concluding that the nine-month gestation/delay was worth the wait.

The best-rated features of the Droid Bionic are fast data speeds, extremely fast web browsing, video/media playing, excellent battery life, 1080p video recording and ability to use it as computer with either the Webdock or HD dock.

Features that were questioned  were the MotoBlur adde-on UI, lagging camera and pricing.

Benchmark tests were excellent and beat out its competitors on the Verizon Network but not the Samsung Galaxy S II.

Specs of the Droid Bionic are impressive,  4G LTE access, 4.3" LCD touchscreen, dual-core 1GHz processor, MotoPrint Wi-Fi printing, HDMI-out port, Wi-Fi, mobile hotspots, GPS, 16GB storage onboard and 16GB microSD installed.

The price from Verizon Wireless for the Droid Bionic is $299.  However new customers who trade in any kind of phone can get at least a $100 gift(more if the trade-in value is higher) with the online exclusive trade-in deal while current Verizon customers can only trade-in a basic phone for the $100 gift card.

Meanwhile, online retailer Amazon is selling the Droid Bionic for $179.99 for new customers with a contract or $249.99 for renewing customers.   An added bonus from Amazon is  a $50 gift card for Verizon Wireless device-buyers with a two-year contract until 9/26 11:59 pm PDT.

If you already have smartphone with an unlimited data plan on Verizon Wireless you will be grandfathered for a 4G LTE unlimited plan otherwise new customers can opt for $30 for 2GB or $50 for 5GB per month.

The Lapdock has a keyboard, a 11.6 inch screen and a trackpad for navigation.  It costs $399 unless you buy a $50 a month data plan which entitles you to a $100 rebate.

Priced at $99 with three USB ports, the HD Station lets you connect peripherals like a wired mouse, keyboard, or printer can can be used as a docking station to charge the Droid Bionic.

Webtop Adapter lets you connect a wireless keyboard and mouse.  Simply connect the phone and the adapter to an HDTV monitor via an HDMI cable and it's ready to go.

Sasha Segan at PCMag rated the Droid Bionic 4.5 out 5 giving it Editors' Choice and called the most powerfull Android smartphone you can buy as of 9/8/2011 and the most powerful on the Verizon network, that is well-built and turn into a laptop or desktop PC. He didn't like that in laptop mode it can be sluggish, the slow camera and sometimes the PenTile LCD looked a little fuzzy. He like that users get the full web with no waiting due to the fast processor and LTE data access. The Droid Bionic has fine voice quality. The speaker phone is loud but tinny. Battery life from the 1735mAh battery was good giving 3 hours of LTE streaming and the best he's seen for a CDMA phone using 3G 10 hours and 35 minutes but you can run voice and data over 3G. Webpages loaded twice as fast with LTE than 3G. Used as Wi-Fi hotspot he was able to get 7-15Mbps down and 2-3Mbps up.  It is a data eater and suggest getting the 5GB $50 a month plan over the 3GB $30 a month option. overall Antutu benchmark was only beaten by the Droid 3 while BrowserMark and NenaMark 2 were the best he's seen.  Preloaded bloatware you can't remove includes BlockBuster, Citrix, CityID, GoToMeeting, Zumocast, Motoprint, Videosurf and VZ Navigator. Webtop mode turns it into a web-surging computer which requires either a Lapdock or HD dock. Webtop browser is slower than Android a bit pixelated. The 8MP camera has slow autofocus while video recording was much better. It played video and music without a hitch.

Nicole Lee at CNET rated the Droid Bionic 4 out of 5 and Editors' Choice for slim design, speed from dual-core processor/4 LTE network, multimedia features, enterprise security, long battery life and Webtop app.  She didn't like the Motorola custom UI, camera shutter lag, fuzzy screen and expensive Webtaop accessories. The 4.3" qHD(960x540) touchscreen was well-liked. Navigation was fast. The web browser was fast especially loading Flash pages. Call quality was decent. She concludes that it was worth waiting for albeit expensive.

Mark Spoonauer at LatopMag rated the Droid bionic 4 out of 5 and give it Editors' Choice for being the thinnest 4G LTE smartphone on Verizon Wireless, 4G LTE speeds, dual-core processor, loud speakers and ZumoCast streaming PC content. He didn't like the sluggish camera, price and the difficulty of adding app shortcuts to the homescreen. He like the My Data Usage widget while 1080p video recording was good. Battery usage at 7 hours 3o minutes was better than the Droid Charge (6:42), LG Revolution (5:13) and HTC Thunderbolt (3:56). He thought the Lapdock keyboard was too small. Benchmark tests were better than all category averages except for the Samsung Galaxy S II Ad3DBench for the Droid Bionic was 6990 while the Samsung Galaxy S II hit 7951. The Dorid Bionic scored 53.30 on Linpack with a 44.90 for the Samsung Galaxy S II. Benchmark CPU for the Droid Bionic was 2955 while the Galaxy S II pulled 3441. Data downloads averages were 11.6 Mbps down and 3.4 Mbps upload, with bursts on the down up to 20.1 Mbps.