Hands-On With The Motorola Droid Bionic For Verizon

Today Motorola and Verizon announced the Droid Bionic. It took its sweet time getting here, but it’s finally official. We are forevermore free of writing posts about how long its been delayed. Instead we get to write about the phone itself, which is much more enjoyable for everyone involved.

We have a longer review in the works, but we thought it’d be nice to give you guys some hands-on impressions of this bad boy fresh from the announcement. As far as specs go, we seem to have had those nailed a long time ago:

• Verizon 4G LTE
• Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread
• 1GHz dual-core processor
• 1GB of RAM
• 8-megapixel rear-, VGA front-facing cameras (1080p video capture)
• 4.3-inch qHD display
• Lapdock accessories not included

But that’s enough for the cold hard facts. How does the phone feel?

• Size: The Bionic is a bit large for my taste, sporting dimensions of 2.63in x 5in x 0.43in. It has a little hump on the upper rear edge making it a bit thicker than the promised .43 inches, but its weight treads nicely on the line between cumbersome and cheap-feeling.
• Display: The screen is slightly recessed — great for keeping it scratch-free — and boasts a resolution of 960×540 pixels. I can’t honestly say it beats the Super AMOLED Plus display on the AT&T Galaxy S II, but there’s certainly competition there.
• Feel: With a soft touch finish, the back panel has a nice feel in the hand, but doesn’t deal well with prints. The bezel, though smaller, has an even harder time dealing with smudges.
• Performance: There’s no doubt whatsoever that the Bionic is snappy. It handled just about everything I threw at it (some games, a little web browsing, and some Hulu-style video playback) with no problem at all. But I did expect loading the apps themselves would be faster. There was a bit of a lag opening up some games, the camera, and the browser.

The Droid Bionic will be available on September 8 for $299 on-contract from Verizon. Luckily, a couple promotions are going down that may help out your wallet. If you plan on switching to the Bionic from a feature phone and your contract is up soon, you can get a $100 gift card to go toward the price of your new Bionic. If you’re planning on going all out and getting that fancy lapdock, too, you’ll get $100 mail-in rebate if your purchase both the Bionic and the lapdock at the same time.

Crunchbase

• MOTOROLA MOBILITY
• VERIZON

Company: Motorola Mobility

Website: motorolamobility.com

Launch Date: January 4, 2011

Motorola is known around the world for innovation in communications and is focused on advancing the way the world connects. From broadband communications infrastructure, enterprise mobility and public safety solutions to mobile and wireline digital communication devices that provide compelling experiences, Motorola is leading the next wave of innovations that enable people, enterprises and governments to be more connected and more mobile. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) had sales of US $22 billion in 2009

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Company: Verizon

Website: verizon.com

IPO: NASDAQ:VZ

Verizon Communications Inc. delivers broadband and other wireline and wireless communication innovations to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers. Verizon Wireless operates America’s largest wireless network that serves nearly 102 million customers nationwide. Verizon’s Wireline operations include Verizon Business and Verizon Telecom, which brings customers converged communications, information and entertainment services over Verizon’s fiber-optic network.

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