Droid Bionic by Motorola

All articles on this site are by Harry Skevington unless otherwise noted with another byline

January 2012
Droid Bionic by Motorola
For Verizon

Droid Bionic by Motorola for Verizon

Before going to the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 (CES) I checked with Verizon to see if they had a phone for me to test on the trip. They provided a Motorola Droid Bionic for my field test. It was to be a very interesting week or so with 4 plane rides, in and out of hotels, casinos, and the Las Vegas Convention Center. The show itself covered 1,850,000 Square feet of booths, events, and meeting places. I found many dead spots in the Las Vegas convention center as well as my and other hotels. This is not the fault of the phone as much as location issues.

Setting up the phone was simple as it is with most Android units. The 4.3 inch qHD display is bright and sharp. The Droid Bionic uses Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread, has a Dual-core 1 GHz Processor and 1 GB of RAM. The 8 megapixel autofocus camera takes great photos and even the video is pretty decent. As with most phones the front facing camera is adequate but not super. (SEE Photos) Click here to see more detailed specs.

The Good:
Universal Inbox – I had no problem adding many accounts. Even BellSouth eMail setup without a glitch.
The 5 bright readable touch screens – Really great!
Social networking App – Handles info from Facebook, Twitter, etc. All info in one place is a plus
Backup Assistant – Recurring Sync at night as well as Sync Now Availability you can Sync anytime.
IM Accounts – Aim, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo
My Library – Photos I took and saved in early December I found were automatically loaded onto the Droid Bionic after I got it for testing.
MOTO PRINT – Print to almost any HP and Epson printers using WI-FI
HDMI Port - to Show Videos made on The Droid Bionic on your T.
Notifications - The good in this function is you hear a tone every time a notification is added to the top of your screen. That is also a negative if you cannot handle the frequent bonging. This also happens when you get messages. These tones can be turned off or changed or you can do as I did and bring the volume control to almost off.

The Bad
Running hot: The phone really runs hot when used over long periods of time.
Battery use is over the top when you start the day with 100% and by noon have only 20% battery charge left.
Actions to improve: Check and change usage using Battery Manager to improve charge life but slows down response time. The Android OS uses over 50 percent of the charge. Changing battery mode from Performance mode to either Maximum Battery saver or Nightime saver is a simple task. Setting up the Custom battery saver requires some thought. Customer also may disconnect the cellular data connection after a period of inactivity. When disconnected it cannot sync anything. Any streaming media will be interrupted.

The Bionic is one of the most capable phones I have tested in the Droid series. I am sure the next one will be even more diversified and hopefully some of the issues that I mention above will be corrected. This one really did the job for me while at CES 2012. Even with the issues mentioned here.


	Harry Skevington has been involved with electronics since 1981. He has taught, written for, and provided support to, computer users since 1985. Information that will help consumers with buying decisions is more important than ever due to the current convergence of computers and other consumer products . Harry attends CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas on assignment as a working press writer each year to find and write about emerging technology that seems to fit the needs of his readers. Contact Harry

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