The Verizon Motorola Droid Bionic is finally available after a long, strange trip. The dual-core, 4G LTE smartphone debuted all the way back in January at CES, faced delays and a brain transplant, and is now available to the masses for about $300 on a two-year contract. Is it worth the wait?
We’ll have a full review very shortly but I wanted to share some initial thoughts on the latest Android superphone. The Droid Bionic looks and feels very similar to the Droid X2, which I find to be a good thing. It sports a 4.3-inch qHD display with Gorilla Glass that’s nice to look, is responsive but not quite as good as we’re used to seeing from Samsung or HTC.
Underneath the screen, you have four capacitive Android buttons and the front-facing camera and the notification light. Along the left spine there’s a solid volume rocker and the right spine has the microUSB port and the miniHDMI out port. The power/unlock button’s on top with the standard headphone jack.
The back of the Verizon Motorola Droid Bionic is a soft plastic finish that makes the device feel comfortable in your hand. Some of you may miss the premium feel of a brushed aluminum or metal backing but I’ve found this leads to a good in-hand feel. Unlike the Droid X2, the whole back cover of the Droid Bionic comes off in one piece.
The look and feel of the Droid Bionic is solid but what’s really exciting is the inside, as this is the first device to sport a dual-core processor and 4G LTE connectivity. The few speed tests I’ve done have been impressive and we already know that Verizon 4G LTE is the real deal. We’re still putting the TI OMAP dual-core processor through the paces but it looks pretty snappy so far.
The Droid Bionic rocks Motorola’s customized version of Android and it’s hit or miss so far. With Google trying to buy Motorola, this may be the last phone we ever see with remnants of MotoBlur. I’m happy about that.
We’ll have the full review up shortly with videos but let us know specifically what you’d like to hear about.
