The LED during a finish of a tunnel: hands-on with a Motorola Droid Bionic

The Motorola Droid Bionic was never lost after a locked-down entrance during CES all a approach behind in January. All year, it was dangled usually a few months in a future, earnest an forlorn Android experience. Now that a phone is finally alighting in customers’ hands, a Droid Bionic is not by any means unmatched as it debuts among a slew of new handsets. But while we found some careless corners, a Droid Bionic presents a good knowledge overall.

The Droid Bionic is one of those phones that feels like it’s pulling a clarification of reasonable when it comes to size, with a 4.3-inch qHD screen. The form cause is conflicting from a Droid Bionic indication seen in January, that was some-more dull and sleek, closer to a recently expelled Motorola Photon 4G.

The Droid Bionic now on marketplace has crook corners and a glossy faux-chrome-plated chin on a bottom with an embedded microphone, like a Droid X2. Like a Droid X phones, a Bionic is also thicker during a tip of a phone, measuring 12.5 millimeters during a thickest indicate and 11 millimeters during a thinnest. It feels complicated during 5.6 ounces.

The behind is a somewhat rubberized cosmetic that feels good in hand, nonetheless a approach a behind angles into a front is a uncanny concede between ergonomics and pattern that isn’t too comfortable. The haptic feedback is unequivocally gentle, roughly nonexistent.

A volume rocker sits on a right side of a phone, and a sleep/silent symbol is on tip of a phone’s left side conflicting a 3.5mm headphone jack. The 4 Android buttons lay along a bottom of a screen, and a microUSB pier and mini-HDMI pier are towards a bottom on a left side. On a back, there are dual speakers, one of that curls around a 8-megapixel camera that can also record 1080p video, complemented by a front-facing VGA camera.

The Droid Bionic comes with a sum of 32GB of storage, separate between 16GB onboard and a 16GB SD card, that can be upgraded to 32GB. With so many phones skimping on storage and withdrawal business to buy their possess SD card, it’s good to see a manufacturer holding caring of that before putting a phone in users’ hands. However, this does seem like a pierce to transparent a $299.99 cost point, and a storage separate can be irritating to understanding with when putting media files on a phone.

The camera on a Droid Bionic is fast, and cinema are pleasing and transparent with loyal colors if a lighting is good. For both video and photos, a camera unequivocally struggles to concentration in even medium low light settings. This can disaster with a print timer as well, as a camera will take additional time to lift a concentration and snap a design when lighting isn’t optimal.

Occasionally, a timer seemed out of sync with a auto-focus when in low-light settings, so a camera was holding cinema usually after a theme was entirely in focus. The camera is versed with a flash, that helps lessen problems in a lowest-light setups, so dimmer indoor situations that don’t unequivocally need peep humour a most.

In terms of responsiveness, a Droid Bionic is a best Android phone we’ve nonetheless encountered. Phones can feel quick before we have gotten to know a hardware or doing system, yet once suit memory has set in, phones mostly start to feel like they can’t keep up. With a Droid Bionic, we never feel like a handset is lagging behind even a little; a doing complement and apps are always in step with a gestures. It gladdens a hearts to see Android (2.3.4 Gingerbread on a Droid Bionic) come into a possess with any new hardware iteration.

The Droid Bionic specs have been beefed adult a small given CES, with 1GB of RAM and an OMAP 4430 1GHz dual-core processor. The OMAP processor feels like it fares most improved in a Droid 3, that had half a RAM, nonetheless a strike in benchmarks is hardly noticeable.

Graphics digest is where a Droid Bionic seems to humour most—in Quadrant Standard’s graphics test, it clocks around 30 frames per second, and infrequently as low as 11-12 fps, where a Galaxy S II pushes 60 fps. Overall, a Quadrant measure is muted given a hardware, and fails to best a stream biggest competitor, a Samsung Galaxy S II, by a prolonged shot (we’ve clocked a Galaxy S II in a 3400 range).

The Droid Bionic likewise doesn’t uncover adult to work on a Linpack scores, with 44 MFLOPS in single-threaded processes and 35.6 in multi-threaded ones. Our knowledge personification graphics-heavy games corroborates all a benchmarks: a cartoonish diversion like Angry Birds has some slight stutters, yet pulling adult even a elementary yet graphically flattering diversion like infeCCt creates a phone hiccupy. As phones go, this is a tragedy.

On Verizon’s 4G LTE network, downloading apps and browsing a Internet is a dream come true. Even with usually dual out of 4 bars, we clocked a download speeds during 14.2Mbps and upload speeds during 2.6Mbps.

Battery life on a Droid Bionic is solid, yet not spectacular. Motorola rates it during roughly 11 hours of speak time, and in a tests a phone clocked usually over 5 hours of video playback. During a daily use (infrequent e-mailing, texting, Web browsing, a occasional streamed video, some light gaming), a phone lasted good into a evening, as prolonged as we weren’t gaming too most or personification too many videos.

Despite a Bionic’s intermediate opening in a integrate of areas, a whole feels improved than a sum of a parts. The Droid Bionic’s common doing of graphically complete calm is unsatisfactory in a phone that is differently whip-fast, yet even in those situations, a opening isn’t painful; it usually doesn’t compare adult with a rest of a knowledge on a phone. We’re a small heedful of a two-year agreement cost ($299.99), generally given retailers mostly as not bust out good sales on Android phones not prolonged after release, and a Droid Bionic is one of a priciest handsets accessible right now.

Those whose trails of drool over a Droid Bionic extend all a approach behind to early Jan might be unhappy that a phone isn’t perfect. Now might be a time to bound on house a Motorola sight if we wish to be positively certain we stay on a Android slicing corner over a subsequent dual years.

The Good:

• Performance is a snappiest we’ve seen in an Android device
• Camera takes good cinema and videos with good lighting
• Battery life is strong for ubiquitous use
• Ample storage comes standard

The Bad:

• Camera can stutter but good lighting
• Not unequivocally peaceful to hold
• Video hits battery’s diseased spot

The Ugly:

• Mediocre graphics opening underscored by underwhelming benchmarks