Bionic First Impressions/Reviews

[916ninja]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

This is my first experience with this screen type and as it turns out, I'm not too hot on PenTile. I'm seeing what everyone has been complaining about. I'm coming from the AMOLED on the Incredible.
Now, to be fair, I'm pretty sure the AMOLED screen enhances colors a great deal, making a gorgeous display. For example, if I take a picture on the Incredible, it looks HOT on the phone, but when I xfer the file to my PC, the colors are definitely more washed out.
The screen is definitely grainy. You don't have to hold the phone inches from your face to tell. Turn up the brightness and it gets worse. On top of that, I don't believe it can render certain colors correctly. The yellow tiles in the Words with Friends app look faded, and brownish; like an old banana.

The phone performs like a beast though. I'm not sure if the display is worth it though. I have to hang on a week and see how much battery PenTile save before I can make a sound decision. I am, however, prepared to take it back and wait for the Prime.

I actually made a post on the issue of the yellows. It appears that is a bad color for the screen. Not sure if that could be fixed ota. The yellow has either a darkened bannana brown feeling to it or a greenish hue to it. My example was naruto on netflix. His hair has that i have been in a swimming pool too long and my blonde hair is turning green look to it. Also you can easily see the browning on moonchaser compared to other phones. The menu color text is more like a dark brown instead of yellow compared to other phones.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

[jgmankos]

Originally Posted by Droid800

Having had the charge, the real test will be loading it down with texts and info and using it for a few days. Frankly, the charge blew chunks when it came to real use. Using a dual core after the charge is night and day.

(And the bionic isn't just a little faster. It has double the RAM, and its ddr2, which makes it even faster.)

There's nothing wrong with the charge, but any dual core phone smokes it.
Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk

My findings are pretty much the same. I had Droid X, went to a Droid Charge and hated it. It just seemed that once I threw a few apps on it there was a noticable lag...and playing Angry Birds...forget it. It wanted to vomit.

I notice a HUGE difference in speed between the Bionic and the Charge...and I already have the Bionic loaded with apps running and it's just devouring whatever I throw at it.

[Plucknbach]

Originally Posted by KillerG

I will be trying all these apps I've been hearing when I get Bionicfied, hopefully next week. I'm like $203 short because my mom borrowed $185 from me a few months ago and can't pay me back for like a month or two. I knew I should've kept my mouth shut and kept my money.
So I've seen Vignette and HDR Camera+ now.

Your mom did you a favor. In a month or two, you'll be able to find deals on the Bionic. This way you won't pay the full $300. Be smart and spend smart. You'll get the phone you want for less. It a win, win. WINNING!!!

[ManBearPig618]

Still figuring stuff out...even though I'm connected to my home Wifi the service bars to the right of it are still blue, not white? Cell standby has also used 31% of my battery...is something not configured right?

[jgmankos]

My two-and-a-half cent review (adjusted for inflation)...

Aesthetics - Feels solid in the hand. Not as thin as the Droid X I upgraded from....but it's still a very svelte phone all things considered.
Screen - I love the screen. Display wise, it's very bright. It's not as vibrant/crisp as the Samsung AMOLED displays so if that's the standard you judge by...you'll be disappointed. There is a very slight graininess that people are complaining about...but I don't buy a phone to watch movies on a 4.3" screen...that's what the HDMI out is for
Hardware - Dual core and a gig of DDR2 RAM make this phone FAST!!!
Phone - Phone reception is great. Have not used the speakerphone yet. Speaker seems loud as my ringtone mp3 seems louder than it did on the X.
Overall User Interface - I like the interface...to a point. I don't like that you can't customize it at all so I put Launcher Pro on it.
Signal quality - On Par with the Droid X
GPS - Have not used
Battery Life - Too soon to tell yet!
Performance - Did I mention this phone is FAST? This is by far the most responsive phone I've had. Everything I've tried to do with it thus far, happens in an instant.
Camera (both still & video) - Have not tested...I've heard it's basically the same as the X so I'm in no real hurry to scrutinize that.
How the Bionic compares to your previous smartphone - Well...My Android experience is this: I had the OG Droid on Launch day, Got the Droid X one year later. Had a Droid Charge for 10 days immediately preceding getting the Bionic. Have a Nook Color rooted w/Cyanogenmod 7. Wife has a Droid Incredible, daughter has a Samsung Fascinate. I told you all that to tell you this. This is, by leaps and bounds, the FASTEST, most responsive phone of the bunch. Of course I would expect it to be considering the hardware...however alot of people seem to be downplaying this. I never thought my Droid X was slow until using this. It is that much snappier. I love a responsive phone and thus far...this is screamin'. I can't wait to test out some of the more advanced functionality.
Disappointments - My only gripe is the same I have with ANY of the Android flavors that come out...and that is the lack of a customizable User Interface. It's not that I don't like Launcher Pro...it's just that I wish I didn't HAVE to install it. Upon first seeing the UI on the Bionic...I had hopes that I could just keep the stock interface....Alas...without the ability to customize it even just a little bit...I had to go to LP

Overall....it's fantastic. Look...there's always something better coming down the pike. This is the phone I've been waiting for for awhile so I jumped on it on launch day and do not regret it. Whether or not you feel it's worth the price is a personal decision...to me I want a device like this to do what I need it to do and I don't care about the pricetag. YMMV

[wpwoodjr]

Originally Posted by jgmankos

My two-and-a-half cent review (adjusted for inflation)...
Camera (both still & video) - Have not tested...I've heard it's basically the same as the X so I'm in no real hurry to scrutinize that.

I did a comparison of the DX camera and the Bionic. The Bionic is actually much better; with more detail, less noise, and less of that "painterly" look when you blow it up to pixel-level detail. Attached see a crop from each camera.

Bionic:

Droid X:

[carz]

my impressions:
- speaker sucks
- volume isnt very loud
- Notification LED isnt very bright
- screen is decent, sucks outdoors.
- Battery is meh, but its still a virgin
- UI is kind of cumbersome for no reason
- I hate the app drawer and how I cant move items around the way i want
- Speed is great
- Internet is great
- keyboard is meh

[oresteez]

Originally Posted by wpwoodjr

I did a comparison of the DX camera and the Bionic. The Bionic is actually much better; with more detail, less noise, and less of that "painterly" look when you blow it up to pixel-level detail. Attached see a crop from each camera.

Bionic: Attachment 14569
Droid X: Attachment 14570

I'd like to thank you for this post, but I don't know how! thanks for the comparison pics though!
can you take some more? would you mind? indoor pics? outdoor? low light? people in motion? haha i know i'm asking a lot.

Pentile alone is not a dealbreaker to me... Pentile + potentially crappy camera IS a dealbreaker though..

[TomT1949]

Originally Posted by Ram7730

I am very happy with the phone so far. I understand why people complain about the screen but for my use it is good. Since I am coming from an OG Droid I am more than happy with the performance. I have had no lag at all even when loading up the home screens with widgets. I probably would not have gotten it if not for the deal at Costco because $300 for a phone is hard to swallow. I have rooted it and am in the process of transferring all of my data from my old phone which is a pain. I'm sure there is an easier way to do it but I'm not as knowledgeable as most on this site. Battery life seems pretty good although I do not have 4gLTE in my area so I'm sure that is part of the reason why it is good. All in all I would reccomend the phone to others especially if they are upgrading from a phone almost 2 years old as I was

You got it at Costco? I thought it wasn't going to be available until the 13th?

[flashpiti]

Originally Posted by wpwoodjr

I did a comparison of the DX camera and the Bionic. The Bionic is actually much better; with more detail, less noise, and less of that "painterly" look when you blow it up to pixel-level detail. Attached see a crop from each camera.

Bionic: Attachment 14569
Droid X: Attachment 14570

Thanks for the examples. That shows a lot of noise reduction which causes that smearing effect. It also shows that both cameras a pretty crappy.