Bionic Screen vs. Photon Screen

[joebob2011]

I know that there have been a lot of discussions on the pentile screen that Motorola employs for their smart phones. I've been using a Motorola Photon for a while and thought the pentile screen was quite nice and thought it wouldn't be a big deal if my wife purchased the Bionic. Boy was I surprised when we got the Bionic last night to see that her new phone had a markedly poorer screen.

On the photon, you can hardly see the subpixels and the screen does not feature the shimmering effect or the jaggies (although the Photon is a little dimmer than the Bionic screen - both phones are set on Auto-Brightness). When we got the Bionic for my wife, I immediately noticed the complaints people have been posting. I even loaded up identical web pages, pictures, wallpapers, etc. to compare and could easily see the difference between the two phones.

I thought I'd post this to highlight that all pentile screens are not created equally by Motorola. Although I am disappointed with the quality of the Bionic screen, my wife finds it "ok" and we will be keeping an otherwise awesome phone.

Congrats to all of the new owners out there.

 

[shadowsjc]

I know that there have been a lot of discussions on the pentile screen that Motorola employs for their smart phones.

yet you started a brand new thread for this?

 

[pushdrops]

yet you started a brand new thread for this?

Yes because if you would read his entire post , while there has been talk of the pentile on the Bionic , he's comparing the Photon to the Bionic - and I have been considering both phones and this thread is exactly what i was looking for (as I have a Bionic to try out and was going to get Photon and move to Sprint b4 beinpersuadeded with a heavy discount and trial othete Bionic).

I hope soon to take the Bionic to a Sprint store and compare the display to the Bionic (I can see dots in mGreygrey background areas on the Bionic as well as that the color yellow looks like mustard at best as opposed to a brighter true yellow, willinterestingting to compare thesethe teh Photon).

What i can't believe is that the Photon has been out for a while and in ways seems to be better tyhan the Bionic but yet the Photon has hardly any atteandon adn it is only $99 at BB and RShack, while the Bionic is at least 2x the price - and everyone continued to wait....

As far the great VZW network - the Bionic that I have as well as i'witheen wtih many other posts - 3G cuts out often woriginalorgiinal Droid never did here at home - very annoying (so besides there is not LTE in my area though VZW advertises as such <it's near the Interstate and in small portions of the local area only> ,

The Bionic has horrible battery life with Cell Standby taking up 45%+ of the battery usage and the signal cuts out) - so 99% sure taking back the Bionic , getting a Photon OR the Epic Touch Galaxy sII variant , also only $99 at WalMart on Sprint - as i can get my wife and I both new phones for the price of the Bionic, choose between a near Bionic model in the Photon that may have a better (doubt worse) display or the Epic Touch andtheirof tiehr of those phones for the same price as 1 actuallyacutally less as had to pay $249 for the Bionic as an upgrade, whethe2 of teh Photon's Touchc Touchs will be less than $200 Plus

Plus themonthlyt montly charges will be $20 less at the least and include free any mobile to mobile plus unlimited SMS - kbrainier brainer ... (which i was set to leave VZW but waited just in case the Bionic was BETTER tPhotone PHoton / X2/ D3 <howouldit woudl have a better display, camera etc. - but turns out it does NOT and can't keep a 3G signal and batter life sucks and another HUGE issue which i will cthek on teh Photon - the whine / hiss souheadphoneseadpones on the Bcompletelyointolerableolerable).

Guess that's what i get for getting talked into trying out the bionic (will cost me a $35 restocking , ththeh with teh HISSlikehine electricale elctical interference on an AM car radio sometimes, maybe because of that and the fact it loses the 3G signal often i can erestockingrestokcing fee as those are TWO defective not subjective items>).

Bionic issues:
- dots / pixels noticeable on much content
- yellow looks like dark mustard color at best
- losess 3G data connection often (when my wife's Eris, my Droid, work BBerry all never have had issues here at this location)
- battery life is horrible and Cell Standby is taking up 45% of the battery use (have set to both CDMA only , Home only - tried all settings)
- The headphone issue isn't noticeable at 1st but once you notice it, it's horrible <play any MP3, then PAUSE the tune, and listen to 1 second of "noise / hiss" , this is present whenever audio is passed thru, you can hear in quieter passages or when stopping a tune for a split second, it's not apparent as soon as plugging phones in, you have to pass thru audio>)

I want to llike and keep the Bionic but for the $$$$$ (both pricey on the phone itself and the VZW plan and the fact that now the 1 year upgrade is no more, this will have to last TWO years and already there are serious issues, no way can i see paying premium $$$ with so many issues out of the box <especially the data connection, cell standby battery usage> - then add up that the camera is awful compared to even my wife's Eris (for indoor shots, outside the Bionic is fine) - it's just not anywhere near what it should be for a Sept 2011 released "Hi End, most expensive VZW handset, sorry).

The Photon if it doesn't have the data connection issues and at 1/2 the price, I'll take even if the camera is the same as the Bionic but for a much less $$ plan and phone price , I can deal with it and if the Photon does NOT have the headphone / audio issue.

Plus the Epic Touch while the screen may make it too large for me, at $99 will consider it.

I'm not even getting into the locked Bionic bootloader as that may change (the Photon is unlocked, but due to it not being popular who knows if it will get say a real deal Cyanogenmod...).

I'm not saying the Bionic is an awful phone but the data connectivity issues, headphone / audio issue thoseoareeunacceptablele even on a mid to low priced device (as every phone i have had in the past 10 years has not had issues with its data connection and never audiinterferencenc / hiss issues).

 

[terrapin01]

Screenshots showing the comparison would be helpful.

 

[badbubba]

I had the Photon with Sprint for about a week, before switching to Verizon . I got the Bionic on launch day. I don't notice any difference between the two. Perhaps you have a bad unit, or maybe you are just looking harder for it on the Bionic because of all the talk about its screen, but honestly to me they both look very good.

 

[Droid800]

Screenshots showing the comparison would be helpful.

Screenshots would look the same since all its doing is capturing whatever the GUI is showing. You would need side by side pics.

 

[ajkid93]

I know that there have been a lot of discussions on the pentile screen that Motorola employs for their smart phones. I've been using a Motorola Photon for a while and thought the pentile screen was quite nice and thought it wouldn't be a big deal if my wife purchased the Bionic. Boy was I surprised when we got the Bionic last night to see that her new phone had a markedly poorer screen.

On the photon, you can hardly see the subpixels and the screen does not feature the shimmering effect or the jaggies (although the Photon is a little dimmer than the Bionic screen - both phones are set on Auto-Brightness). When we got the Bionic for my wife, I immediately noticed the complaints people have been posting. I even loaded up identical web pages, pictures, wallpapers, etc. to compare and could easily see the difference between the two phones.

I thought I'd post this to highlight that all pentile screens are not created equally by Motorola. Although I am disappointed with the quality of the Bionic screen, my wife finds it "ok" and we will be keeping an otherwise awesome phone.

Congrats to all of the new owners out there.

I believe the photon doesnt use pentile. It uses a color transflective tft display. Two very different display technologies. With that said, it is a like it or hate it. I love it, because I use it for music, texting, some games and movies. Though, I generally watch the movies off of my tv. That is worth it, also the occasional gps use, and web searching. No book reading, as any phone/tablet is kind of bad for ebooks, I just use my kindle.

 

[landale]

I actually agree that the screen on the Bionic is worse then the screen on the X2 and Photon in terms of color reproduction. I find it hard to believe that Motorola would manufacture different screens for each so I wonder if the problem isn't the screen but the graphics systems. The Photon and X2 are both Tegra 2 devices while the Bionic is OMAP4. These would be totally different graphics systems. It might just be they are tuned differently. Hopefully this can be adjusted a bit as I love everything else about my Bionic but the screen is really terrible...

 

[Ewing33855]

There was an issue that the tegra 2 chip was interfering with the 4g lte radio which is why motorola had to scrap and go back to the drawing board

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

 

[greydarrah]

My screen is amazingly beautiful...side by side, much richer colors than my droid x. My battery life is also awesome. Unplug at 730 am, plugin at midnight with 50% left after using it all day (that's using the extended battery). I guess it's just not a good phone for you. Get something else...there are many great devices out there.

 

[TrinitYPL]

qHD 540x960 and qHD 540x960.... its the same screen...

 

[GTS21]

I checked out a friends Photon tonight. Compared to my bionic, the Photon's screen was darker, and it definitely showed less of the pixelization and matrix. Also considerably less of the image degradation when scrolling/swiping.

 

[Ewing33855]

I checked out a friends Photon tonight. Compared to my bionic, the Photon's screen was darker, and it definitely showed less of the pixelization and matrix. Also considerably less of the image degradation when scrolling/swiping.

I wonder if motorola purposely did that to the db to help with battery life knowing it's a 4g phone and all.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

 

[pushdrops]

The photon is four g, anxious to try one tonight or tomorrow night

 

[Droid800]

I checked out a friends Photon tonight. Compared to my bionic, the Photon's screen was darker, and it definitely showed less of the pixelization and matrix. Also considerably less of the image degradation when scrolling/swiping.

It showed less because it was darker. The brighter the screen, the more it will show the pentile. The swiping scrolling thing may have to do with the newer skin, because the x2 I had (which has the same skin as the photon) looked nothing like the bionic.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Johnly]

qHD 540x960 and qHD 540x960.... its the same screen...

You sir are a brilliant one. Indeed. I was in sprint and VZW (they are next to each other) and played with both. Same tech, same screen. That LTE with unlimited data and hotspot makes the bionic way better for me. You did it again verizon! Thank you : )

 

[pushdrops]

Brought the Bionic to a Sprint store this evening, downloaded the Color Palette app on the Photon:

Comparing the 2 screens (brightness was set to the middle position on each)

- Color was the same on each viewing the 16 color list via the CoPaletteette app (free from the Market) - yellow seems like mustard on each, couldn't tell a diff

- The Bionic was quite a bit sharper - so much that it was if the Photon had a case covering the screen or protector - there def wasn't a case and there did not seem to be a screen protector installed (it was the phone of an employee) . pixelationxelation wasn't there - i quickly pulled up Droid Life as the top of the sitgraythe grey area for each story, exampleexamplpe of pretty evidentepixelationxelathen on teh Bionic , didn't pixelationxelation on the Photon but due to the lack of sharpness this makes sense.

I don't get why the Photon wasn't as sharp (in fact, the battery inditimeor and tme were almost "fuzzy" compared to the Bionic) - i expected them to be the same in sharpness and perhaps a diff in color saturation.

So there's my comparison of the two screens - samBioniclor, Binonic much sharper.

I didn't have headphones to test the high pitched whine / noise that's present when stopping or during lower passages (anything via the audio analog output).

I took a picture within the store using both phones and the results seemed identical (at least viewing the pics back thru each phone's own screen which isn't the best way to view but a quick test showed the same result pretty much - also in the time to fcamerahough the camear app was a little differenDidn'the Photon.

Dind't have time to see if the Photon has the annoying zooming in and out focus issue during shooting video.

Overall - they were very close I'd I'd have to say i'd take the Bionthoughharper screen pixelationshowI'vee pixelation as i've gotten used to it. I don't find the screen on the Bionic after a week nearly of use pixelationbI'm- the pixelation i'm I'dd to, the colors i'd wish for more OKturation but it's ok.

The line out audio noise, slow camera focus and very poor camera performance indoreallyno phone will do realy well indoors but my orig Droid and wife's Eris do better and they aren't so great) - plus the frequent network drops (CDMA only, not an issue on my other VZW phones, only the Bionic) - those issues are enough to really bother me, but I think unless I really like the Epic Touch when it arrives on Friday, i will just keep the Bionic, githeit to my wife when teh next good VZW phone drops and I will use her upgrade to get the new phone for me (the Bionic for her will be fine).

On Friday I will compare the Photon, Bionic and Epic 4G together quite a bit - as I have to decide on what to keep / switch by Saturday as next week i will be tied up with work and unable to return the Bionic - this cuts down on my trial time.