My Droid Bionic Experiment

[Manchild Prodigy]

Update:

I'm very annoyed by the speaker on the Bionic. Because the placement and the overall design of the phone, when you put the phone down with the screen facing up, you cover the speaker. This makes it very difficult, and in some cases nearly impossible to hear any ringtones or notification tones. The phone is sitting on my desk right now, face up, with the volume nearly maxed out and I can barely hear the the tones when I get emails and Facebook notifications. If it weren't for the LED I'd never know I missed anything. This could be a deal-breaker for me. I'm on call 24/7, so if I can't hear the phone ringing then I have a problem. I shouldn't have to put the phone face down and risk scratching the screen just so I can hear it. As far as design is concerned, this is a huge flaw. If I can barely hear it from a foot away, then I almost certainly have no chance of hearing it from 10-15 feet away, awake or not. Definitely not good.

More to follow...

 

[2defmouze]

Update:

I'm very annoyed by the speaker on the Bionic. Because the placement and the overall design of the phone, when you put the phone down with the screen facing up, you cover the speaker. This makes it very difficult, and in some cases nearly impossible to hear any ringtones or notification tones. The phone is sitting on my desk right now, face up, with the volume nearly maxed out and I can barely hear the the tones when I get emails and Facebook notifications. If it weren't for the LED I'd never know I missed anything. This could be a deal-breaker for me. I'm on call 24/7, so if I can't hear the phone ringing then I have a problem. I shouldn't have to put the phone face down and risk scratching the screen just so I can hear it. As far as design is concerned, this is a huge flaw. If I can barely hear it from a foot away, then I almost certainly have no chance of hearing it from 10-15 feet away, awake or not. Definitely not good.

More to follow...

Hm really think this may be a problem with your unit. My speaker is plenty loud, even when rested speakers-down on a table I can hear the ring and tones EASILY from the other side of the apartment, lol.

 

[cman6453]

Dang Manchild, this is like a soap opera!! Big ups for this!!

 

[Averix]

Hm really think this may be a problem with your unit. My speaker is plenty loud, even when rested speakers-down on a table I can hear the ring and tones EASILY from the other side of the apartment, lol.

The same issue is true of the EVO 3D and other phones. The problem is usually worse if you put a case on it because the angle of how the phone sits changes from the original design. It also varies based on what you set it on. A hard flat surface may not have as many problems as a soft bed which muffles the sound more. I have noticed a pretty big difference with the Bionic depending on the angle and what it's sitting on.

 

[Jdm4292]

How is the battery life with only 3g?

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[Manchild Prodigy]

How is the battery life with only 3g?

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

Right now I'm coming up on 23 hours. I do have WiFi enabled too, so that may actually be a detriment as I've read a lot about WiFi not being very kind to the phone's battery. But I should also mention that I've actually been using the phone. Texting, Facebook, email, Google+, fantasy football, etc. I'm no longer holding back with the Bionic because I'm not worried about the battery. I was also streaming videos with ZumoCast to test out my transcoding efforts. And I've been browsing the web a little too while at work, so I'm hammering the Bionic a lot harder than I was first few days, where the phone basically sat untouched. If I had used the Bionic the way I'm using it now on 4G I figure the phone would've lasted 6 hours at most. So needless to say, the battery life is a lot better.

As for the comments about the speaker, the amount of sound muffling depends on the surface. If I set the phone on my couch, I can't hear a thing. Setting it on my desk at home isn't nearly as bad, but it's still muffled enough to make it difficult to hear from far away. I usually keep my phone on the dresser at night (as it also functions as my alarm clock). Given the application, any kind of sound muffing is not a good thing for me.

 

[Manchild Prodigy]

Dang Manchild, this is like a soap opera!! Big ups for this!!

The only thing that sucks is Verizon only gives me 14 days to play with it and make a decision. I'm probably going to do a similar "review" with the Galaxy S2. Right now I'm thinking of using Sprint's variation, given it's imminent release date and the fact that it has a notification LED, unlike AT&T's and T-Mobile's versions. This will also give me an opportunity to evaluate Sprint's network coverage in my area, since I've never used Sprint and don't really know anyone who has. I'll also have the chance to use both the Bionic and the Galaxy S2 side-by-side to get a much better comparison of how the phones stack up to one another.

 

[frasej]

Try getting a dock. Then plug speakers into it. That should help. The dock alone will keep the speakers from being muffled.

 

[wpwoodjr]

Update:

Took a couple of pictures. I can't say that I was impressed by the quality, but the lighting is pretty crappy so it's really hard to blame the Bionic. I also gave ZumoCast a try. I don't like it. I was somehow led to believe that ZC would do any media transcoding on the fly. This is not the case. The only formats that would work are formats supported by the stock Android video player. All-in-all I'm not impressed. I thought this would be one of the things that would ultimately lead me to keeping the Bionic. Now it's a non-factor.

More to follow...

Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk

Try Subsonic. Its in the Android Market. Trans-codes on the fly from your home server, beautifully done app.

 

[dcgore]

The only thing that sucks is Verizon only gives me 14 days to play with it and make a decision. I'm probably going to do a similar "review" with the Galaxy S2. Right now I'm thinking of using Sprint's variation, given it's imminent release date and the fact that it has a notification LED, unlike AT&T's and T-Mobile's versions. This will also give me an opportunity to evaluate Sprint's network coverage in my area, since I've never used Sprint and don't really know anyone who has. I'll also have the chance to use both the Bionic and the Galaxy S2 side-by-side to get a much better comparison of how the phones stack up to one another.

Very cool, keep us posted. From my experience Sprints service is extremly solid but when you look at 4g speeds, there's just not a comparison. I think you'll end up stick with VZ imo.

 

[Manchild Prodigy]

Very cool, keep us posted. From my experience Sprints service is extremly solid but when you look at 4g speeds, there's just not a comparison. I think you'll end up stick with VZ imo.

Even though Sprint's 4G doesn't compare to Verizon's in pure speed, it sure beats the hell out of 3G. I ran Speedtest while on 3G and managed a blazing fast 0.88 Mbps.

 

[shadrap]

You should go see phonedog's Sprint phone reviews. They have only been averaging .20 on 3G. According to them Sprint's data speeds have declined significantly for some reason. Supposedly it's like that on the whole east coast.

 

[cman6453]

The only thing that sucks is Verizon only gives me 14 days to play with it and make a decision. I'm probably going to do a similar "review" with the Galaxy S2. Right now I'm thinking of using Sprint's variation, given it's imminent release date and the fact that it has a notification LED, unlike AT&T's and T-Mobile's versions. This will also give me an opportunity to evaluate Sprint's network coverage in my area, since I've never used Sprint and don't really know anyone who has. I'll also have the chance to use both the Bionic and the Galaxy S2 side-by-side to get a much better comparison of how the phones stack up to one another.

I'm doing a side-by-side with the international version of the SGS II as you read this. Some quick feedback: DISPLAY: SGS II (By a HUGE margin but not relevant enough for me to stay with AT&T or abandon Bionic); NETWORK (SPEED): Bionic; OVERALL EXPERIENCE: Bionic.

Maybe some of this has to do with my recent trip to Chicago where AT&T's network sucked monkey nuts!! I had 4 bars but the data stream absolutely blew. Changed my device from an iPhone 4 to the SGS II and it was still bogged. I bought into the Thunderbolt back in March and got it configured with ideal battery life after rooting and all. Not sure why I left Big Red especially with the unlimited data but I'm happily back even with the limitations. The H+ network with AT&T is barely better than 3G.