The Bionic cellphone
Published 12:01 am Sunday, September 18, 2011
I’m not a tech geek.
That’s not to say that I don’t like technology — new tablets, cameras, phones. I just don’t keep up with the terminology that goes with it.
I don’t care how many gigamawhats or megapixies the latest gadgets have. What I do care about: How much does it cost? How fast is it? And, most important, how easy is it to use?
My BlackBerry phone is in its final weeks of life. It has been dropped and rolled in dirt so many times that the roller ball sticks. The phone’s camera is fogged over permanently — the victim of too much toddler drool (BlackBerrys are tasty). When Verizon offered to lend me the new Droid Bionic phone by Motorola to review, I jumped at the chance — even if it meant having to beef up my tech glossary. I thought I’d use the opportunity to narrow down choices for my next phone between BlackBerry, Android or iPhone.
After using the BlackBerry’s physical keys, I worried I wouldn’t adjust to the Bionic’s touch screen. However, after a day or so, I found the touch keys fairly easy to use. Part of that is because of the Bionic’s large screen.
At 4.3 inches, the high-definition screen is as big as my entire BlackBerry, keyboard and all. The large screen size made just about everything easier: viewing websites, taking pictures and video, even finding contacts.
Verizon’s press release on the Bionic barraged me with descriptions like “4G LTE” and “dual-core 1 GHz processors, 1 GB of RAM.”
Translation: This phone is fast. Dizzyingly, ridiculously fast. Touch a link on the Web browser and it opens almost instantaneously. Want to download a new app? You won’t wait more than a few seconds for that, either. Its camera produces 8-megapixel photos. Sending one photo via text message? It’s done already.
The Bionic, like other Android phones, has plenty of fun features that make it easy to use. If I had continued to struggle typing on the touch screen, in many cases I could just touch the speaker icon and tell the phone what I wanted to type — whether it was a text message or a website.
The Navigation feature on the Bionic comes in handy in getting around here in the Puget Sound region. It works like many GPS units, giving both a map and verbal directions to get to your desired location. It also pulls in traffic reports to help you figure out your best route.
I also was impressed with the Bionic’s most basic feature: phone and speaker quality. To test this out, I called my father, whose hearing isn’t the greatest. On my BlackBerry, he often can’t hear me if I put him on speaker. With the Bionic, my dad could hear me more clearly on speaker than he could off speaker on the BlackBerry.
Motorola obviously thinks the Bionic has so much going for it that users might just turn it into their own personal computers. You can buy various docking stations that will allow you to hook the phone up to a TV, keyboard or monitor.
On the downside, the Bionic’s battery didn’t last long. It was in the red by the end of the work day. I suppose that’s a tradeoff for the speed. Although it offered several fun apps, the Bionic’s selection doesn’t compare with the iPhone’s. Lastly, the iPhone still as an advantage in terms of music through iTunes. That said, the tunes I listened to using Pandora on the Bionic sounded great.
The Bionic costs $299.99 with a two-year agreement through Verizon, which charges $69.99 monthly for its most basic talk and data plan. If you want to use the Bionic’s wireless hotspot feature as your Internet service for other devices, that’s another $30 monthly.
Overall, I prefer the Bionic to my BlackBerry, but I’ll wait for the iPhone 5 because of the opportunity for more apps and for iTunes.
