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Should I Get the Bionic?

A

arodjunior9

Newbie
Hi fellow android lovers,

All I am asking for is your opinion to possibly help me decide , I have been looking for a phone since Aug. and have had a upgrade ready since Sept.

Right now i am split between the Bionic, and the HTC vigor. I was originally going to wait on the Vigor until recent articles have pinpointed its release date out to nov. 10 when i originally heard oct. 5. The beats by dre integration was the deciding factor until i read a recent engadget article that labeled it a gimmick when it comes to the htc sensation XE(or XL). The processor of the vigor and bionic are not different enough to decide it for me. I currently have the droid Eris which is painfully slow; Verizon's 3g network is pathetic for what we pay. I am a bit worried about poor OTA support and battery issues when it comes to the bionic going into the future. Do you guys think the bionic will be supported up to ice cream sandwich and beyond? and how is the battery life for a moderate to sometimes heavy user? Price drop for bionic when vigor drops?

Thank you for any suggestion you can offer.
 
The only thing I can say is the bionic is great .fast, smooth.my wife had the Eris and it was a piece of junk.don't know much about the vigor other than the fact it hasn't come out yet, its really up to you...you can wait and compare both phones but you can't go wrong with the bionic if you decide to get it now
 
i have known for a long time that the vigor and prime were coming, and now they've thrown the razr into the mix. but i just got tired of waiting for the next latest greatest to show up and i got the bionic on release day. i too moved up from the eris and i couldn't be happier. this phone will easily last me 2 years.
 
The Bionic is a great phone, you can't go wrong with it.

On a side note, how are you not happy with Verizon's 3G network? Do you realize what kind of 3G coverage you would be getting on another network? With Verizon you can go virtually anywhere in the continental US and get between 1 and 2mbps almost always. If you were on AT&T for example you would get another 1mbps or so more speed in 3G(this is what they love to advertise), however, the moment you left a major city area and found yourself in a small town, you'd find yourself in EDGE getting 50-200kbps. What good is a smartphone if the data isn't reliable? The majority of every other network coverage wise in the US(Verizon is the only exception) is limited to EDGE speed levels. That's why Verizon costs more, they have more 3G coverage than every other network in the US combined.
 
arodjunior9 said:
I currently have the droid Eris which is painfully slow; Verizon's 3g network is pathetic for what we pay.
Click to expand...

Try EVRC-B and see if it improves your situation ...

Use the "hidden menu" to set it ... in Gingerbread (on the Bionic) ...
Select Phone icon
Select Dialer
Type in ##program and hit the connect key
When the display comes up type in 000000 and hit the Verify key
When the menu comes up select 06 Test Mode
When the Test section comes up hit the Next button at the bottom of the screen twice
Select the Service option at the top of the screen (it currently says EVRC)
Choose the EVRC-B option
Select Home button

Please let me know if it helps.

I think the Bionic is the best phone I have ever owned. I woud't say I love it. I frankly am a little fearful fo people who say they lovve a phone. I had a Drid X and though it was the firs major breaktrhough for Android. I think the Bionic takes the best from Droid X and builds on it.

... Thom
 
arodjunior9 said:
All I am asking for is your opinion to possibly help me decide , I have been looking for a phone since Aug. and have had a upgrade ready since Sept.

Right now i am split between the Bionic, and the HTC vigor. I was originally going to wait on the Vigor until recent articles have pinpointed its release date out to nov. 10 when i originally heard oct. 5. The beats by dre integration was the deciding factor until i read a recent engadget article that labeled it a gimmick when it comes to the htc sensation XE(or XL). The processor of the vigor and bionic are not different enough to decide it for me. I currently have the droid Eris which is painfully slow; Verizon's 3g network is pathetic for what we pay. I am a bit worried about poor OTA support and battery issues when it comes to the bionic going into the future. Do you guys think the bionic will be supported up to ice cream sandwich and beyond? and how is the battery life for a moderate to sometimes heavy user? Price drop for bionic when vigor drops?
Click to expand...

As always, this is hard for others to answer for you, as each of us are different, and use our phones in different ways.

I am 12 days into the Bionic from 22 months with the Eris (rooted for the last 17 months). I had the extended 1735 mAH battery in the Eris; rooted, so battery life rooted was better than stock Eris. With the Bionic set to 3G data only (we have very spotty 4G coverage near me, and definitely not at my house), I get better battery life with the Bionic, using it more than I used the Eris. Not a ton better, but if I pull off the charger at 6 am, by 11 pm I will have at least 40% battery life left with the stock battery. I imagine that 4G radio use would reduce that a lot more, though.

The Vigor sounds great, and perhaps is worth another four week wait if you love Sense. It sure sounds like it will perform much like the Bionic. My main reason for not waiting was that I really wanted a phone with a good radio - I always had problems with the reception on the Eris, and I heard that the DInc2 also had reception issues.

I believe that the Droid 3 recently had a good OTA, so I expect that the expected November OTA for the Bionic will be fine. I amy decided to factory reset and restart everything from scratch anyway - it's always been my experience that this is a good practice for OTA updates.

ICS? Who knows. I always think that you should buy a phone based on what it can do the day that you buy it rather than what consider any upgrades that come down the line. Still, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG - they all agreed to make every effort to keep all new handsets updated for 18 months after release, so it shouldn't be hard to expect ICS for both the Vigor and the Bionic (and the rumored to come Moto Razr).

One advantage for the Vigor? HTC has committed to having unlockable bootloaders, so hopefully that will be the case for the Vigor. It is not so far for the Bionic. If Google does in fact get approval to purchase Motorola Mobility, perhaps that will change for us, but I am not counting on it happening, even if the acquisition is approved.

For me, my big choice was should I get a new iPhone or stay Android. When the 4s was announced I decided it wasn't enough to switch, and I decided that the Bionic was probably the best phone for me. I don't think that I would have loved the Prime all that much - the Bionic's display in sunlight is fantastic, and I cannot believe that the Super AMOLED on the Prime will be.

However, since the Vigor, Razr and Prime are supposed to be launched by this time next month, if you are at all thinking about those other phones, and you can get by for one more month - wait and see what comes. That seems like the smart move right now.

I have no idea if the Bionic will be reduced when the other phones are released. The Vigor sounds like it will be specced the same as the Bionic, so I'd think that they will be about the same price. I guess we'll see.
 
I have a Bionic and I am liking it the more I use it. It is going to be replaced when the Galaxy Nexus comes out. If I were you I would wait until Tuesday after we hear about the Droid Razr and the Galaxy Nexus. Both of those as well as the Vigor will most likely be worth the wait from the Bionic.

The Bionic is very fast but is pretty lackluster at everything else. The display and camera are my biggest complaints. If you do end up buying the Bionic, you might as well wait a couple days to see whats coming up.
 
I got mine yesterday. Absolutely love this phone. Upgraded from a Droid 1. Yes, a Droid 1 which after a year became the biggest piece of junk ever so I was very reluctant to get another Droid, especially from Motorolla.

But let me tell you this thing is fricken fast. I have 3G at home 4G at my office. 4G is insane. Dual Core is insane. Phone is smooth and has great features. A a major overhaul from Droid 1. Only problem I have noticed which is being reported on some forums is that it will not charge from USB when meter is yellow. Other than that I haven't noticed a single glitch so far.

Just get it. You will be playing with it all night like I did.
 
I was going to visit a newly opened Verizon wireless store near my house real quick but spent over 30 min trying to find a number for the location to ask them if they even have the phone in stock. No luck, nobody at Verizon could help me find the number, maybe another day this week I'll try again.
 
Ive had the Bionic for about a week now. Im loving the phone, 4G like slacker1313 said its insane, its quicker then your home computer lol. DrOooiiiDddd. Go luck and report back man.
 
I'm happy with the bionic. I can say that for $299 plus tax I would at least wait til the nexus or the razr but if you can get it for $199-240 then it's totally worth it. Not sure if I can recommend it for full amount price.
 
The wait for a new phone is killing me, i have been running speedtest on my driod eris to test the 3g network over the past 2 days: I got 1.2 mb/s in my room, 0.2 mb/s in the kitchen, 0.7 mb/s at the train station. Might go to verizon on friday, and if all goes well i am willing to make the jump to the Bionic. People have told me to wait until the htc vigor/rezound, but to wait an additional 3 weeks (nov 10 rumored date) on top of the 2 months i have been waiting is painful. I don't see the htc vigor being a major improvement over the bionic, a little faster processor, a gimmick audio improvement.
 
Update: Latest negotiations with my parents to convince them to get me the droid bionic has gone foul today. My mom reportedly wants a blackberry but is complaining about verizon's "high" data costs.... Negotiations then evolved into talk about switching companies to save money; that didn't end well as no agreement could be reached. Stay tuned....
 
I am a BIONIC owner.

If you can wait until Nov 10th, then don't get the BIONIC. get the Galazy nexus on drop day.

Trust me.
 
arodjunior9 said:
Update: Latest negotiations with my parents to convince them to get me the droid bionic has gone foul today. My mom reportedly wants a blackberry but is complaining about verizon's "high" data costs.... Negotiations then evolved into talk about switching companies to save money; that didn't end well as no agreement could be reached. Stay tuned....
Click to expand...

Sounds like the nba lockout. :p
 
arodjunior9 said:
The wait for a new phone is killing me, i have been running speedtest on my driod eris to test the 3g network over the past 2 days:
Click to expand...

johnlgalt said:
I am a BIONIC owner.

If you can wait until Nov 10th, then don't get the BIONIC. get the Galazy nexus on drop day.

Trust me.
Click to expand...

I used an Eris for 22 months; had a Bionic for 12 days. The only thing about the Galaxy Nexus is that the sucker is huge next to an Eris: it's almost an inch longer (5.33" vs. 4.45"), half an inch wider (2.67" vs. 2.19"). It's quite a bit longer than a Bionic (which is just over 5") and we still don't know how thick the LTE version will be. I also think that the Nexus will be a non-removable battery, if that makes a difference. (I know that the Razr is.)

You still may want to wait, but the Bionic is size-shock compared with the Eris as it is, and being able to put in an extended battery, or swap in a charged battery, may be a plus for the Bionic.
 
doogald said:
I used an Eris for 22 months; had a Bionic for 12 days. The only thing about the Galaxy Nexus is that the sucker is huge next to an Eris: it's almost an inch longer (5.33" vs. 4.45"), half an inch wider (2.67" vs. 2.19"). It's quite a bit longer than a Bionic (which is just over 5") and we still don't know how thick the LTE version will be. I also think that the Nexus will be a non-removable battery, if that makes a difference. (I know that the Razr is.)

You still may want to wait, but the Bionic is size-shock compared with the Eris as it is, and being able to put in an extended battery, or swap in a charged battery, may be a plus for the Bionic.
Click to expand...

The Nexus has a removable battery.
 
Update: I commenced further negotiations with my parents last night when i found the bionic on sale at best buy for $230, but the discussion shortly returned to disagreement as neither side could agree on whether to stay with Verizon or change companies.
 
arodjunior9 said:
Update: I commenced further negotiations with my parents last night when i found the bionic on sale at best buy for $230, but the discussion shortly returned to disagreement as neither side could agree on whether to stay with Verizon or change companies.
Click to expand...
I'm in SFL too, trust me, STAY WITH VERIZON.

only thing is, its rare to get 4G west of 441, atleast in broward but you're flooded with 4g EAST of 441 from WPB to MIA.

just got the bionic, live in delray and its FAST.
 
Update: This mornings discussion started with both parties deeply considering switching to AT&T, but by nightfall that discussion fell apart..... im never getting rid of this droid eris : (
 
Consider this: If youre currently on an unlimited plan you might want to stick around cause youll be grandfathered in. Else if you switch carriers you'll be stuck with tiered data, depending on which company you go to. May as well stick with vzw if you have unlimited. There are other phones over the horizon but who knows how long you have to wait...
 
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