Bionic Ownership = Bittersweet... more bitter than sweet.

[asianguy335]

Those of you giddy about awesome battery life, 'beautiful' screens, and super snappy bugless programming are one fortunate or very lucky bunch.

to say that owning a bionic has been a less than pleasant experience would be an insult to understatement.

now did i think upon my first impressions holding the device that it was a beautiful snappy performing device albeit with an honestly lousy screen? absolutely.

in fact i never was of the pentile hating group. i legitimately believed that those jokers were all exaggerating the way audiophiles think anything other than FLACC isn't worthy of gracing their delicate eardrums. hell i even remember seeing my friend's charge and thinking, "that's the samoled? that's what people have been creaming themselves for?" and then holding it side by side to my OG and actually having more respect for the old beaten up warrior for remaining so relevant 2 years after it's release. but to be brutally honest, those of you that don't notice the honeycombclusterf*ck AT ALL need to get your eyes checked. like right now. because speaking as someone who works in the medical field i think you may be developing glaucoma.

now i don't hold my phone up to my nose but even without my contacts i'd be annoyed by those pixely-to-shit call photos, any and all shades of yellow or green that have been butchered to hell, etc etc. i mean i can understand some of you that notice it but don't mind it, but you can't honestly tell me you can't see that big f*cking chain link fence in front of the screen. and yet sometimes it can look very vibrant and impressive. like in pitch black darkness. and while it's no slouch outdoors i can't for the life of me believe they'd market this display as an impressive notch on the spec sheet of a 2011 flagship device .

oh that's right they never really did market the bionic did they.

screen aside, at least the thing still looked very beautiful and felt great in the hand and yeah it certainly was snappy! that is of course until i started noticing that i was literally unable to make calls for about 3 hours, after which my phone was finally activated. that is just absurd. i guess it's too much to ask that the one feature that really would appear to be important in a new phone is the least reliable. and i say that not simply because of the activation delay but has anyone else realized how low the call volume is? maybe i'm just deaf, but ive never had this issue with ol OG'. maxed out sounds like nearly a whisper when you're walking down a busy street with cars and people providing their own soundtrack and i could hardly judge call quality based on what i can't even hear.

well at least motoblur looks pretty. hell yeah it does. when it's not randomly rebooting the phone. or when it's not constantly yelling at me for having insufficient free space to install a 40mb app. nothing of course more gutting than realizing that in the day of dual core, 1gig ram phones, mother-effing redraw still exists. maybe it has something to do with that 35% cpu usage that absolutely murders my supposedly awesome battery.

yeah and as for it at least being pretty and light to hold? well i'll be honest nevermind the aesthetics i was simply jazzed to know that no longer would i have to worry about my battery door falling off everytime i took the phone outa my pocket. oh that's right, moto's not going to let me forget that one, they mustve known how much i'd miss that so they decided to make that battery door so nice and snug and just ensure that it doesn't sit flush on one side so that i get to enjoy that nice sharp edge of metal that i've been missing with this new sleek design. thanks moto! your sentimental sense of nostalgia and design sensibilities have done it again as i am as speechless as the day the verizon guy told me, "a new phone isn't going to fix that battery door, they all come like that." not that that left power button just didn't thrown me over the moon and back again.

Anyway i've written far too much already (and there's already another post detailing my battery woes) but seeing as i was such a champion for the damn thing after initially only seeing the light of the gs2, it really makes this all the more soul crushing; 3 upgrades left be damned.

Now for the joy of unrooting and attempting to return the phone to stock so i can try to convince verizon that their half baked, under marketed, flagship phone is about to cause me to stroke out if i don't get a quick replacement.

oh by the way, before i forget, for those of you that hope this phone to be your one-stop multimedia end all be all, i'm happy to report that motorola has even included the sound of popcorn to accompany your video/music whenever your headphones are plugged in. talk about an immersive theater experience.

Sigh...

seeing as lots of ppl love and have no issues with their phones and many of us have gotten what appears to be buggy hunks of low-res glossy plastic, this is clearly inconsistent product quality control at it's worst.

OBVIOUSLY, those holding out for prime know something we don't...

 

[Travisimo]

Not to be dismissive, but I haven't experienced ANY of the issues you described, other than the occasional notice of the checkboard pattern in the screen. I got the phone at 9am on launch day and the only time the phone has been rebooted was during the activation process at the store. Since leaving the store, the phone has been on 24/7 without a single reboot.

I have not had any problems installing apps (and I've installed a couple dozen). The phone has remained snappy and responsive even after replacing the launcher with Launcher Pro. I'm using the extended battery, thus battery life so far has been superb (on the other hand, I'm still on 3G because 4G isn't coming here until next week).

The only minor problems I've encountered are:

1) My Ford Sync system in my Ford Fusion does not seem to automatically connect to the phone when I start the car. I have to manually connect Bluetooth for some reason.

2) In Launcher Pro, the Quick Contacts widget does not work. If you add the widget to the home screen, nothing shows up. This, of course, is just an incompatibility between Launcher Pro and the widget.

I've put the phone through some pretty rigorous use already. I've been using the Mobile Hotspot with my Macbook Air, which works great. I've been using the phone with a Bluetooth headset to listen to podcasts at work. As I mentioned earlier, I installed Launcher Pro and a couple dozen apps. And I thin the screen looks very good, though not as nice as my previous phone (iPhone 4).

I'm really excited about getting 4G next week. Anyway, sorry to hear about your disappointment. If I was having those problems, I would not be very happy either.

 

[asianguy335]

@travismo

it's post like yours that still have me holding out hope that i simply received a lemon and is the reason i am going back to verizon - where oh btw i paid the full $299 + accessories instead of saving big at amazon and costco because i simply couldn't wait a day longer to have it in my hands - to get a replacement.

my phone is plagued with problems and i haven't even tested it. AT ALL. like the spoiled fat kid that it is, it has not been pushed in the slightest. just sitting in my pocket. or sleeping in the cradle dock sucking down energy while i've been too busy working or sleeping to really put it through it's paces...

 

[xmr405o]

@travismo

it's post like yours that still have me holding out hope that i simply received a lemon and is the reason i am going back to verizon - where oh btw i paid the full $299 + accessories instead of saving big at amazon and costco because i simply couldn't wait a day longer to have it in my hands - to get a replacement.

my phone is plagued with problems and i haven't even tested it. AT ALL. like the spoiled fat kid that it is, it has not been pushed in the slightest. just sitting in my pocket. or sleeping in the cradle dock sucking down energy while i've been too busy working or sleeping to really put it through it's paces...

Dude! I would send that back man and get it at Costco! They should have plenty of stock now. Buying at Costco puts less pressure in deciding if you want to keep the phone. You have more time to see if it's for you.

If you haven't had time to put it through the paces, this is more reason to get it somewhere else with a longer return policy period. That's just my opinion.

Edit: Just to confirm..I do have the pixelation problem with the contact pics. I don't think it's the screen but I think it's more a software issue. I hope it gets fixed.

 

[Tosa90]

I've had none of the problems you've described. I will admit that on dark images I can see the pixelation, but if I hold the phone more than a few inches from my face I can see past it and not notice it much.

I did lock up my phone one time by over loading the ZumoCast App. I tried to open my downloads folder on my desktop. Over 1000 folders in folder, Before diving into any of those where there's millions of sub folders. The App crashed and I was forced to do a battery pull to fix it.

While I wish I could have the CM7 UI on this phone I can deal with this version of Blur. It's not as bad as it used to be.

I've noticed no problems with sound volume or quality. Yes, if I play music from the speakers on the phone it becomes distorted and bad at Max Volume. But through my Motorola S10-HD Bluetooth Headphones the quality is flawless(not and Audiophile so GTFO if you think my music sounds bad).

I work in an extremely noisy steel stamping factory. If you don't have something over your ears for any extended period of time you are risking severe hearing damage in the factory. I was able to make phone calls and both hear and be heard clearly by my boss while calling from in the plant. I'm not sure why people are having so many problems hearing but I can hear just fine. In fact in a moderately noisy area I can still hear fine even if I set the phone on my desk in front of me without speaker. No, I can't hear very well, but it's still plenty loud enough.

Hopefully you get a new phone and don't have as many problems.

 

[asianguy335]

@tosa

i feel much better. clearly my model has to be a dud. because there are entire threads devoted to that notorious popping sound that is so prevalent with netflix and pandora headphone use. the issue is particularly bad with mine. as far as call volume is concerned maybe years of drumming have in fact taken their toll

 

[Sportster]

You know...you bring up a interesting point,AG. When I first got my OG Droid,there were myriad commercials,so many that I thought hey,I gotta go see this thing! I did and bought it. Interestingly enough, I have yet to see ONE Bionic commercial anywhere other than looking for it on Youtube! Why's that, I wonder?? Is it because Moto isn't thrilled with the product they've put out? They pushed the Droid so much I was seeing commercials nearly every day multiple times! This 'flagship' phone? Not one peep! Interesting,huh.....

 

[milrtime83]

You know...you bring up a interesting point,AG. When I first got my OG Droid,there were myriad commercials,so many that I thought hey,I gotta go see this thing! I did and bought it. Interestingly enough, I have yet to see ONE Bionic commercial anywhere other than looking for it on Youtube! Why's that, I wonder?? Is it because Moto isn't thrilled with the product they've put out? They pushed the Droid so much I was seeing commercials nearly every day multiple times! This 'flagship' phone? Not one peep! Interesting,huh.....

There was a Bionic commercial on at least a couple times during the football game Thursday night. Other than that I haven't watched much tv so I couldn't say if they've played it anywhere else.

 

[jbdan]

You know...you bring up a interesting point,AG. When I first got my OG Droid,there were myriad commercials,so many that I thought hey,I gotta go see this thing! I did and bought it. Interestingly enough, I have yet to see ONE Bionic commercial anywhere other than looking for it on Youtube! Why's that, I wonder?? Is it because Moto isn't thrilled with the product they've put out? They pushed the Droid so much I was seeing commercials nearly every day multiple times! This 'flagship' phone? Not one peep! Interesting,huh.....

Maybe they're waiting to see how well it sells and how well it is received before they flood the air with adverts...I've seen just 2 on TV but I'm not a TV junkie

 

[micahdiablo]

I've seen that bionic commercial with the chick twice on tv. I think the reason there were so much airings of the original Droid and even incredible commercials were because droid was still new back then.

Nowadays, ibdont think they need to have as much airings of commercials.

I've seen a droid charge commercial once.
I've seen an xperia play commercial a few times
And I saw that old thunderbolt/LTE commercial.

But anyway im sorry to hear about your issues. Wish you best of luck.

 

[gapi]

I am with the OP.
I have been visiting the Motorola support forums for the Bionic and its as he says. Riddled with issues.
Heck, they released it with 3G issues and Verizon is telling folks an update is coming in November and to toggle airplane mode until then!
They knew of this before release and let her go anyway.

So now we pretty much know what the delays were about.
No way shape or form is this a $300.00 contract phone.

Maximum anticlimactic.

 

[jroc]

. but to be brutally honest, those of you that don't notice the honeycombclusterf*ck AT ALL need to get your eyes checked. like right now. because speaking as someone who works in the medical field i think you may be developing glaucoma.

I hate to be brutally honest, but even if the rest of the post had praises or other legitimate complaints....I stopped reading it after this.

Folks on both sides of the screen debate need to understand....just because you see it or dont see it...doesnt make what you see or dont see fact. If you see it doesnt mean the person who doesnt has eye problems, and if you dont see it doesnt mean those that do are nitpicking.

Like how some ppl have more negative effects with 3D than others. Those that it effects more will probably hate 3D, while those that it doesnt really effect will love it.

Everyone's different.

 

[keegan1014]

I love it, I just have high hopes that developers pick it up with new roms.
Battery life is great and so us the hardware, I just looked at the samsung charge and it just feels cheep to me, I'm not knocking it thou.

 

[sx4dude2013]

I am VERY happy so far....no noticiable hardware issuses on my end. No reboots but i do notice crackel on NEtflix
I have also had some data problems...3G will just go away WTF.

 

[Teegunn]

I have only seen one Bionic in person that my Buddy got yesterday, and I can say his screen was disappointing compared to my DX2 which is supposed to have the same pentile display. IMO they either changed something with this run of pentile screens, or there is a bad batch or quality control issue. Beyond that, I didn't get enough hands on time with his phone to talk about the other issues. I can say that the phone did seem to be very quick and smooth with the stock blur, faster than my DX2. I use ADW ex on my X2 so it may not be a fair comparison but it was my hopes that the low ram issues of the DX2 would be fixed with double the RAM in the Bionic. I believe this will likely be the case, but the jury is still out on several issues. AT this point I have decided to stay with my DX2 and save my current upgrade until either the issues on the Bionic are remedied or the Prime is available, which I don't believe it wil be until at least late november or even december,

 

[micahdiablo]

i hate to be brutally honest, but even if the rest of the post had praises or other legitimate complaints....i stopped reading it after this.

Folks on both sides of the screen debate need to understand....just because you see it or dont see it...doesnt make what you see or dont see fact. If you see it doesnt mean the person who doesnt has eye problems, and if you dont see it doesnt mean those that do are nitpicking.

Like how some ppl have more negative effects with 3d than others. Those that it effects more will probably hate 3d, while those that it doesnt really effect will love it.

Everyone's different.

+100

 

[sean76]

I just came back from vzw and exchanged my Bionic for a new one because of some issues....well I am 100% certain im going back to the Charge now! My new one is even worse then the first as far as the screen goes...this is more yellow then white on sites like Google, and has an extreme amount of ghosting going on while watching youtube videos..

Come the efff on Motorola, don't you guys have any quality control? One person has zero complaints and issues, the next is ready to throw it off a cliff. Im done, the honeymoon is over, i'll go back to Charge and wait it out.

 

[Teegunn]

I just came back from vzw and exchanged my Bionic for a new one because of some issues....well I am 100% certain im going back to the Charge now! My new one is even worse then the first as far as the screen goes...this is more yellow then white on sites like Google, and has an extreme amount of ghosting going on while watching youtube videos..

Come the efff on Motorola, don't you guys have any quality control? One person has zero complaints and issues, the next is ready to throw it off a cliff. Im done, the honeymoon is over, i'll go back to Charge and wait it out.

That sucks. I loved my DX, locked BL and all. I like my DX2 which really isn't that much better than my DX was, but still an upgrade. I've been saving my vz upgrade since february for either the Bionic or SGS2, but its looking like I'll be saving it for a few more months for the Prime to hit now if things like you have experienced with the Bionic are the norm. I'm OK with my DX2 overall for quite a while anyway.

 

[Droid_Convert]

I actually laughed so hard at this that it can't be legal. Just the sly language and the cynicism is priceless comedic gold. I have nothing to add as I'm sticking with the DX atm. Your post is full of cynical win sir!

 

[sean76]

That sucks. I loved my DX, locked BL and all. I like my DX2 which really isn't that much better than my DX was, but still an upgrade. I've been saving my vz upgrade since february for either the Bionic or SGS2, but its looking like I'll be saving it for a few more months for the Prime to hit now if things like you have experienced with the Bionic are the norm. I'm OK with my DX2 overall for quite a while anyway.

Hold out man...the yellow screen is not worth it...lol.

 

[Sportster]

That's too bad about all the problems and the screen. I know alot of you waited a long time for this thing and it's less than expected for many of you. That sucks! Seems Moto went the cheap route on screen tech on this thing. That with the lack of much advertisement at all tells me they weren't happy about the phone and are just pushing it out to get it out. If it were all that, I'm SURE they'd be touting it alot more. At least I would if it were me! I'm disappointed,too as I'm waiting for a good phone to spend my hard earned cash on. This is strike one. Next couple coming out, the Vigor and Prime has to be better or those too could be strike two and three. I've got more hope though for both though so we'll see....

 

[Vehtemas]

I just came back from vzw and exchanged my Bionic for a new one because of some issues....well I am 100% certain im going back to the Charge now! My new one is even worse then the first as far as the screen goes...this is more yellow then white on sites like Google, and has an extreme amount of ghosting going on while watching youtube videos..

Come the efff on Motorola, don't you guys have any quality control? One person has zero complaints and issues, the next is ready to throw it off a cliff. Im done, the honeymoon is over, i'll go back to Charge and wait it out.

I feel bad for you Sean...

I wish you didn't have this problems, I myself have had no problems with my Bionic and I love the thing.

I wish you better luck on your next phone man.

 

[sean76]

I feel bad for you Sean...

I wish you didn't have this problems, I myself have had no problems with my Bionic and I love the thing.

I wish you better luck on your next phone man.

Yea its ridiculous how one phone is a beautiful white, and the next has a yellow screen....ohhh well,,,, on to the next I guess! Enjoy yours, nice to hear someone got a real good one...

 

[Vehtemas]

Yea its ridiculous how one phone is a beautiful white, and the next has a yellow screen....ohhh well,,,, on to the next I guess! Enjoy yours, nice to hear someone got a real good one...

Yeah dude, I actually just went to Google.com and various other sites with white backgrounds, and everything is stark white (maybe a tinge of gray, but I have noticed this on my laptop and old OG Droid too).

I also viewed a couple youtube videos and no ghosting either...

I am confused at all the bad reviews, I find my phone to be nothing but a super smooth and buttery phone far exceeding all of my expectations.

Very much worth the resources to obtain it =)

 

[asianguy335]

I actually laughed so hard at this that it can't be legal. Just the sly language and the cynicism is priceless comedic gold. I have nothing to add as I'm sticking with the DX atm. Your post is full of cynical win sir!

i'm glad at least one person got it and didn't get all offended
might you be a new yorker?

anyway i'm on my second bionic now so we'll see how it goes.