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4.5 stars

"Very much worth it, but MotoBlur can be annoying" on September 9, 2011 by flipm0de23

Pros: saying the processor is quick is a major understatement, 4g is faster than my home isp, battery life is amazing, screen looks quite good and auto brightness works very well

Cons: built in task manager isn't the greatest, motoblur can get annoying, a lot of bloatware installed by big red
Summary: This phone is excellent, and I'll highlight a few things for some of the reviewers who haven't really explored / found all the phone's options just yet.

RE: WiFi is unstable / have to reboot your phone

I thought this was a problem at first, but you have to take a look at the Settings > Battery & data manager > Battery mode. They use the idea of peak / off-peak hours to turn off the data connections to your phone, even if you are on WiFi. You need to set up the custom battery mode to have off peak hours to suit your needs AND tell it to keep your data "Always On" so that your WiFi doesn't cut out. The default setting is that WiFi / 4G will turn itself off after 15 minutes of inactivity. THIS IS NOT A FLAW PEOPLE, try exploring your phone a little more =)

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RE: the screen is bad

i agree it isn't the best screen out there, but at full brightness, Netflix looks awesome over either 4G or WiFi, and pictures look great. The text is very crispy and easy to read too. I look at screens all day, everyday as a technology professional, and i've seen some bad screens / monitors. The Bionic's screen is nowhere near as bad as what people make it out to be.

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Motorola's custom skin "MotoBlur" tries to centralize a bit too much. For those of you who use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, and YouTube to share a lot, then this centralization may be a nice feature. I found myself downloading Facebook for Android within the first day, because their built in version was difficult to navigate.

The task manager is set up differently, in that you see a full list of all programs, they have an interesting way of saying which ones get ended automatically, etc. Again, I found myself downloading Advanced Task killer on day one.

Other than those couple of things / having to dig through some of the custom menus, the actual device is great. What cell phone camera is perfect in all conditions, but in sunlight or a bright room the pictures come out more than good enough to post on Facebook or send to friends. Build quality feels very solid and I like the fact that there's HDMI output. Battery life is great given the screen size and processing power, and if you set up the Battery Settings just right, it will have great battery life.

All the "problems" I really see with it have to do with options in software that people are used to because of non-custom or other custom skins / roms that they've used. My suggestion to those is to do some diving into the menus, long key presses, options on different screens of programs, etc. to see what's really there. Also, I haven't been able to find a problem that I couldn't find a widget or a 3rd party piece of software as a remedy.

Long story short: if you are up for a new phone / upgrade from Verizon and you are fortunate enough to have an unlimited data plan from before they started having the tiered plans, I'd snag this phone. If you want to wait for the Droid Prime, it may be incrementally better but I can see Motorola being quick about updating their software for the Bionic to stay competitive if / when that happens.