Today is October 14, 2011 and I have had my Motorola Droid Bionic for a few days less than 30 days, now. After 18 months I replace my original Motorola Droid with the Bionic. I would have to say, I like it, but…

To be honest with you, there are only a few things that are different between the two. And those few things are what I like about the new Bionic. I like the fact that it’s a lot slimmer and has a larger screen, 4.3 inches qHD display versus 3.7 for the Droid, and The Bionics’ screen is a lot brighter and easier on the eyes, considering I still have to wear my glasses to see it.

Another thing I like about this phone, it’s on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Don’t ask me what that mean, this is the 21^st century and that’s the way it is for now or until the next incarnation of speed for smartphones come into fruition. I mean this phone is fast. Unlike my old Droid, I downloaded most of my apps; I would have to say more than 25 in about 5 minutes. It would have taken all day at 3G speeds.

One of the killers, it seems, is battery life. I know my old Droid I could charge it up all night, unplug it at 7 a.m. and the charge would last until about 7 p.m. or about 12 hours. Now, that usually amounts to about one 10 minute phone call, a half-hour of games, maybe an hour on the internet, using Wi-Fi and the phone would have been drained. And if I had to go out on the road, let’s say the park, the battery would die by 1p.m.

In the month that I have had my New Bionic, I have taken note, the battery has lasted up to 17 hours and still had 10 percent or more of a charge left. Even out on the road I get a longer battery life. But, now that I think about it, I use my phone over Wi-Fi, because I am retired and five days out of the week I am usually at home. Well, besides going to the gym every day and the supermarket and stuff like that. All in all this is the best battery life I have had on any of the phones I have had in the last, well since I had my first cell phone.

One of the things that just burns my whistle, the camera. There is a noticeable shutter lag, meaning when you push the button you have about a second or two before it takes the picture. Even though it has an 8 megapixel camera versus 5 megapixels for the Droid, I think the pictures look about the same. The quality is very good, if I don’t say so myself. But the lag sometimes causes the pictures to blur, and I don’t think is takes macro photos. Not sure about that, I am going to have to read more about it in the manual. I know my old Droid did.

I read in a review, on Cnet.com, that they were hesitant in recommending the Droid Bionic because of the cost of the phone, which starts at $299.99 with a two-year contract with Verizon. But, I got a bunch of discounts and got my phone for $219.99, not bad. But what really attracted me to this phone, the accessories! I love the fact that it comes with a laptop dock, that’s what turned me on to this phone, but the laptop dock cost $299.99, which is far lower than the laptop dock that comes with ATT’s Atrix which cost $500!

One of the things that I hated about my old Droid, it only had 512MB of ROM and only 256MB of ram, but it did come with a 16GB memory card. The only problem with that, most apps couldn’t be put onto the memory card, so it was short on what apps you could add. I had to delete a lot of apps just to use a newer app. And its slide out keyboard was crappy, I couldn’t type on it to save my life, my fingers were just too big. But, you could use the virtual keyboard, which I liked anyway.

The Droid Bionic doesn’t come with a slide out keyboard, it has a virtual keyboard. What makes it handy it is loaded with Swype another app I love. You can type with one finger using Swype. The Bionic also comes with a 16GB memory card and 16GB of internal memory! I love it! I can add a 32GB card, if I have the money for one, also. But I am fine with what I have so far. I don’t think I have to add more apps. I like what I have now, but there is room, just in case.

So far a better phone, but it, as it seems, probably will change. Every year there is a newer phone on the market that will change everything that I expect in a phone. I have a two year contract so I will be happy with this one for a while. I would guess the only thing that will out do the Droid Bionic will be if they come out with a phone that you wear on your arm with a 3-D image. I can’t wait for that.