My Droid Bionic Experience

[Notafan]

On the Motorola forums, I posted this email and I wanted to repeat it here. I hope to give people who are looking at the Bionic some idea what others have been through as they google the Bionic to get buying advice. I am not on a mission to put down Motorola, but I do want to get the information out to everyone that I can before they buy. I wish more information had been available for me before I bought.

Here is what I posted on the Motorola Forum, along with a couple added comments that I made. Feel welcome to disagree, this is just my experience.

THis will be long enough that I am sure many of you won't read it. Nevertheless, here it is. I am not trying to be a disruptive force, this is my honest summation of the Bionic and Motorola. Every company makes lemons. The Bionic is Motorola's. I do think that with 5.9.902, the Bionic will be an OK phone. Not a great phone, but finally will be an OK phone that will get the job done for most folks. I know that we all want to believe it is better than that because we all invested a good deal of money in the phone and that is how consumers want to be. I also think that Motorola is company that makes, in general, very good smartphones. The Bionic just isn't one of them. I would even say that in terms of hardware, Motorola is as good as any smartphone company. But before Motorola dislocates any arms patting itself on the back for 5.9.902, I have a few observations to make. 1. It is simply too late. Way too late. Six months to come up with a fix for a phone like this one is ridiculous on any level. Especially when you consider that other phones, introduced after the Bionic, had significant updates well before the Bionic. That is a very sad deal. 2. The Bionic is not a success because of the customer service attitude at Motorola, not because of their technical ability. That is also why, if it goes unchanged, Motorola will continue to decline in revenue and popularity. Clearly, they have the technical ability make the best phones. The problem is that somewhere they have left any concern for the customer out of their picture. I don't think that they dislike the customer, not at all. They just don't put the customers needs very highly. You see it everywhere with Motorola. Even on this forum, if you sit back and look, it is all about Motorola, not about the customer. That is how American companies used to act (look at the car industry) until they were outdone by the Asian companies. And the difference in the car industry was both technology and customer service issues. Motorola does not have the thechnical shortcomings and could be the dominate company very easily. They just need to shake the company up and put the customer first. There are so many examples of Motorola's company first-customer last philosophy that it would take me pages to give them to you. I see it on the forum too. Now that doesn't make Matt, Mark or Dan, or any Motorola people bad people. THey are good people. They are just sunk in a company that has developed a very poor customer service orientation in their every day activities. It is just part of the company now. Other divisions of Motoroal are going through the same thing but they are at least aware of it and are working on it. To me, it so clear. Why is Motorola losing money when they have the best technology? It isn't the economy folks, smartphones are selling like crazy. During my frustration with the Bionic, I contacted both Motorola and Verizon. What a difference. Motorola said they were sorry. That is it. They said they were sorry that I was uspset. After that they turn to stone. The first thing out of the Verizon executive was, You tell me what I need to do to make this right for you. What a huge difference. I am shocked that Motorola can not see that. I am a student, so to speak, of the fall of the US industries in the 90's. THis is classic chronology of what happened to the car industry during that period. THere was a big revolution at that time in American Industry (supposedly led by the Japanese, but actually led by the American that taught customer service to the Japenese) that changed a lot of the US industry. Interestingly, Mototorla was a company that was very ivolved in that revolution and they made significant strides in customer relations and as a result in their company AT THAT TIME. But over time we all forget and Motorola has forgotten. I hope that they listen. Not just to me, but to many other people telling them the same thing. We need the Motorola's and we certainly need the jobs. I want Motorola to be good but the reality is that right now they have serious issues. Here is to the hope that they can change however.

Here is another thing to keep in mind as you all post how wonderful this last update was. A little while back someone here posted that he had been told by a verizon tech that the next bionic update was scheduled for the second week of Feb. I think it was in the first couple days of January. Go back and look, you can find it. He was beat up pretty badly, the essence of the posts from all of you was that he was wrong and that it would never take that long..............and that it better not. As i recall, the forum manager even stepped in to tell him he was wrong. Well............guess what. Turns out he wasn't wrong. I remember back then how upset everyone was with the delay. It wouldn't be acceptable............we will never be ok with that long a wait. But apparently we are. I predicted that in a post about the same time. Only i guess that i'm really not ok with it though. Yes my bionic is ok, but motorola is not and as we discussef earlier i am still working to see that motorola changes some policies. I hope some of you will too. I have spoken to moto exec's and verizon exec's and there are things that as customers that we can do to force some change. Contact moto and verizon and tell them how you feel about it. It does make a difference.

Thank you for the nice comment. I appreciate your defense of Matt. I honestly am not trying to impinge upon his credibility in any manner and I like the guy too. Nevertheless, I do believe that Motorola keeps him in the dark as much as they do us. I have been speaking to some Motorola people "behind the scenes" so to speak, and I am impressed with how polite and nice they are but as I said earlier, they are only good at saying they are sorry, they are not authorized in any form to fix anything. Even the most minor of accommodations are not within their authority. I was amazed to hear that one of the main customer service employees can not do anything for a customer without approval from higher executive staff. Keep that in mind if you have an issue with your Bionic. You can go up the chain, but no one, except at levels you normally can not get to, can approve any type of resolution whatsoever. They can however, apologize to you for what you have been through. I guess that is something....................well................. ..maybe not. Anyway, I don't make this up, I have spoken with them.

What Matt actually said in response to that post was:

"This may have come from our agents, but it is not official and not correct. "

Just wanted to make sure the information was accurate.

[MyEntityRemains]

What's your point? LMAO

[bluezdawg]

See below...

[jayrod718]

Not sure about everyone else but I honestly have never had an issue with my bionic. It was quickly and easily rooted, the hardware is solid, screen is huge (coming from original Droid) and gets brighter than any phone I have seen, I have no lag, perfect 4g coverage in TN at that, battery lasts a long time, lots of accessories available and now they are cheap due to the razr being out. My opinion is that people like this guy are extremely non technical and don't have the tech smarts to enjoy a device with the high tech features as the bionic, this guy needs to get an iPhone.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums

[bluezdawg]

Been frustrating, sometimes slow, but, they have not turned their backs on us. Technology is a tough business and the Android OS and different vendors H/W technology will evolve with some pain. That's the price we pay for progress, I like progress (and the flexibility to mod :-) or I'd be a lamb and buy an iPhone. With that said, I'll hang in there and deal with it. If you read allot of forums, everyone has issues with every piece of technology. I do respect your perspective, hope you find satisfaction where look.


Sent from my now freaking awesome, butt-kicking .902 Droid Bionic using TapaTalk

[Notafan]

What's your point? LMAO

Are you trying to be cool or are you serious? If you read the post, the point is pretty clear. If you can't see it, then you should go back to your jr. high class on Monday.

As to the people who disagree with me, I respect that. What I have noticed up to this point is that anyone who has had trouble with a Motorola phone to the point that they have ever had to contact Motorola, agrees with me. If you have a phone that works great from the outset, like several of the Bionic owners, and you have not had to ask for support, you will disagree with me. Makes sense. My point is that before you buy, just be very aware that you will not get any help from Motorola if you have a problem. Just know that and do your research before you buy, and your chances of getting a phone that works for you is much better. But for those of you that have not had a support request for Motorola, here is a warning: Hope that you don't because it won't get you anywhere at all. The other night I went to two different Verizon Stores (Verizon by the way, has been very helpful during this issue and Motorola has not cooperated with them and lied to them about some issues where I was able to show the Verizon representative the truth on-line and he had to admit that he had been lied to) to look at what I would get to replace my Bionic. When I went into the stores, I did not tell the store people that I owned a Bionic, I acted like I had no information on the cell phones and never said a word about what I have been through. In both stores I just told the reps what I was looking for and in both stores the reps told me ......"Well I/we shouldn't say this, but stay away from the Bionic, it has been nothing but problems". In asking further, they told me that it has a ton os issues and that Verizon has trouble getting any help from Motorola on the phone. Now, it wasn't all bad Motorola news, I don't want to lie to you guys. They did really love the Razr and in the end it always came down to the Razr or the Nexus, but the Razr was usually the winner. Anyway, I don't make this up. I just want people to be aware of it before they buy. Again, if you have a Bionic and it works great for you, I can understand why you would not agree with me. But so far, I am very surprised by the number of responses that I get from people that have serious problems with their Bionics.

[aaf709]

I admit that .902 threw us for a while, but all the outside sources linked back to Droid Life, which got it from a forum which started with "an email from a friend." Not an easy way to prove it existed.

I've had LG and Moto phones and never had a lemon. My Bionic worked correctly in terms of 4G from day 1. The camera wasn't that great, but I didn't buy it for that. Besides, there was Camera Zoom FX which took up the slack. I manually installed .901 back in December which added improvements. Now I'm at .902 and waiting for ICS.

I know that the Bionic is not the universal panacea of phones, but there isn't one. They should create a "Chasing The Dragon" app where you try to create the ultimate phone, but never can.

I wouldn't worry about warning people to not buy the Bionic at this point; the ones that get the Bionic now is because it'll be cheaper than the others and the ones that don't will be wanting to get the latest.

[Notafan]

I admit that .902 threw us for a while, but all the outside sources linked back to Droid Life, which got it from a forum which started with "an email from a friend." Not an easy way to prove it existed.

I've had LG and Moto phones and never had a lemon. My Bionic worked correctly in terms of 4G from day 1. The camera wasn't that great, but I didn't buy it for that. Besides, there was Camera Zoom FX which took up the slack. I manually installed .901 back in December which added improvements. Now I'm at .902 and waiting for ICS.

I know that the Bionic is not the universal panacea of phones, but there isn't one. They should create a "Chasing The Dragon" app where you try to create the ultimate phone, but never can.

I wouldn't worry about warning people to not buy the Bionic at this point; the ones that get the Bionic now is because it'll be cheaper than the others and the ones that don't will be wanting to get the latest.

Agreed with the camera thing. I hear a lot of complaints about the camera, but it works fine for me and I didn't buy the phone for the camera. I did get Camera Zoom FX too though and I like that program better than the stock one.

[aaf709]

Agreed with the camera thing. I hear a lot of complaints about the camera, but it works fine for me and I didn't buy the phone for the camera. I did get Camera Zoom FX too though and I like that program better than the stock one.

Yeah, it's good to have a camera with you at all times, but when I'm out to take pictures I bring a camera with me.

That being said, once I had manually installed .901 (I have also manually installed the .902 update) I started using the stock camera more than Camera Zoom FX.

[jhom]

Notafan,

I've read your post. I think you need to change your title to reflect the content of the post. Your post seems to be about your experience with Motorola. There is little or no content about your experience with the Bionic itself.

I disagree with your statement that there isn't plenty of information about the Bionic. There is a ton in my opinion. There is this forum as well as numerous others that provide plenty of information about the Bionic, if one is inclined to do the search.

For me, the Bionic has been rock solid since day one. I bought it during the first week of its offering in September. I did my research and knew what I was buying.

In my opinion, the Bionic is a great phone that provides reliable and clear voice communication. It gives me 4G service when I need it. The 893 OTA helped fix the camera. The 902 OTA is gravy. I'm glad to see Motorola/Verizion providing updates and look forward to ICS as they promised. I couldn't be happier with my Bionic. This is my experience with the Bionic.