Thinking about a Droid Bionic for the wife... ?

[Xander Crews]

So the wife is wanting to go with a smart phone for the first time.
I've had the G1, the D2 and now the Rezound and she is finally ready to make the switch from her dumbphone.

We're buying it outright and used, as we don't want to spend a lot on it, nor do we want to screw up my unlimited data on our Family plan :biggrin: ...so we're looking at older 4G phones as I'd like to get her one with 4G if I could.
$125 or less is the goal here.

What are the pros and cons you guys have with the Bionic? Personally, I've always liked the way it looked.
How is the battery on ICS?
And you guys will be getting JB soon, right?

Any feedback is appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[Stinson317]

I have to say I still like the bionic. I'm just about at a point where I could upgrade but haven't been wow'd by anything else. ICS really made the bionic into a pretty stable platform. Before ICS, I rooted and got all the early releases, but since OTA have been happy the way it is. Honestly I don't care if we get JB or not.
My guess is you could land a nice bionic and a bunch of accessories at a bargain price. Especially with peoples contacts coming up. I run all day on an extended battery, which is the one accessory I recommend.
If I do get sucked in to an upgrade, my bionic will go to my son whose dying to get it (so it still must be cool)
Good luck.

 

[rocketsaucev2]

I have to say I still like the bionic. I'm just about at a point where I could upgrade but haven't been wow'd by anything else. ICS really made the bionic into a pretty stable platform. Before ICS, I rooted and got all the early releases, but since OTA have been happy the way it is. Honestly I don't care if we get JB or not.
My guess is you could land a nice bionic and a bunch of accessories at a bargain price. Especially with peoples contacts coming up. I run all day on an extended battery, which is the one accessory I recommend.
If I do get sucked in to an upgrade, my bionic will go to my son whose dying to get it (so it still must be cool)
Good luck.

Agree with basically everything you said. This is a great device and mine runs like a dream. Obviously the hardware will become increasingly limited but it still runs new software as good as ever.

Liquid Smooth Bionic

 

[ckonon]

Your wife can update her phone without messing up your unlimited data. My wife just upgraded her iphone on our family share plan and my unlimited data is intact. The verizon rep even told me that my wife could upgrade, then after she did I could take her phone and swap it with mine and it still wouldn't change my unlimited data. Only upgrading on the unlimited line will cause you to lose your data. She lost unlimited data, but she barely uses a gig so it didn't matter. So my advice is have her get the phone you want by upgrading and then swap phones after, win/win.

 

[Camoxjeep]

Exactly, I still love my bionic. I even bought a buddies for $25 and it came with factory extended battery. And it's in mint condition, you can find them out there for good deals.

RUNNING the latest and greatest ICS 246.

 

[Xander Crews]

Exactly, I still love my bionic. I even bought a buddies for $25 and it came with factory extended battery. And it's in mint condition, you can find them out there for good deals.

RUNNING the latest and greatest ICS 246.

$25??
That's a steal.
They aren't going for less than $100 on Ebay...and most often they are around $120+.

I'll give you $50 for it.

 

[Xander Crews]

Your wife can update her phone without messing up your unlimited data. My wife just upgraded her iphone on our family share plan and my unlimited data is intact.

Well, she doesn't have a smart phone now, just a dumb phone with no data. And yeah, I confirmed with a Verizon rep yesterday that she could upgrade her phone to a smartphone with the data plan and it wouldn't mess up my unlimited on my line or force us to go to the tiered crap.
I did forget to ask what kind of data package she would be getting...I'm guessing one option would be 2gig, which should be fine for her.

The verizon rep even told me that my wife could upgrade, then after she did I could take her phone and swap it with mine and it still wouldn't change my unlimited data. Only upgrading on the unlimited line will cause you to lose your data. She lost unlimited data, but she barely uses a gig so it didn't matter. So my advice is have her get the phone you want by upgrading and then swap phones after, win/win.

I thought about this too, but we don't want a contract...no more contracts for us. If I did this, I would buy the phone outright, then give her my Rezound (which I love)...but I'm not ready for a new phone yet. I just got it back in June of '12. However, I would seriously consider buying the Nexus 4, if it was 4G. That's the only drawback of that phone...not sure what they were thinking.

But I am very happy right now with my Rezound...it's one of the most underrated phones ever...truly a great, great phone.
Down the road, I am very interested to see what the newest Nexus phone will have on it as well as the X Phone whenever that comes out. My next phone will be a vanilla Android Nexus though...almost for sure. I had the G1...and I'm ready for living in the land of quick updates and pure Android. Just not sure when I'll pull the trigger on it...probably not for another year or so, at least. Who knows what will be out then?

 

[Xander Crews]

Ended up going with the Bionic. It was between that and the Incredible 2 4G Red.
I think I got a good deal on ebay. It was a "Buy it Now"...I wanted it in time for the wife's birthday on Monday.

• $125
• Droid Bionic
• Otterbox Communter Case
• Motorola Window Mount (for the Bionic)
• Extra battery
• USB charger
• Wall charger

It is supposed to be in excellent condition as it has been in the otterbox case and has had a screen protector since he first got it.

The amount of money that the Bionics are going for that have cracked screens, that are beat to hell, or just plain don't work...is crazy.

 

[deduct]

Good choice man. It sounds Like you got a good deal too. I'm sure she will be more than happy with it. I know I have been.

 

[Xander Crews]

Good choice man. It sounds Like you got a good deal too. I'm sure she will be more than happy with it. I know I have been.

Thanks, I'm sure she'll like it...or I hope she does. I think it's more than enough phone for her.
The Incredible was going to be my choice based on specs because it has slightly better specs, comes with NFC, better pixel density, better camera...but then I started reading the reviews by the big sites. They didn't like it at all. The main gripe was the build quality and how they felt it was horrible with an emphasis on it being very cheap feeling. And they rather liked the Bionic. And like I said before, I have always liked Motorola's stuff. Always has a very solid feel to it.
So there you go.

She's not big into unnecessary expenses, so I hope she finds that it is worth it.
She has already said she isn't happy about the extra $$ for data every month. It sucks, but you gotta give to get I guess.
But here is my plan...
I am going to try to get her to switch to a Google Voice number and use that for texting so we can drop the texting portion of our plan (that's what I do...and I quite enjoy Google Voice). That will save us $10 a month on the bill, so the difference is only $20 more per month over what we are paying now...wait...scratch that, I get a discount on data through my work, so that's like $5 more off or so...so in reality, it's only about $15 more per month than we are paying now after my discount and if she uses Google Voice.
That sounds much better.

 

[deduct]

Good plan man. It isn't cheap on Verizon is it? Every little bit helps.

 

[lewwill]

Got my Bionic on release date and it has been excellent. Good choice with accessories at that price, especially with JB coming soon. I would have gotten my wife one about 3 months ago for her first smart phone but most were really beat. I ended up getting her a Razr M. Also a nice phone and available on Amazon.
Lew

 

[Xander Crews]

Got my Bionic on release date and it has been excellent. Good choice with accessories at that price, especially with JB coming soon. I would have gotten my wife one about 3 months ago for her first smart phone but most were really beat. I ended up getting her a Razr M. Also a nice phone and available on Amazon.
Lew

I looked at the Razr M, nice phone and probably ideal for her actually, but more than we wanted to spend as we were buying it outright.
Maybe in a year or so if she wants to upgrade she can get that one...used and it will be more in line with what we want to spend.

 

[Xander Crews]

Ok, we got the Bionic on Monday (her birthday)...and just like the ebay description said, it was spotless. Not a scratch on it and it's basically in mint condition. Woot!
And more happy news...it came with a sim card, which I wasn't expecting...saved me a trip to the Verizon store.
I fired it up, factory restored it (even though it already was) just to make me feel better, activated it on her Verizon line and we were off.

This is a kick ass phone. I definitely made the right decision for her.
It's fast, it looks nice, it feels solid and well built (like all Motorola stuff), it's very responsive, etc.
I put Nova Launcher on it, DCiconz icon theme, installed some apps that I feel are essential or very convenient, charged it to 100% and handed it over to her.

She loves it. She didn't think she would like a smart phone this much, but she really loves it. If you knew my wife, you'd be shocked to hear that she loves a smart phone...she was soooo anti-smart phone for the longest time.
She is officially on board with Android. :hail:
And, of course, I enjoyed answering all of her questions about how to do this or that. :biggrin:

Good stuff.
Thanks guys.

 

[deduct]

Congrats! Its still a very relevant phone.