Not long ago, some internal information had apparently been leaked showing that the Droid Bionic, among other devices, would be launched on September 8th. The official Droid Bionic twitter account has now confirmed that date.

The story of the Droid Bionic is a rather interesting one. The phone was announced ages ago (in tech-world time, anyway) back at CES in January. It was also announced next to the Motorola Atrix (a similarly speced phone, designed for AT&T). The powerful 4G LTE Bionic was presumed to be released alongside the Atrix, but then was oddly removed from Verizon and Motorola’s sites. It seemed that the Droid Bionic would be one of the first 4G LTE devices available on Verizon, but it was beaten to the market by the HTC Thunderbolt, Samsung Charge, and the LG Revolution.

Later, Verizon and Motorola indicated that the Bionic would be released this summer, and it appears they meant the tail end of summer!

The real question is, why the delay? I’m betting it has a lot more to do with some production issues and corporate politics than the excuse given on the Droid Bionic twitter account: “The Droid Bionic has been taken off from Motorola’s website. As you know we have already announced that we are improving the Bionic inch, and, “The NEW Motorola Droid Bionic is packed with jaw dropping features that will make your wait well worth it. inch

Though the launch date has been confirmed, there’s still no useful information about the Droid Bionic or the “NEW inch Droid Bionic from Motorola or Verizon.

One thing that the Droid Bionic was originally announced with, that I hope to see changed, is the inclusion of Android 2.2. The Motorola Atrix was also announced and launched with Android 2.2, but was officially updated to the latest Android 2.3 build in July. Hopefully we’ll see the Droid Bionic make it out the door with the latest version of Android on board, as these update debacles are becoming ever tiring.

As far as I’m aware, the Droid Bionic is going to be packing the same specs that were announced at CES. I’ll be happily surprised if they managed to add anything “jaw dropping inch, but I’m not holding my breath.

Thanks to GBM for pointing this out!

Not long ago, some internal information had apparently been leaked showing that the Droid Bionic, among other devices, would be launched on September 8th. The official Droid Bionic twitter account has now confirmed that date.

The story of the Droid Bionic is a rather interesting one. The phone was announced ages ago (in tech-world time, anyway) back at CES in January. It was also announced next to the Motorola Atrix (a similarly speced phone, designed for AT&T). The powerful 4G LTE Bionic was presumed to be released alongside the Atrix, but then was oddly removed from Verizon and Motorola’s sites. It seemed that the Droid Bionic would be one of the first 4G LTE devices available on Verizon, but it was beaten to the market by the HTC Thunderbolt, Samsung Charge, and the LG Revolution.

Later, Verizon and Motorola indicated that the Bionic would be released this summer, and it appears they meant the tail end of summer!

The real question is, why the delay? I’m betting it has a lot more to do with some production issues and corporate politics than the excuse given on the Droid Bionic twitter account: “The Droid Bionic has been taken off from Motorola’s website. As you know we have already announced that we are improving the Bionic”, and, “The NEW Motorola Droid Bionic is packed with jaw dropping features that will make your wait well worth it.”

Though the launch date has been confirmed, there’s still no useful information about the Droid Bionic or the “NEW” Droid Bionic from Motorola or Verizon.

One thing that the Droid Bionic was originally announced with, that I hope to see changed, is the inclusion of Android 2.2. The Motorola Atrix was also announced and launched with Android 2.2, but was officially updated to the latest Android 2.3 build in July. Hopefully we’ll see the Droid Bionic make it out the door with the latest version of Android on board, as these update debacles are becoming ever tiring.

As far as I’m aware, the Droid Bionic is going to be packing the same specs that were announced at CES. I’ll be happily surprised if they managed to add anything “jaw dropping”, but I’m not holding my breath.

Thanks to GBM for pointing this out!

So this is interesting. Motorola and Verizon officially announce the Motorola Droid X2 which seems to be a very well speced phone, but the external design appears to be identical to the original Droid X [tracking page][review] except they apparently decided to remove the dedicated camera button. Is that weird to anyone else?

Sure, I complained about the quality of the buttons in my review of the device saying “the volume rocker and lock/power buttons are top-notch in their firmness and clickability, however, the longish camera button could be used as a mini-seesaw and the four front buttons aren’t much to write home about either, inch but I was asking for it to be improved, not removed!

The only reason I can think of that would have led to the removal is if Motorola was seeing a high breakage rate on the button because they didn’t redesign the phone, the button was removed to fix the issue instead of improved. They may have also needed a tiny bit of space inside the phone that would have been saved with the removal of the button, but that seems less likely.

I’m also very surprised to find the Droid X2 lacking a front-facing camera as we don’t often see top-end phones launching without one these days (I blame the lack of redesign).

Anyway, the Droid X2 is here and should be available for purchase online from Verizon by the time you read this. The phone will not surprisingly run you $199 on-contract. The X2 will hit stores a bit later than its online availability; be on the lookout on May 26th for the device in your local Verizon store.

Now what you’re probably really interested in is the specs. The X2 is nearly identical to the Droid X in appearance, but the internals have been beefed up, big time. As usual, these are all official — check it:

• Android 2.2 (with a promised 2.3 update down the road)
• Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU/GPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 4.3 inch “qHD inch capacitive touchscreen display @ 960×540 (Gorilla Glass with glare reducing coating)
• 3G EV-DO
• 8MP rear camera with dual-LED flash (captures up to 1280×720 video)
• Micro HDMI-out with 1080p-capable display mirroring
• 8GB of memory onboard, 8GB MicroSD card pre-loaded

Those a the major details, but we’ve got a full page in our database dedicated to tracking detailed specs, links, and more on the Droid X2. Be sure to check it out for additional details. Oh and don’t forget to see the Droid X2 gallery. It wouldn’t hurt to look at our original Droid X gallery as well considering the circumstances….

Looks like there will be an updated version of Motorla’s Android skin included on the X2. On the original Droid X It was one of the first things I found a replacement for from the Android Market, so I really hope they make the widgets more space conscious this time around.

So this is interesting. Motorola and Verizon officially announce the Motorola Droid X2 which seems to be a very well speced phone, but the external design appears to be identical to the original Droid X [tracking page][review] except they apparently decided to remove the dedicated camera button. Is that weird to anyone else?

Sure, I complained about the quality of the buttons in my review of the device saying “the volume rocker and lock/power buttons are top-notch in their firmness and clickability, however, the longish camera button could be used as a mini-seesaw and the four front buttons aren’t much to write home about either,” but I was asking for it to be improved, not removed!

The only reason I can think of that would have led to the removal is if Motorola was seeing a high breakage rate on the button – because they didn’t redesign the phone, the button was removed to fix the issue instead of improved. They may have also needed a tiny bit of space inside the phone that would have been saved with the removal of the button, but that seems less likely.

I’m also very surprised to find the Droid X2 lacking a front-facing camera as we don’t often see top-end phones launching without one these days (I blame the lack of redesign).

Anyway, the Droid X2 is here and should be available for purchase online from Verizon by the time you read this. The phone will not surprisingly run you $199 on-contract. The X2 will hit stores a bit later than its online availability; be on the lookout on May 26th for the device in your local Verizon store.

Now what you’re probably really interested in is the specs. The X2 is nearly identical to the Droid X in appearance, but the internals have been beefed up, big time. As usual, these are all official — check it:

• Android 2.2 (with a promised 2.3 update down the road)
• Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU/GPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 4.3” “qHD” capacitive touchscreen display @ 960×540 (Gorilla Glass with glare reducing coating)
• 3G EV-DO
• 8MP rear camera with dual-LED flash (captures up to 1280×720 video)
• Micro HDMI-out with 1080p-capable display mirroring
• 8GB of memory onboard, 8GB MicroSD card pre-loaded

Those a the major details, but we’ve got a full page in our database dedicated to tracking detailed specs, links, and more on the Droid X2. Be sure to check it out for additional details. Oh and don’t forget to see the Droid X2 gallery. It wouldn’t hurt to look at our original Droid X gallery as well considering the circumstances….

Looks like there will be an updated version of Motorla’s Android skin included on the X2. On the original Droid X It was one of the first things I found a replacement for from the Android Market, so I really hope they make the widgets more space conscious this time around.

Motorola is stepping up it’s game with a powerful new Droid phone, the Droid Bionic. This is Motorola’s first 4G phone that will take advantage of Verizon’s LTE 4G service. This powerful new Droid sports a dual-core 1GHz CPU and Motorola claims that it’ll be able to record and edit 720p HD video directly on the phone. Looks like Motorola is also going to be providing some sort of integrated videoconferencing functionality to take advantage of the phone’s front and rear cameras, though there isn’t a lot of detail about this yet. I hope we don’t see proprietary videoconferencing solutions from several different OEMs… Google should really  create a universal system for this, but they’ve yet to do so. The Droid Bionic has a “qHD inch display (960×540) that levels the playing field with the iPhone 4’s “retina inch display (960×640) [note that the resolution difference is due to Android’s 16:9 screen ratio, while Apple prefers 4:3].

We’ve got the full specs for the Droid Bionic straight from Motorola:

• Android 2.2
• 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen @ 960×540
• nVidia Tegra 2 AP20H Dual-Core CPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 14GB of integrated memory
• MicroSD slot with support for additional 32GB of memory
• 4G / 3G LTE band 13 / EVDO
• WiFi b/g/n + Bluetooth 2.1
• HDMI out (likely mini-HDMI, but it’s unclear)
• 8MP rear camera with dual LED flash and autofocus, 720p recording at 30 FPS
• 0.3MP fixed-focus front facing camera

Pricing and availability has yet to be announced, but we’ll let you know when we hear something (possibly at Verizon’s CES conference later today).

Motorola is stepping up it’s game with a powerful new Droid phone, the Droid Bionic. This is Motorola’s first 4G phone that will take advantage of Verizon’s LTE 4G service. This powerful new Droid sports a dual-core 1GHz CPU and Motorola claims that it’ll be able to record and edit 720p HD video directly on the phone. Looks like Motorola is also going to be providing some sort of integrated videoconferencing functionality to take advantage of the phone’s front and rear cameras, though there isn’t a lot of detail about this yet. I hope we don’t see proprietary videoconferencing solutions from several different OEMs… Google should really  create a universal system for this, but they’ve yet to do so. The Droid Bionic has a “qHD” display (960×540) that levels the playing field with the iPhone 4’s “retina” display (960×640) [note that the resolution difference is due to Android’s 16:9 screen ratio, while Apple prefers 4:3].

We’ve got the full specs for the Droid Bionic straight from Motorola:

• Android 2.2
• 4.3” capacitive touchscreen @ 960×540
• nVidia Tegra 2 AP20H Dual-Core CPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 14GB of integrated memory
• MicroSD slot with support for additional 32GB of memory
• 4G / 3G – LTE band 13 / EVDO
• WiFi b/g/n + Bluetooth 2.1
• HDMI out (likely mini-HDMI, but it’s unclear)
• 8MP rear camera with dual LED flash and autofocus, 720p recording at 30 FPS
• 0.3MP fixed-focus front facing camera

Pricing and availability has yet to be announced, but we’ll let you know when we hear something (possibly at Verizon’s CES conference later today).

Here’s a quick hands-on with the Motorola Droid R2D2. The R2D2 edition is the same phone as the Droid 2 [product page][review] but it has interesting Star Wars branding and content included.

The phone is themed to look like the famous droid from the Star Wars saga and the phone features custom Star Wars themed unlock sliders, live wallpapers, a video, a widget, and an app. The box that it comes in is designed to look as though the phone has been encased in carbonite and the effect is rather convincing, though I think they could have bumped up the box presentation a bit, it’s just a regular old cardboard box with graphics on it (as you’d expect from any regular phone). Some of the stuff is really gimmicky, but I think a major Star Wars geeks might enjoy the phone, particularly for it’s looks. In fact, I know a friend who would absolutely love this thing! The phone launched yesterday in the US on Verizon.

Verizon has revamped its Droid line of Android Smartphones over the last few months. We already looked at the large Droid X [tracking page][review] and today we’re going to walk you through the latest of the three, the Droid 2.

Hardware

As usual, we’re going to start with a spec rundown and a hardware tour. Check out the Droid 2 tracking page for more detailed info and don’t forget about the Droid 2 gallery which includes shots that you won’t find in our review.

Specs

• Android 2.2
• TI OMAP 3 CPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 8GB inbuilt storage (6.5GB user-accessible)
• Included 8GB MicroSD card (slot accepts up to 32GB)
• 3.7 inch capacitive touchscreen @ 854×480
• 5MP camera (capable of up to 720×480 video recording)

Hardware Tour