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Last night while taking in an episode of George Lopez in the wee hours of the morning, loyal Phandroid reader Edmond spotted the Motorola Droid Bionic “Rule all Machines” ad during a commercial break, only this time something different caught his eye. At the end of the spot the final frames very clearly said 09.08.11, the long-rumored release date often attached to the Bionic. Luckily for us, Edmond was able to capture the moment for posterities sake. Verizon hasn’t gone on the record with an official announcement of the device or a September 8th release, but if they are running commercials featuring the date with little over a week left to go, we’d say it’s a pretty sure thing. Anyone else catch the altered ad making its TV rounds?
[Thanks, Edmond!]
Sweet! But no pre-order? No early DFill? WTF?!?
I’m over the Bionic. If they had released this thing a month ago, or during the original window when it was supposed to come out, I would already own one. They simply waited too long and now I can pass it up in favor of the Vigor.
The only thing that would keep me interested in this phone is if it came with an unlocked bootloader.
You’re obviously not over it if you comment on blogs about it.
I’m over it… yet here i am commenting on a blog about it :p
Yeah no early order is strange. Maybe they don’t want bad reviews before launch date?
The droiddoes.com website has a countdown timer for 12pm today. Maybe we’ll see pre-orders start then. Hopefully its not just for that video we have all already seen.
All these people who are over the Bionic will be the first in line! Cannot wait to get mine!
By not doing direct fill they r only gonna lose a lot of business. Now on the 8th u can do Costco or best buy. So whoever opens first is gonna get the business. Stupid move Verizon.
I’m pretty sure Verizon is not going to lose any business over this given the majority of their business is getting people to subscribe to their service…not just selling phones.
I am not pretending to be a Bionic fan. On paper, which is all we really have right now, this is an inferior phone compared to phones coming out at the same time. Look at the facts and you have to agree whether you are a fan or not. Even though VZW chose not to get the SGS2 a week later, the specs are better, the price is better (assuming they will all be $199).
Regardless of the hype for this phone, smart buyers would simply wait a few weeks to do a side by side comparison. Yes, I said SMART. A fool and his money are soon parted. Since you have to live with the purchase for 24 months, why not wait a few more weeks? Yes, you can always dump it and pay a higher premium. (Revisit: a fool and his money are soon parted). It is only logical to wait a few weeks.
Speculation only: The reason VZW chose not to get the SGS2 is simply because the Bionic could not handle the competition. VZW is going to saturate the pipe with top-of-the-line phones in a few weeks. It would be hard for the Bionic to sustain with that pressure. The qHD display of old will not stand up to the HD display of the Vigor and Prime. Apple is notorious for high quality displays. I can only assume that the iPhone 5 will be at least as good as the past Retina display. Which I think is better than the qHD (personal opinion).
My advice is wait to compare side-by-side. If the Bionic is the best of the bunch, then that is what I will get in October and at 50% off of the 9/8 price.
wise advice to wait a few weeks.
Right now Motorola is in “get it on the shelf before the competition arrives” mode. No doubt there are significant “issues” still to be worked out. The first month will be blogs and blogs of “mine does that too, problems” and “when is motorola/VZW gonna release that patch” moaning.
maybe it will change when every Motorola phone is a Motorola/ Google phone.
I think VZW passed on the SGS2 because of the Prime. Why release a flagship Samsung phone a month before release an even bigger “exclusive” flagship phone from Samsung. I doubt it had anything to do with the Bionic. As far as display goes, I think the qHD will suit me just fine on a 4.3″ screen. I doubt there will be huge visible differences to HD displays when they come to phones. The screens are simply too small to visually take advantage of the resolution increase. When it comes to price, the $299 price tag is reflective of LTE. If verizon had joined in and released and SGS2 with LTE, I can almost guarantee it would have cost $299 as well. They are charging a premium for their LTE phones for as long as they can while they are the only carrier with true LTE service. The same they did with the Tbolt and the Charge. I think they had a $249 price for the revolution but they weren’t pushing that phone very hard anyways so that may explain the slightly smaller price tag.
I also doubt there will be a huge drop in price in a mere month after release. They are still selling the Charge for $299. I know I’ll be there to get my Bionic on the 8th.
My current phone is dying, some days I have to restart it 2-3 times before it will run. The Bionic looks to be everything I want in a phone, so I’m going to buy it. Everyone should get the phone that is right for them. Nothing foolish about that.
The foolish thing is making generalizations like that just because it may or may not be the right phone for you.
What is it inferior to? The vigor? That processor is the same as in the EVO 3d just clocked higher which the omap outperforms it. I probably won’t get the bionic but it isnt inferior by any means. It will be a good seller and the iphone most likely won’t have LTE so it has a better screen maybe if even that. Wait until all the phones are out to judge.
I think they waited too long.
I’m still interested, and I’ll read the reviews, but not nearly as hyped about this phone as I was 3 months ago.
I will likely wait for all the details on the Vigor and the fabled Droid Prime before making a decision.
Is WebTop even a selling point at this point? I could have an honest use for that kind of functionality, especially if the accessories come down in price as speculated. But I’m not to hot on the actual phone anymore either.
I am not over over it. The vigor and prime are still in the early rumor stage so I’m predicting maybe before Christmas at the best. As far as pre order goes, well its seven days till launch and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that today.
Well, it seems like forever for this phone to get an official release date, but it’s finally here and looks like an awesome phone. Now of course I’m thinking about the Droid/Nexus Prime/HD phone due out next month. I personally saw the commercial for the Droid Bionic on an episode of Big Brother tonight (last night). I can confirm that it did indeed say “09/08/11”.