Welcome 2014, Goodbye Bionic

[Milehighjc]

First, a very happy new year to all. Have not posted here much lately, life has been very busy, and at times challenging.

After over two years with my bionic, I can say that is has been a "like/despise" relationship. When the bionic was working well, it was decent. But over the last 6 months, the days where it worked well have diminished to a gross minority, and the despise days are off the map.

It all started with the last OS update, which for some reason did not sit well with my bionic. Battery life dropped to less than one day (even with the extended life battery, and after shutting down anything/everything that used data in the background). The screen brightness lives in a cave most of the time, GPS is off, sync is off, wifi is off most of the time, and I mostly use it as a phone only anymore. I've seen it drop from 80% battery to 20% in 10 minutes several times as the radio (or wifi) hunted for signal. Swype has become so inaccurate as to be unusable.

About once a week, it refuses to answer phone calls (the screen becomes unresponsive), and then the phone goes into "spaz more" where the screen jitters, the vibrate goes off every 4-5 seconds, and the phone becomes completely unresponsive (even to try to power down) requiring a battery pull.

It has become slower than dog snot about half the time.

Other than that, it runs great

I know... Factory data reset. Did that... 4 months ago. It helped for... maybe as week.

Until recently, I had been a pretty ardent supporter of Android, but Im pretty sour right now. Between the Windows (XP and Win7) work machines, my wife's Mac, two apple tablets, my daughters android and Kindle tablets, and the bionic (all of which I have become tech support for), I think I am ready for some life simplification. Its time to either consolidate on apple, or Android. Not sure which way that is going to go, but its safe to say my bionic has put Android in the underdog spot as I think I'm ready to trade some innovation for stability.

The bionic HW LOOKS to be in pretty good shape... its has never been dropped. It probably needs a new battery, but Im reluctant to spend any money on it not knowing if the screen is shot (the spaz mode stuff). 1 I wonder if I were to FDR it again, and not restore any of the apps whether it could give my middle daughter some service. I just don't want to be in the business of spending a lot of time supporting it.

In the mean time, the evaluation of an Samsung Galaxy S4 (which my son has) vs an iPhone 5s begins.

 

[Sajo]

Happy New Year to you also. I know exactly want you mean about the "family tech support guy"; 4 phones, 2 kindles, 1 tablet, 2 laptops. Its never ending sometimes. I am a former Bionic owner also & loved that phone. Its on a shelf as a backup. Hope you find the phone that fits your needs.

Sent from my XT907 using Droid Forums

 

[DrakeMK3]

I am a former owner of a bionic as well. Just a couple weeks ago I bought a good used Galaxy S4 so I can keep my unlimited data and I haven't looked back. Compared to pretty much anything, the S4 is freakin' awesome. I was having the same issues you were having with the bionic and performed hard resets to try and fix the sluggishness I was experiencing, but it was no longer effective. The iphone is nice, but everytime I compare my S4 to one, I'm glad I stayed with Android. Good luck with your decision.

 

[bluezdawg]

Was curious if anyone still had a Bionic so figured I'd take a peak.

Ditto, I have had my S4 for about 6 months now, best decision I ever made! No more Motorola for me! A work colleague that had a Bionic moved to an iPhone and hates it.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

 

[Mike.757]

My Bionic works great! It sits on the side of my bed in its cradle and wakes me up every morning!

 

[Stinson317]

My son and I are " rocking " bionics with kit kat ( CM11). Best the phone has ever been. I feel like I'm cheating. Waiting for the next new thing. Right now no reason to leave. Always like hearing what former Bionic users switch to and their experience. For those of you left with me (bionic), If you're not on CM 11... your crazy.... ( just my opinion) . Looks like I may be turning out the lights!

 

[TOMMYBOT]

Old flip phone > Droid X >Bionic > Droid Maxx(Ultra Maxx)
loved my droid x.
upgraded to the bionic for the 4g. loved it. i actually really liked the camera.

i can completely agree on the feelings of the bionic. i started to hate mine at the end. factory resets wiping everything, keeping everything off. i agree it made it feel like it wasnt worth the smart phone it was. (conspiracy theory, think they ruined it on purpose so everyone wants to upgrade?)

i was thinking about holding out till after deployment but when the ultra and maxx came out and i found a 100 dollar discount (courtesy of a friend) i jumped on the maxx.

needless to say my deployment was delayed so i'm even happier that i got the maxx when i did.
couldnt be happier. love the active notifications. the interface the screen is beautiful. the body with out case feels great i just bought a otter box commuter after doing one drop. i dont want to risk another. i dont mind the case it works. and even more pleased it works with my new QI charging pad.
i like the sleek camera interface, just wish it gave more options.
almost forgot. the batter life. for ym average use (which i think is average to heavy, playing a lot of clash of clans) i can skip charging it every other night. and i would end the second day around 10-15%
if i have a busy day at work, i'll get home and be at 90%
overall i would definitely reccomend this device to others.

GF has a SGS4 (that i got her to upgrade from her iphone 4s)
she likes it, the battery life has been sub par standard. we are working on finding out whats doing the draining.

i think their both great phones.
i do like the tweaks that motorola adds a little more than samsung. but that might be a slightly biased opinion

TLDR: SGS4 and Droid Ultra Maxx Both great phones a good upgrades. i suggest the Maxx.

Good luck picking out a new phone

 

[Milehighjc]

Well, seems the decision has been made. I have special ordered a black iPhone 5s. I didn't think I would ever do this, I have been a huge Android fan since my original Moto Droid. It was not an easy decision to be sure - There are some things I will miss a lot (customization of the menu screens, the app innovations, etc), but the final tip of the hat was stability, and standardization on one mobile OS. I already had to deal with iOS on my iPad Mini, and my daughters iPhones, so iOS was not going away for me. I do REALLY like my son's Galaxy 4S, but since I have a tablet, I did not want/need the larger screen, so in the end, the smaller form factor of the iPhone turned out to be a plus.

I do want to thank all here on Droidforums - this has been a fantastic resource for me for many years now. Not only has this forum helped me resolve problems, but it has been an endless source of cool ideas. Perhaps I will return to Android... will see how the next couple of years go with Apple. I believe that the existence of both Apple iOS and Android in the market has been a VERY good thing... they push each other to higher levels of excellence. The standard goes up every year... Who knows where we will be in 2016????

Cheers!
jc

 

[fuzzyb3]

Cm11

Why did you root with (cm11) ? My Bionic is now out of contract so I'm thinking about rooting. Thank you.

 

[Stinson317]

If you want to go beyond the ota version you have to root in order to load other rooms based on newer versions on android ( kit kat). There are a couple of ROMS out there built on kit kat but CM has been my daily driver for some time know. Highly recommend it.

 

[donzz]

My Bionic works great! It sits on the side of my bed in its cradle and wakes me up every morning!

LOL, I was using mine for the exact same thing. I bought the Droid Maxx. Best phone out there! 3 days on one charge. My poor Bionic barely made it through the day. I ended up selling it on Ebay. It still worked fine, just needed a new battery. Now I have the QI Charger from TYLT and that should last me many many years.

 

[Vepaot]

My Bionic was the same way. For whatever reason, it did not like 4.1.2 Jellybean and any ROM I installed faced very similar problems. I ended up taking the plunge and getting the LG G2 and let the Bionic RIP. It's still sitting my "spare parts" drawer, in case I ever break or lose my G2 and can't get it replaced pronto. Had a lot of good times with my Bionic though, showing off the dual core processing power that was so new and fresh back then. One of the first phones with a gig of RAM, liked to brag about my memory management on it. But all good things must come to an end.

 

[Dolly]

I have moved on to a Moto X. Excited to have a responsive phone again, my Bionic was constantly freezing. I'll keep it for standby. This has been and will be a great forum. Thanks for all the help and suggestions... moving to the Moto X forum.

 

[krucifyd]

Help me out, I'd like to move my bionics up to KIT Kat. Point toward the how to.

My son and I are " rocking " bionics with kit kat ( CM11). Best the phone has ever been. I feel like I'm cheating. Waiting for the next new thing. Right now no reason to leave. Always like hearing what former Bionic users switch to and their experience. For those of you left with me (bionic), If you're not on CM 11... your crazy.... ( just my opinion) . Looks like I may be turning out the lights!

 

[Stinson317]

1). Find the sticky under hacks telling you how to root your bionic. Root
2). Install safestrap ( Google to find)
3). Install kitkat ROM. Google cm11 for targa for my favorite

If you have questions ask