Motorola delays Droid Bionic for Verizon, plans additional features

Motorola Mobility (NYSE:MMI) is delaying the release of its first LTE smartphone, the Droid Bionic for Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ), in order to add in new, unspecified features. 

Motorola droid bionic for verizon wireless

Motorola Droid Bionic for Verizon Wireless

The gadget, which was unveiled in January at the Consumer Electronics Show, was originally scheduled to go on sale through Verizon in the second quarter. Motorola said Verizon will launch the device this summer, but warned it might not be available to customers until the third quarter.

"Based on compelling feedback since [the Consumer Electronics Show], we are incorporating several enhancements to make this an even better consumer experience," a Motorola spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal. According to a Reuters report, Motorola also is changing the form factor of the device.

The Bionic sports a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, has 512 MB of RAM and a 4.3-inch HD screen. The Bionic also has a front-facing VGA camera and an 8-megapixel camera on the back.

The delay could sting Motorola. "Clearly, any high-profile product launch like this that slips, regardless of the reason, is costly in such a hypercompetitive market environment," CCS Insight analyst John Jackson told FierceWireless. He said Motorola might be working through LTE integration issues or could be changing features on the device to appeal more to enterprise customers.

Motorola also is going to add LTE capabilities sometime in the second quarter to its Xoom tablet, which was released earlier this year. (The Xoom currently supports Verizon's EV-DO network.) Customers will have to ship the tablet to Motorola in a prepaid FedEx envelope to obtain the LTE functionality, and the upgrade is expected to take six business days from the time customers ship the gadget to be completed.

For more:
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this Reuters article

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