After months of delays, Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) will launch Motorola Mobility's (NYSE:MMI) first LTE smartphone, the Droid Bionic.
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Click here for pictures, specs and details of the Droid Bionic. |
Verizon said it will launch the Bionic Thursday for $300 with a two-year contract. In addition, as with the Motorola Atrix for AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) and the Photon for Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S), the Bionic can pair with several dock accessories, which are sold separately.
Verizon said the Lapdock, which provides a Web browsing experience via a full keyboard and Motorola's Webtop application, will be available for $300. Separately, the HD Station multimedia dock will be available for $100 and the Adapter for Webtop Application will be available for $29.99. For a limited time, customers who purchase a Lapdock with the Bionic can receive a $100 mail-in rebate when subscribing to a $50, 5 GB data plan or higher.
The Bionic runs Android's Gingerbread operating system and 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 Bionic is coming to market months after it was initially planned. The device was unveiled with much fanfare in January at the Consumer Electronics Show and was originally scheduled to go on sale during the second quarter. In April, Motorola said it was delaying the device to make unspecified enhancements. Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha said last month that the delay was due to Motorola's desire to use its own LTE baseband chips instead of outsourcing the work.
In any case, Motorola rivals HTC, LG and Samsung have already introduced LTE smartphones via Verizon, with the HTC ThunderBolt being a particular hit. Motorola, which has been under pressure to diversify its carrier partners, announced in June that Sprint will launch at least 10 Motorola smartphones by year-end. The flagship device for that effort, the WiMAX-capable Photon, recently went on sale.
For more:
- see this release
- see this PC Magazine article
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