Motorola Droid Bionic now available

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Google, Handhelds

Motorola's long-awaited Droid Bionic smartphone is finally here.

The device, Verizon's first dual-core, LTE phone, is available now at Verizon stores and online at verizonwireless.com. It doesn't come cheap, though: the Bionic will set you back $299.99 with a two-year contract.

For a limited time, those who purchase the Lapdock accessory, which essentially turns your smartphone into a 11.6-inch laptop, will get a $100 mail-in rebate when subscribing to the $50, 5GB data plan or higher. That Lapdock, however, is also $300.

Hotspot data plans start at $30 per month for 2GB.

The Bionic runs Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread and a dual-core, 1-GHz TI OMAP4 dual-core chipset. It features a 4.3-inch touch screen protected by Corning Gorilla glass and 16GB of on-board memory, expandable up to 32GB. There's an 8-megapixel, rear-facing camera with flash and 1080p video capture as well as a front-facing one for video chat. Adobe Flash is pre-loaded and the Bionic is HTML5-capable, Verizon said.

If you're willing to wait until September 13, Coscto is offering the Droid Bionic for $279.99 with hundreds of dollars worth of free accessories thrown in.

Motorola first showed off the Bionic at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, when we got some hands-on time with a prototype. At the time, Motorola said it would launch in February, but the smartphone was hit with one delay after another, forcing Verizon to release a statement explaining that it was undergoing some design revisions. Finally in July, Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha assured it was on track to release the Bionic in September.

This article, written by Chloe Albanesius, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc.