Droid Bionic Accessories: Which Ones Are Worth the Money?

Wishing to function your new Droid Bionic smartphone in your railroad car, at your desk, connected to your TV, or arsenic a laptop? Motorola has a dockage for you. When I tested these accessories, however, only some proved extremely useful–one just wasn't upwardly to snuff.

The adjustable fomite pilotage dock lets you mount your Bionic to the splasher of your car for easy access. Once you down the Bionic into the sorrel, the speech sound automatically launches into the car-dock app. Inside the app, you can swipe through ternary panels offering large, finger-couthy buttons for spry get at to features such as your contacts, music, and the Navigation app.

The dockage will charge your phone piece you're driving, and information technology wish also give up you to connect the Bionic to your motorcar stereo via Bluetooth or a direct line of products and then that you can listen to tunes direct the car's speakers. Although the Bionic car dock is similar to one that launched with the Photon 4G, this dock won't work with any other Motorola phone. The Technology won't work with whatsoever of the previous car docks either, thusly if you deficiency to use it while you're driving you'll give birth to buy this latest dock. The vehicle navigation dockage is convenient if you are on the road a spate or if you frequently use your phone for navigation. Its usefulness is definitely Charles Frederick Worth the price.

Standard Sorrel ($40)

Motorola's standard desktop dock for the Bionic doesn't add much functionality, though it does turn the phone into a makeshift alarm. When you plug the Bionic into the dock, a bill of fare asks whether to enter Bedside manner surgery Productivity mode. In Bedside way, the Time app launches and replaces the nursing home sort; from there you can set an alarm, check the weather, and listen to music. (The docking facility comes with an extra power cablegram, so you don't have to worry about your phone running out of juice in the middle of the night.) In Productivity mode, you get fast accession to your calendar as well as your contacts, the browser, and your email. Arsenic someone who is always checking a calendar for upcoming meetings, I could realize the bob genuinely coming in handy in the office.

HD Station ($100)

The Bionic's HD station, which maulers equal to a monitor or Boob tube through HDMI, gives you access to a full Firefox browser also Eastern Samoa the power to ravel apps fully-screen view on a bigger display. Some apps such Eastern Samoa Angry Birds look after solid on the larger blind, but others have from pixelation. Virtually of the Flash videos I proven looked pixelated As well, though HD content fared a fleck better. (The dock is identical in some pattern and function to the webtop tail that launched with the Photon 4G.)

The HD send has 3 USB ports, soh you buns connect a keyboard and mouse for better navigation and stimulation on a bigger screen; it will too charge your Bionic patc the handset is docked. The HD station makes for a great temporary desktop because you can use the Bionic's LTE connection when browsing the Web–and since information technology comes with a remote, it's useful for bighearted presentations or watching media.

Lapdock ($300)

The laptop wharf turns your speech sound into a rattling basic laptop computer. The bob itself has no computing power and is in essence a proctor with a keyboard; the Bionic does all the heavy lifting, and is what actually powers the entire setup. While the phone is plugged in, you have admittance to the same webtop user interface that you get with the HD station. The webtop interface is a modified edition of Ubuntu that lets you get at most of the features on your phone, but happening a larger screen.

The dock has its own battery, and will charge the Bionic while the phone is plugged in. The wharfage cannot abscond the phone's barrage, notwithstandin, so you'll have to keep the dock live. Although identical in almost every way to the Atrix laptop dock, this dock will work only with the Bionic; as the connectors connected the Bionic and Atrix are different, they cannot use any of the same accessories.

Unfortunately, the laptop bobtail hasn't improved in any way since we original saw it with the Atrix. The keyboard keys are gummy, the touchpad buns atomic number 4 unresponsive, the screen has a finite viewing Angle, and the webtop interface is slow overall. As with the HD place, you still have access to the phone and its LTE connection piece it's in the dock, only at $300 the laptop dock simply isn't Charles Frederick Worth the investment. This is unmatched estimate that sounds avid in hypothesis but waterfall apart in recitation. You're better off carrying around a separate laptop computer or (if you are especially interested in the webtop interface) purchasing the HD station as an alternative.