OPINION

The smartphone market in the U.S. is mostly dominated by Apple, Samsung, Motorola, HTC and RIM’s BlackBerry. And the most anticipated devices from the beginning of this year include Apple’s iPhone 5 and Motorola Droid Bionic.

Motorola Droid Bionic will come with several enhancements, including expanded features, functionality and an improved form factor. The latest photo leaks revealing Motorola Droid Bionic showed that the smartphone looked very similar to Motorola Droid X2, another powerful dual core smartphone without 4G support.

The design changes from original Droid Bionic, which looked similar to Motorola Atrix, surely is one of the biggest enhancements in terms of form factor. It seems Motorola, with its failed attempt to impress consumers with Motorola Atrix, has allowed the Droid Bionic to undergo changes in order to pick up the momentum with the release of the upcoming smartphone expected to be launched in August.

One of the several leaked images supporting the looks of Droid Bionic to that of Droid X2 showcased version 1.3.0 Webtop application support. With Webtop application, Motorola brings mobile computing allowing users to experience cloud-based computing with easy-to-use docking stations. The ease of docking allows users to get online just the way they would with their regular laptops or office desktops. It provides full Firefox browser, doc editing and multimedia access on a large screen almost anywhere.

Here is a look at the comparison between Motorola Droid Bionic and most speculated features of iPhone 5.

Display:
Motorola Droid Bionic will come with 4.5-inch 540x960 pixels (qHD) TFT capacitive touchscreen display. In case of iPhone 5, most rumors point towards 3.5-inch or 3.7-inch, 960x640 resolution at 312 ppi display screen.

Input features:
Droid Bionic input features include multi-touch input method, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, touch-sensitive controls, and proximity sensor for auto turn-off. The features like biometric fingerprint reader, MOTOBLUR UI with Live Widgets and Gorilla Glass display similar to Motorola Atrix cannot be ruled out in Motorola Droid Bionic. Last month leaked photo shot from Droid-life showed the Droid Bionic featuring new 3D home screen previews in Blur plus lock screen.

With iPhone 5 expected to closely resemble iPhone 4, expect scratch-resistant oleophobic surface, multi-touch input method, accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate, three-axis gyro sensor and proximity sensor for auto turn-off.

Memory:
Now the confusion remains whether Motorola Droid Bionic comes with 512 MB RAM, 2 GB ROM and 16 GB storage which was found in original Motorola Droid Bionic showcased during the CES. In fact, Droid X2 has 512 MB RAM but Motorola Atrix comes with 1 GB RAM. The probability of Motorola Droid Bionic featuring 1 GB RAM is highly expected as the latest ad described Droid Bionic to be ferocious force and an all powerful unstoppable device.

With Apple upgrading its RAM during release of their newer version every year, the possibility of Apple iPhone 5 featuring a 768 MB RAM similar to HTC Sensation 4G from iPhone 4’s 512 MB RAM is quite expected. But, usually Apple never reveals its RAM specification until a tear down of the device is done by tech journalists. Since iPhone 5 is expected to feature processor similar to iPad 2, the possibility of iPhone 5 running on 512 MB RAM cannot be ruled out.

Speed:
The iPhone 5 coming with 4G LTE is less likely as the phone must be modified to fit in the big LTE chip which contrasts with Apple planning to deliver a thinner and lighter device. Also many other hardware parts of iPhone 5 must be expanded to make that option a reality. In fact HTC Thunderbolt which features 4G LTE support has 4.3-inch display and weighs 164 g, also original Motorola Droid Bionic had 4.3-inch display and weighed 158 g. And with Apple iPhone 4 weighing just 137g, the probability of iPhone 5 crossing over 150 g is less likely.

With 4G LTE up its sleeves, Motorola Droid Bionic is the clear winner here. The speed of device may not matter for many users who use smartphones to check their email, browsing lightweight Websites, but it does makes a big difference when transmitting large files, booking tickets online, bill payment, viewing complex sites or streaming video. Few of the biggest advantages of having a 4G LTE phone is when it shares its Internet connection with notebooks, iPads and other WiFi devices.

Also, the Thunderbolt 4G LTE is more than four times faster than the iPhone 4 in the download department and more than eight times faster in uploading data.

WLAN:
Motorola Droid Bionic will have Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot support whereas iPhone 5 will have Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot support.

Camera:
Motorola Droid Bionic will come with 8-megapxiel 3264x2448 pixels camera along with autofocus, dual-LED flash, geo-tagging, face detection and image stabilization support. With Motorola Atrix just featuring 5-megapixel camera but expected to receive 1080p via future update will help Motorola Droid Bionic’s hopes of upgrade from 720p to 1080p. But, if 3D enhancement is making its way into Motorola Droid Bionic, then possibility of Droid Bionic featuring 1080p@24fps (2D) and 720p@30fps (3D) similar to HTC EVO 3D is expected.

In the case of iPhone 5, Bloomberg reported that Apple’s next version will have 8-megapixel camera and will closely resemble the iPhone 4. And 1080p video recording along with dual-LED flash will be found in iPhone 5. As leaked by Sony CEO Howard Stringer, iPhone 5 may also carry an HD FaceTime camera similar to those shipping with the current MacBook Pro lineup.

Processor:
As iPhone 5 is going to come with Apple iPad 2 processor, the smartphone will have 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU Apple A5 chipset processor. But, with iPad 2 featuring a 900 MHz processor, iPhone 5 can expect to get a 1.2 GHz processor to counter the 4G LTE support to some extent for speed enhancement.

Operating system:
With iOS 5 and iPhone 5 releases expected to be on September, Apple iPhone 5 will come with iOS 5 operating system. Motorola Droid Bionic will come with Android OS v2.3 (Gingerbread).

Battery:
Motorola Droid Bionic during its initial release in CES 2011 showcased a Li-Po 1930 mAh battery which is good enough to support the 4G LTE and dual core processor.

As Apple iPhone 5 is going to closely resemble as iPhone 4, it can come with Li-Po 1420mAh or there may be an upgrade, but going over Li-Po 1930 mAh battery will not occur.

The latest news on iPhone 5 release date has taken a wild turn as rumours say the iPhone 5 could possibly see release on August 16. This was due to a job listing for iPhone sales staff to work in retail between August 16 and October 29. And with AT&T slashing the price of iPhone 3GS down to $9 with two year contract surely has indicated that iPhone 5 (4S) release date is just around the corner. With 3GS price being dropped, the iPhone 4 price drop to $99 or less is possible, making way for iPhone 5 to enter the carrier soon.

And the new rounds of rumors suggest that mobile carriers like AT&T, Verzion, Sprint and T-Mobile got the iPhone 5 in hand for beta testing. In fact, another rumor pointed out that the device was handed over to AT&T beta testers on July 6. If these rumors are true, then the unveiling of next version of iPhone will take place in August.

However, iPhone sales staff being hired between August 16 and October 29 at least needs one month or more of training to know about the product. As iOS 5 unveiled by Apple has more than 200 features and new hardware of iPhone 5 requires the staff to learn about the technical aspect of the product, then iPhone 5 release can fall in September end.

Meanwhile, Verizon has launched the sign-up page for Droid Bionic teasing the future release of this much-anticipated 4G smartphone.

Whatever may be the outcome of specifications of these two smartphones, Motorola Droid Bionic seems to have clearly dwarfed the iPhone 5.

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