July 16, 2011 03:33pm EST 2 Comments Verizon Launches Sign-Up Page for Droid Bionic

The dual-core Motorola Droid Bionic has had a rocky launch life, but a brand-new page from Verizon is now teasing the future release of this much-anticipated 4G smartphone.

Here's the deal: As we reported last week, when a leaked Best Buy flyer provided a few scant details on the phone for public consumption, the Droid Bionic was originally scheduled to launch in the second quarter of this year. That didn't happen. And worse, rumors started to fly back and forth that Motorola was considering axing the phone as-is. But based on feedback from the phone's unveiling at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Motorola eventually came out and said it was now going to be, "incorporating several enhancements to make this (the Bionic) an even better consumer experience."

Or, in consumer terms, the phone's launch was getting pushed back.

All the latest signs indicate that the Droid Bionic is shaping up for a summer launch, which includes everything from Twitter statements by Motorola representatives to outright confirmations by Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha. And according to Jha, the source of the Bionic's initial delay was the smartphone's LTE capabilities—neither Motorola nor Verizon felt as if the phone was in a good place to meet its original launch estimates. It's now expected that the launch of the Bionic will come hand-in-hand with a 4G LTE upgrade to Motorola's Xoom tablet.

So what's the official launch date? That bit remains unclear, though Internet chit-chat puts the rumored launch around a late-July to early-August timeframe. And it seems as if Verizon is getting its ducks in a row for such a process, as the company just recently released a new sign-up page for those interested in getting up-to-the-minute information about the Droid Bionic: Specifically, "details and launch dates." All you have to do is enter your email address.

As for the Bionic itself, expect to see a dual-core 1 Ghz processor powering the smartphone's 4.5-inch, 960-by-540 display. An included HDMI port can mirror your games and phone-stored videos onto a connected device (like, say, your living room television), and the recently leaked Best Buy flyer indicates that the phone itself can serve as a remote control for one's living room. The smartphone will ship with both front and rear facing cameras, and it's expected that the Gingerbread release of Google's Android operating system (version 2.3) will serve as the phone's software interface.

Posted in: Droid