HTC Vigor Might be a Threat to Motorola Droid Bionic

HTC's Vigor, which is slated to be released in October with its superlative specifications, is likely to up the ante against Motorola Droid Bionic.

While Motorola is still basking in the buzz that has been created with rave reviews, HTC has thrown down the gauntlet in the 4G LTE race, with rumors about Vigor doing rounds in different parts of the world.

The phone from HTC matches the features of Motorola Droid Bionic in every aspect. On Verizon's 4G LTE network, HTC Vigor's key competitors are Droid Bionic, Samsung Droid Charge and HTC Thunderbolt. However, the surmised specifications of HTC Vigor and Droid Bionic easily dwarf the other two phones. Thus, HTC Vigor and Motorola Droid Bionic are expected to be the top superphones on the 4G LTE, making them a rather juicy proposition for buyers.

Here is a comparison between the two smartphones.

Size: Motorola Droid Bionic has 127.5 x 66.9 x 11 mm dimension and weighs 158.8 g. HTC Vigor's dimension has not yet been revealed. However, as it has similar specifications like HTC Sensation XE model, it is likely to come with a dimension of 126.1 x 65.4 x 11.3 mm and may weigh above 160 g like HTC Thunderbolt due to LTE chip support. Also, HTC Thunderbolt has a dimension of 122 x 66 x 13 mm.

Display: HTC Vigor 4G LTE features 4.3-inch 720 x 1280 pixels TFT capacitive touchscreen compared to the Motorola Droid Bionic's 4.3-inch 540 x 960 pixels TFT capacitive touchscreen display.

Input features: The input features found in HTC Vigor include multi-touch input method, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, proximity sensor for auto turn-off, gyro sensor and HTC Sense v3.5 UI. (Rumors also points to a new version of HTC Sense dubbed Sense 3.3). The Droid Bionic features multi-touch input method, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, proximity sensor for auto turn-off and touch-sensitive controls.

Memory: HTC's Vigor smartphone has 1 GB RAM which should be the highest for any latest HTC smartphones as most of them feature 768 MB RAM, also Vigor features 16 GB internal memory compared to HTC Thunderbolt's 8 GB storage. Motorola Droid Bionic has 16 GB storage, 1 GB RAM and 2 GB ROM support.

3G: HTC Vigor is expected to feature Rev.A up to 3.1 Mbps LTE support, similar to Motorola Droid Bionic.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: HTC Vigor will have Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot support along with Bluetooth version 3.0 with A2DP and EDR and it also features microUSB version 2.0. Droid Bionic has almost similar features but differs with Bluetooth version 2.1.

Camera: HTC Vigor has an 8-megapixel 3264x2448 pixels camera with autofocus, dual-LED flash, geo-tagging, touch-focus, image stabilization, face detection and instant capture features. The camera can capture videos 1080p at 30fps and has a stereo sound recording feature and comes with a secondary 2-megapixel camera.

Droid Bionic has an 8-megapixel 3264x2448 pixels camera with autofocus, dual LED flash, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and image stabilization features. It can capture videos 1080p at 30fps and has a VGA secondary camera.

Operating System: Both the smartphones have the latest Android OS version 2.3 (Gingerbread) support.

Processor: Motorola Droid Bionic is the clear leader in terms of CPU speed for a dual core LTE phone until HTC Vigor came along. Motorola's phone has dual-core 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 TI OMAP4430 chipset processor.

HTC Vigor features 1.5 GHz dual-core processor. But it's unclear what chipset the smartphone will feature. The latest HTC Sensation XE phone features 1.5 GHz dual-core Adreno 220 GPU Qualcomm MSM 8260 Snapdragon processor which may make it into HTC Vigor too.

Battery: The battery found in Motorola Droid Bionic is Li-Ion 1735 mAh, giving a talk time of up to 10 h 40 min on 3G while with LTE 4G. Tests show the phone giving close to 8 hours support.

HTC Vigor battery size is a disputable one as few sources reveal a battery capacity of 1,620 mAh which popped up on Amazon Web site. HTC is surely going feature a higher battery capacity than Li-Ion 1400 mAh found in HTC Thunderbolt due to Thunderbolt's battery drainage issue. Meanwhile, HTC Sensation XE comes with Li-Ion 1730 mAh which can possibly be accommodated in HTC Vigor too.

HTC Vigor is expected to feature Beats from Dr Dre and the smartphone is being rumored to be named as Droid Incredible HD or HTC Thunderbolt 2. Some sources say it might be launched on Oct. 13. At the same time, other sources reveal that the phone named Vigor is coming out only a week later on October 20 falling in line with Apple's iPhone 5 launch.

Observers have speculated that the smartphone may have a price tag of around $250 or even $300 due to the 4G LTE capability of the HTC Vigor.

A special HTC event will be held in London on October 6. HTC Vigor unveiling falls in line with iPhone 5, Nokia Windows Phone and Google Nexus Prime. All these give an indication that HTC Vigor is expected to be the new flagship phone of the company.

Meanwhile, data revealed by comScore, analyzing the growth trends of the smartphone platforms across the five leading European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom), show that nearly 1 in 4 smartphone users in EU5 reported using smartphones running on the Google Android platform. Surprisingly, HTC leads in Europe while Samsung phones follow close behind. Similar trend is expected in the U.S. as well with the launch of HTC smartphones this fall.