Motorola Atrix 4G Hands-On

[sunny1985]

.... now this product has my vote!

video below.

Apple i hope your paying attention!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWIe8wQBqS0

 

[wordoflife]

What exactly do you like about that phone?

 

[F123D]

I'm not seeing it either.. a laptop that is a "dead device" without the phone?

What parts of the video is apple supposed to be paying attention to?

 

[sunny1985]

4-inch 960 x 540 QHD display. There’s also 1GB RAM and up to 48GB memory, front-facing VGA camera and 5-megapixel rear-facing camera. Not forgetting of course the NVIDIA Tegra chip.

call of duty and fifa need to get some games produced on this! this is certainly going to turn heads on the train!

 

[Rodimus Prime]

The laptop dock part I will call mostly a gimic and I think more of a test bed that a real big push.
Do I want the phone hell yeah but I could careless about the dock part of it. I want it for everything else and it does show a huge amount of promise.

 

[ajohnson253]

What do you like so much about it?

 

[fertilized-egg]

It's a very nice looking phone but what makes it so special over, say, the HTC EVO 4G in its hey day?

If you say the docking machine, I can understand the enthusiasm and think it's really cool but I also think the feature is borderline useless. Why?

- The Laptop docking part still has to contain battery, keyboard, and display, and most likely not that cheap nor light. If it's not that cheap nor light, why would you want to carry around a very limited laptop?

- The desktop docking station is even more puzzling. You have a nice computer if you are a type who gets an expensive smartphone like this. Why would you sit in front of a desk for a very limited desktop experience? You still have to grab the monitor and input devices somewhere as well as carrying the dock around.

- The only reason I can think of is the fact you can have all your data on one device. However a big part of Google's attraction with Android is the on-cloud service. If you have a smartphone with a data plan, why would you want to limit yourself into a very limited laptop/desktop instead of relying on online sync services?

- Possibly worst of all, and I haven't seen it mentioned yet, is what happens to the OS update with this thing? I doubt Google has much to do with the docking station part and all this customized software means it's much harder to get a clean custom ROM for the thing. Do you trust Motorola enough on the upgrade front?

I really like the concept of it and think it's very cool, but I can't help but wonder it's just too geeky for its own good and doesn't really solve any problem nor open up a new market. For some it surely will, and it's an attention getter for Motorola and AT&T, but I think the practicality is rather limited.

 

[rfrankl]

Motorola is still in business? lol

 

[Rodimus Prime]

It's a very nice looking phone but what makes it so special over, say, the HTC EVO 4G in its hey day?

If you say the docking machine, I can understand the enthusiasm and think it's really cool but I also think the feature is borderline useless. Why?

- The Laptop docking part still has to contain battery, keyboard, and display, and most likely not that cheap nor light. If it's not that cheap nor light, why would you want to carry around a very limited laptop?

- The desktop docking station is even more puzzling. You have a nice computer if you are a type who gets an expensive smartphone like this. Why would you sit in front of a desk for a very limited desktop experience? You still have to grab the monitor and input devices somewhere as well as carrying the dock around.

- The only reason I can think of is the fact you can have all your data on one device. However a big part of Google's attraction with Android is the on-cloud service. If you have a smartphone with a data plan, why would you want to limit yourself into a very limited laptop/desktop instead of relying on online sync services?

- Possibly worst of all, and I haven't seen it mentioned yet, is what happens to the OS update with this thing? I doubt Google has much to do with the docking station part and all this customized software means it's much harder to get a clean custom ROM for the thing. Do you trust Motorola enough on the upgrade front?

I really like the concept of it and think it's very cool, but I can't help but wonder it's just too geeky for its own good and doesn't really solve any problem nor open up a new market. For some it surely will, and it's an attention getter for Motorola and AT&T, but I think the practicality is rather limited.

well my understanding is updating the device will have no real effect on the dock part as that is not andriod. From what I have read it is believe to be a linux OS that is going to run when it is docked and it just for lack of a better term access the phone threw an SDK so it becomes a non issue.
Why they believe this is because of firefox. It runs really well on small linux installs, much better than chrome so that part of it is not android but believed to be linux.

 

[sniffies]

Gosh, all these companies are trying so hard. lol

The pathetic thing is that they will never win. No matter how hard they try (octo-core, 128 GB RAM, 3-month battery, triple-retina display, money printer, built-in fortune-teller), they will NEVER win.

 

[fertilized-egg]

well my understanding is updating the device will have no real effect on the dock part as that is not andriod. ...
because of firefox. It runs really well on small linux installs, much better than chrome so that part of it is not android but believed to be linux.

OK, so it's just a hook that'll call the SDK to run the Android part within the tiny Linux installation and Motorola will have update each part separately I presume?

But that goes right back to my question. Why do you want to put yourself in front of a notebook/desktop with a very limited OS environment, in this case a customized Linux with Firefox and some multimedia portion, with phone innards? The only way I can justify it is if the docks are really cheap or even free, but I highly doubt that'll be the case.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

OK, so it's just a hook that'll call the SDK to run the Android part within the tiny Linux installation and Motorola will have update each part separately I presume?

But that goes right back to my question. Why do you want to put yourself in front of a notebook/desktop with a very limited OS environment, in this case a customized Linux with Firefox and some multimedia portion, with phone innards? The only way I can justify it is if the docks are really cheap or even free, but I highly doubt that'll be the case.

which goes back to my earilier point of that it is a gimicy thing. They did it knowing that it would be limited use. I think it is more of an relatively cheap experiment on Motorola part to see how this idea plays in the wild. I am willing to bet the idea is just to see how much is it worth going threw things like this for their other phones.
I could see the doing something like it on WP7 when they release one of those but this is just a test run to them.
It should not be in my opinion a reason for you to get the phone or not. I know it is not factoring in for my reason for wanting it.
Those reason for me is the dual core, the large battery and the screen size that to me is the sweet spot size.

 

[omerbaker]

Mac Book Air and an iPhone. Nuff said.

 

[ciaran00]

Did you notice how lagged the flash is? Is it acceptable that Flash look that lagged in a laptop?

Also, the point of a laptop is i can carry it around. This isn't the case for this thing as it's designed. I certainly can't put it on my "lap" without the phone falling off.

 

[fertilized-egg]

...
It should not be in my opinion a reason for you to get the phone or not. I know it is not factoring in for my reason for wanting it.
Those reason for me is the dual core, the large battery and the screen size that to me is the sweet spot size.

That I completely agree. I do wonder how the phone will do once Samsung and HTC release their new phones, especially the new Samsung Galaxy with reportedly improved and even bigger AMOLED screen. Nonetheless it's interesting to see what companies are doing in order to stand out among a pool of very competitive Android offerings.

 

[Zac7]

It has motoblur so its instantly junk...I will pass. Phones hardware specs mean nothing if they put crap software on top of it.

 

[lsvtecjohn3]

4-inch 960 x 540 QHD display. There’s also 1GB RAM and up to 48GB memory, front-facing VGA camera and 5-megapixel rear-facing camera. Not forgetting of course the NVIDIA Tegra chip.

call of duty and fifa need to get some games produced on this! this is certainly going to turn heads on the train!

The iPhone 4 screen is 960 x 640
I would guess that the next iPhone will have 1GB of ram
The next should came with 32GB and 64 GB of memory
I couldn't find the specs of the Atrix front facing camera, I'm sure Apple will upgrade the next iPhone FF camera also
Rumor has it that the next iPhone going to have a 8MP camera

Just because this one phone has great specs doesnt mean developers are going to want to develop for Android. How many units is this phone going to sell 1 million? What's the point. Now if most Android phones coming out have these kind of specs I can see major developers producing games for
Android.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

That I completely agree. I do wonder how the phone will do once Samsung and HTC release their new phones, especially the new Samsung Galaxy with reportedly improved and even bigger AMOLED screen. Nonetheless it's interesting to see what companies are doing in order to stand out among a pool of very competitive Android offerings.

Problem I have with both teh new Galaxying coming that is 4.5in and the HTC is both of them are to large and pass the sweet spot for me. For me 4in screen is the sweet spot.

 

[Blinkr]

I don't see the appeal of the phone. If I wanted multimedia and better web browsing I'd just use my laptop which has much better specs and just as portable as the dock. I just think that a lot of companies are starting to miss the point of a smartphone (basic browsing, email, games, music etc) and trying to achieve way too much with a single handheld device.

 

[wordoflife]

4-inch 960 x 540 QHD display. There’s also 1GB RAM and up to 48GB memory, front-facing VGA camera and 5-megapixel rear-facing camera. Not forgetting of course the NVIDIA Tegra chip.

call of duty and fifa need to get some games produced on this! this is certainly going to turn heads on the train!

Who cares?
iOS is optimized for the specs Apple puts into the iPhone so that's all that matters. Its not like Android that is based on a billion platforms that need better specs to make Android work better.

 

[Apple...]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

OK, so it's just a hook that'll call the SDK to run the Android part within the tiny Linux installation and Motorola will have update each part separately I presume?

But that goes right back to my question. Why do you want to put yourself in front of a notebook/desktop with a very limited OS environment, in this case a customized Linux with Firefox and some multimedia portion, with phone innards? The only way I can justify it is if the docks are really cheap or even free, but I highly doubt that'll be the case.

which goes back to my earilier point of that it is a gimicy thing. They did it knowing that it would be limited use. I think it is more of an relatively cheap experiment on Motorola part to see how this idea plays in the wild. I am willing to bet the idea is just to see how much is it worth going threw things like this for their other phones.
I could see the doing something like it on WP7 when they release one of those but this is just a test run to them.
It should not be in my opinion a reason for you to get the phone or not. I know it is not factoring in for my reason for wanting it.
Those reason for me is the dual core, the large battery and the screen size that to me is the sweet spot size.

This. ^ Agreed. It's most likely an experimentation of the feature.

 

[Apple...]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

It has motoblur so its instantly junk...I will pass. Phones hardware specs mean nothing if they put crap software on top of it.

My thoughts exactly. MotoBlur = fail.

 

[Apple...]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

That I completely agree. I do wonder how the phone will do once Samsung and HTC release their new phones, especially the new Samsung Galaxy with reportedly improved and even bigger AMOLED screen. Nonetheless it's interesting to see what companies are doing in order to stand out among a pool of very competitive Android offerings.

Problem I have with both teh new Galaxying coming that is 4.5in and the HTC is both of them are to large and pass the sweet spot for me. For me 4in screen is the sweet spot.

4.5 inch is ridiculous (so was 4.3). Acer's phone-tablet is 4.8. What is wrong with today's society?

 

[Apple...]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I don't see the appeal of the phone. If I wanted multimedia and better web browsing I'd just use my laptop which has much better specs and just as portable as the dock. I just think that a lot of companies are starting to miss the point of a smartphone (basic browsing, email, games, music etc) and trying to achieve way too much with a single handheld device.

Very good point to make. I think this is more of an experiment/ gimmick than anything, though.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)



4.5 inch is ridiculous (so was 4.3). Acer's phone-tablet is 4.8. What is wrong with today's society?

Use mutli quote man.

That being said what size do you like. I am a fan of 4in.