Motorola Atrix Tegra 2 Phone with Netbook Dock Hands On

By Nicole Scott
10 Jan, 2011 9:00 pm

9 Comments

The Motorola Atrix is the flagship handset of the company’s new Android lineup. It sports a dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM and has some clever peripherals. We’ve been hands-on to see if it can live up to the hype. It has four touch sensitive buttons are incorporated into the front, below the screen, and while they don’t disappear when not in use, Also on the top edge is the headphone jack while the left is home to the volume rocker and the right has microUSB and miniHDMI.

There’s no sign of a shutter button for the 8-megapixel camera but it does at least have twin LEDs. Under the backplate is a whopping 1930mAh battery (most smartphones use 1500mAh ones) that should keep this phone running for several days, despite its dual-core CPU. You’ll also find a microSD slot, giving you the option to add another 32GB of storage to the 16GB onboard. The 4in LCD screen is excellent. Its 960 x 540 resolution makes it really sharp, while colour reproduction and viewing angles are both very good. It’s easily one of the best we’ve ever seen.

What we really like about this smartphone is the netbook accessory and the desktop dock. It is possible to connect a monitor to the dock, via HDMI and you can view the phone on a full monitor. Mouse and keyboard connections are also supported, giving you a full desktop experience from a phone. It takes a moment for the phone to activate the WebTop interface that powers the full screen experience but once running, it’s reasonably nippy. The standard phone interface is then contained within a window on the desktop, making it easy to control the phone aspects of the device with ease. One of the most obvious uses for the phone in this configuration is watching video, which it excels at. 1080p video plays back flawlessly and looks great.

the laptop dock. It’s very well built with a solid feeling hinge and attractive brushed aluminium finish. The 11in screen quality is also better than one might expect with good viewing angles and a more than adequate 1,280 x 800 resolution. Likewise, the keyboard is surprisingly good, with a nice action and no flex or rattle when typing. The phone fits into a dock section that flips up from behind the hinge for the screen.

We’d have preferred an arrangement that lets the phone slide into the laptop but this solution does seem to work quite well. The best bit about the laptop dock, though, is that its battery will provide up to 8hrs of use with the phone connected but, not only that, it will charge the phone as well meaning you still have a fully charged phone even after you’ve been using it for eight hours.