On October 16th, following the launch of Apple’s latest smart phone, Motorola released a refresh of their original power house the Atrix. Sporting that same snappy dual core technology from the original along with a pile of enhancements, this is a killer piece of hardware for anyone looking for an alternate to the iPhone, dedicated Android fans, or someone just looking for a great smart phone. Still sporting DLNA technology, a micro HDMI port and the ability to power a laptop dock the Atrix 2 blends business and pleasure in an unrivaled manner. Add the original features to enhancements such as an 8 megapixel camera, a higher resolution front facing shooter, more ram, a higher resolution screen and a lighter body, and the reasons to update your original Atrix or give this a try are hard to dispute.
My first impressions of the device were very very good. The improvements made gave me a more comfortable experience with the phone. The thinner body and bigger screen made it fit in my hand more snuggly, and still gave me the ability to manage it with one hand. My wife also found it easy to text one handed which has been the biggest challenge with the new generation of mini tablets our smart phones have become. I also noticed a huge improvement in battery life. The phone gave me a full 13 hours before it hit 15%, which under my heavy use is quite a task. The only modifications I made to the normal operation was to turn off mobile network while I was connected to wifi.
Transitioning phones was flawless with Android’s latest wireless sync updates. As I was checking my normal dosage of news my background suddenly became the old version, my custom launcher installed itself and booted to the correct theme, leaving only ringtones and widgets to be customized. This feature isn’t exclusive to the Atrix by any means, but makes transitioning from one Android phone to another a dream. Android users should rejoice in the fact that upgrading no longer means spending an afternoon putting your phone back together. Once they can start placing widgets and ringtones back with a simple account login we’ll have to find something else to complain about when upgrading.
The device itself handles very well under the scaled down Motoblur experience. No longer forcing the blue/green styles onto your phone the user experience feels much stronger, fluid, and less bogged down. The only system I found at all frustrating was the Smart-Dialer, it was grabbing anyone and everyone attached to the numbers dialed for about the first 24 hours. Once the syncing finished and the OS caught on to the contacts I dial most it became as second nature as the dialer built in to HTC’s Sense UI.
As you would expect installing apps and browsing the web is greatly enhanced by the beefier ram allocation. If your concern is processing power the benchmark tests alone should be proof that dual core on a phone makes a huge difference. The benchmark scores for the device came in between 2400 and 2600 which places the Atrix above most current gen phones, (it did lose to the Galaxy SII to my dismay). From a great form factor, snappy processor, and gorgeous experience, this phone is an incredible value at $99.99, I’ve had the phone a week and would be hard pressed to trade it for anything currently floating around the wireless world. Go try one out for yourself, you won’t be disappointed.
