Got my Atrix 2

[shortylickens]

Shipped fast but seller lied. Its not unlocked and it seems theres no free way to unlock it. And I dont even wanna use it with Tmobile. I just wanna use it as a PDA with no SIM. Cant even do that.

I did install the my Tmobile SIM and it let me skip past the BS to set up my Google account. Whenever I set up a Yahoo mail account I got a message saying I was now sharing all my personal info with MotoBlur. Now I see why people complain about it. The Droid didnt have that bullshit. Dunno if Gmail also allowed it.


CRAP! Screen timed out and now for some reason its back to only letting me make emergency calls. My desktop disappeared and I didnt even have time to play with any apps. Just clicked on the helpful newb Android widget a couple times and messed with the settings. If I cant fix this its going back and I'm gonna complain the seller lied to me.

So far the body and screen seem nice. If this is Super AMOLED I am not impressed. Its decent but nothing to get excited over. And I'm using it in outside light. Nothing special. The 960x540 is damn sweet though.
Body is really good. Got a soft touch platic back but with tiny ridges, so its easy to hold, doesnt show smudges, and it also somewhat stylish. Slim and symmetrical, fits nice in the hand. Really light without the huge battery (I had to remove it for SIM access.) You can get to the SD slot without removing the battery. Of course Android might yell at you if you try. Especially if you moved apps to it.

Will do a more proper review later. If thats even necessary.

 

[shortylickens]

- Nit Picks

Gets hot quickly, need to root and install CPU app. But its lighting fast so at least I'm getting my electricity worth.

Motos UI is a bit fancy for me, but I think it can be disabled. And again, since its so fast I dont mind. Had a 3D desktop on my Droid with CM and it was super sluggish. Atrix 2 is fine.

Default apps stink, but are easily changed, including the home app bar on the bottom. Thats very cool.

Hard buttons do not illuminate. This is a serious hassle especially because Moto keeps changing the default layout. They are also small, so I need to get used to where they are and just find them by feel. Oh wait, they arent hard buttons. They're capacitive and flush with the glass screen. That sucks.
Strike 1, Motorola.

Ringer and loudspeaker arent super loud, but thats not something I need. wont be using this a phone, and when I watch movies it will be with headphones most of the time.

Camera app is slow to load. Takes mediocre pics. Looks like Moto decided to chase megapixels instead of image quality. But it does zoom, and it auto-focuses in low light relatively fast, thats nice for a phone.
In any case, its a minor issue. I dont take tiny cheap sensors seriously and thats all they use in phones.

Wifi is slow to lock on, but very fast when its connected. I can watch HD movies on the Netflix app very well. Can see why people would want this on AT&T's 4g network.

I forgot how unpleasant setting up widgets is compared to setting up live tiles on WP7. BUT, once set up they are generally more powerful and feature rich. Also most of them can be stretched to custom size, and theres a grid like on Honeycomb/ICS.

A lot of wasted real estate in many of the apps. Again, something I forgot when I went to WP7. But its minor and easy to get used to. Having a bunch of customizable widgets means I spend less time in the full app, which is great.

- Things I like

Plenty, gimme some time to play. Speed is the big winner here. Not just for videos and games but also the interface, especially live wallpaper. I like the weather wallpaper.

The Pulse app doesnt show as much as the Kindle Fire, even though the Atrix 2 has a higher resolution. But the Kindle doesnt allow for a Pulse Widget, which is very nice on my new phone. Also I like the included news widget & app better than some others I've seen. Reuters screw up both their Android app & widget right around the same time they messed up their mobile website. The Moto news takes Reuters and makes it look a lot nicer.

 

[shortylickens]

Hey, do you guys think rooting might also unlock?

http://techsharing.net/2011/11/how-to-root-motorola-atrix-2-with-single-click/

That seems to be what these guys are hinting at.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Step1 (Bypassing the "No SIM card/Emergency calls only"
-Power up the phone while holding "Volume Down" until "fastboot" appears in top of the screen.
-Use the "volume down" button to navigate through booting options until you see "Boot Android (No BP) then press "Volume Up".
-The phone will skip the "No SIM card/Emergency calls only" right to the Motorblur account setup screen.

 

[shortylickens]

Good Moose!!

 

[ponyo]

Atrix 2 doesn't have Super AMOLED screen. It has regular LCD. But it's not pentile like the first Atrix so that's a plus.

Atrix 2 is fairly recent phone so it had to be fairly expensive even used. You must got heck of a deal.

 

[shortylickens]

280, used, with an Otterbox. Now I know why. Dude lied and said unlocked, its not. Now I gotta pay to get that done.
No body damage, looks great, has original box and accessories which is cool.

Sorry about the screen, I been reading so much I must have got confused. Good to know Super AMOLED isnt crap like I thought. For being regular LCD it is damn nice.

 

[RavenSEAL]

When did this come out ?

 

[shortylickens]

Not sure. I think December. I didnt keep up cuz to be honest I wasnt impressed with the first one. It seemed kind of expensive for what you got. Atrix 2 for lower price seemed like a good idea to me.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Atrix 2 doesn't have Super AMOLED screen. It has regular LCD. But it's not pentile like the first Atrix so that's a plus.

Moto's only high-end phone without a Pentile screen this year. That fact alone has kept this phone on my radar.



shortylickens thanks for your impressions. Very interesting.

If you wouldn't mind, will you please try Basemark ES2 Taiji at some point?

 

[shortylickens]

10.19

Thats WAAYYY below a buttload of other phones. Much older, slower, phones.

I must be doing something wrong. I'm not gonna install CM, but still, way too low.

 

[shortylickens]

Killed a crapload of apps.

10.14.

Something is very wrong here.

 

[shortylickens]

BUMP!

READ THE DATE NEWBS!!


I just ran the Basemark again with ICS installed.

50.64 native.

49.36 offscreen 720p.

Either they redid the score calculation, or ICS is a HELL of a lot faster than Gingerbread.
I also updated the app a couple times since January. Maybe the scores are different now.

 

[shortylickens]

http://results.rightware.com/site/s...brand]=&filter[os]=&filter[cpu]=&filter[gpu]=

According to this I am doing average or better than average depending on if its branded or not. Mine is AT&T branded, never got it unlocked.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Hmm, ICS improves regular CPU performance because Dalvik is always improving but GPU speeds really shouldn't have changed much unless the original drivers in 2.3 were terrible.

 

[Schadenfreude]

If you're thinking about unlocking the phone, here's a how-to