Is the Motorola Atrix Good? Any other AT&T considerations?

[CurseTheSky]

To make a long story short, Verizon has pissed my fiancée and I off enough that we're switching from Verizon to AT&T. Before anyone jumps into a coverage or dropped calls debate, let me start by saying that I have a Droid X and Verizon and an HTC Freestyle on AT&T already, and although I cannot speak for AT&T's data network, their normal phone network is perfectly acceptable.

My Freestyle will be going to my fiancée, as she really seems to love it and has no use for a smartphone. I'll be picking up a new smartphone for myself with tethering for my laptop. What phone(s) do you guys currently recommend? The Atrix seems to have the best specs at the moment, so it's at the top of my list.

Thanks.

 

[foghorn67]

When it was first released, there were some issues with AT&T's network not playing nicely with the phone. Download speeds were average in a HSPDA+ area, when they are supposed to be fast, and uploads were horrendously slow. They might have fixed, or started to fix it.
I only know one person with it, and he seems content.

 

[lothar]

To make a long story short, Verizon has pissed my fiancée and I off enough that we're switching from Verizon to AT&T. Before anyone jumps into a coverage or dropped calls debate, let me start by saying that I have a Droid X and Verizon and an HTC Freestyle on AT&T already, and although I cannot speak for AT&T's data network, their normal phone network is perfectly acceptable.

My Freestyle will be going to my fiancée, as she really seems to love it and has no use for a smartphone. I'll be picking up a new smartphone for myself with tethering for my laptop. What phone(s) do you guys currently recommend? The Atrix seems to have the best specs at the moment, so it's at the top of my list.

Thanks.

Care to share the entire story?
What did they do to piss you off?

 

[Bateluer]

AT&T's flagship Android phones right now are the Moto Atrix 4G, the HTC Inspire 4G, and the Samsung Captivate. Last I heard, they didn't fix the dismal upload speed thing though, they keep promising an update, but I don't think its materialized yet.

 

[s44]

Right now it's pretty straightforward to bypass the upload speed cap (HSUPA disabling) on the Captivate and Inspire. Atrix, no luck. There's always a rumored HSUPA-enabling update just around the corner, but AT&T has been such dicks about this that I wouldn't count on it happening in any reasonable period of time. Mind you, even with the cap you're still talking the same speeds as Verizon.

In the long run, the Atrix has the most horsepower. For what you do now, it's not likely to matter much.

 

[tdawg]

In today's Asus Transformer review, Anand referred to the Motorola Atrix as " arguably the best overall Android phone on the market today". I'd say if you're moving to AT&T, might as well get the most powerful Android they offer.

 

[alent1234]

AT&T is supposed to certify the Inspire and Atrix for HSUPA very soon. right now only the iphone 4 is certified for HSUPA.

i went from the 3GS to an Inspire 2 months ago and i'm still OK. cost me $20 at costco when they had the sale last month. i bought it right before the atrix came out and then went to look at the atrix and kept my phone. the 4" screen on the Atrix looks tiny compared to my 4.3" screen. except for a few tegra optimized games there is nothing you need a dual core right now for and most of the android software won't run any faster. even most of the motoblur skin isn't optimized for dual core yet

on android central there are also a lot of complaints about the atrix. people say the software is buggy and incomplete feature set and the display is not as good as the iphone or atrix.

and the tegra 2 is more hype than anything else. performance is about average when compared to other mobile GPU's.

i'll probably get upgraded to 2.3 and after than i don't care. it's 18 months to upgrade to another phone and most apps still ask for 1.5 or 1.6. by the time most apps will require 2.2 it will be time for another upgrade

specs aren't everything, read the reviews of people who have used the product. my ipad 2 is faster than my HTC Inpsire which has more RAM. and i personally prefer the app store over the android market. not that i'll go back to an iphone

 

[GT1999]

I have the Inspire 4G and overall I like it. The battery life is horrible coming from the iPhone 3GS. Don't expect 4G speeds though, at least if you're in the Chicago area. I never go above 3Mbps, and I average around 1500Kbps (down).

 

[alent1234]

the battery life wasn't bad out of the box. it's once you install things like live wallpaper, 3g watchdog and lookout or any other apps that run as a service all the time and take CPU cycles and electricity all the time that the battery life drops. i got rid of lookout and the battery life improved

iOS/iphones aren't any better at battery life. it's just that apple doesn't let developers do a lot of things which is why the battery life is generally better on iphones. IM apps and skype run a lot differently on iOS than android