Picked up an Atrix

[BenSkywalker]

So I picked up a pair of Atrix(WTH is the plural of Atrix?) from Radio Shack yesterday morning, random thoughts and observations.

First thing I noticed is that it is a hard plastic style design, and slippery- comparable to the iPhone or Galaxy S parts. Second thing I noticed is that it is almost all screen- a plus for some but it gave me the impression of being very easy to shatter if dropped(not planning on testing that theory out anytime soon).

Was a bit surprised that there was no mention of it being a Tegra2 part anywhere, not on the box or anywhere on the phone. The only real indicator that it has anything outside of a normal run of the mill mobile processor is the Motorola logo when booting has dual core written underneath. Guess nV isn't pushing branding too hard yet.

The box is fairly plain and comes with a standard micro USB charger and a HDMI cable for the phone. Nothing spectacular.

After boot and the normal Android setup you get into the fairly typical looking Motoblur interface, I don't find this nearly as offensive looking as some but it is certainly a Moto branded experience. Start moving things around and the first thing that stuck out to me was how incredibly fast everything scrolled all the time even with all the default Moto BS widgets all over the 7 different screens. UI scrolling speed hasn't ever been a big deal to me, and it still isn't, but when running a full Blur interface you get used to having hiccups.

I was planning on rooting the phone to uninstall all the typical junk that AT&T loads onto their parts, but was surprised that I didn't need to, it just lets you from the normal app management section as if they were something you DLd yourself.

Tegra Zone isn't up yet which kind of sucks, outside of benchmarks at the moment there really isn't anything to show off what your phone can do. Performance on the phone has been stellar in everything I've thrown at it- including playing back FLACs using PowerAmp while browsing- totally smooth. Flash performance overall has been very solid as well, Ninja Kiwi made things slow down a lot but it's the only stumbling block I've seen.

Also ran over to AT&T and picked up the media bundle($190). Comes with a dock, cheap as all hell Bluetooth mouse, OK keyboard and tiny little remote. When I first tried to get it setup it was glitchy to the point of not being usable. I got stuck on a black screen and couldn't get the webtop interface to load at all. Got irritated with it and gave up. Figured I'd try it again this morning and it just worked flawlessly. I'm posting this from the webtop and now that it is working it is fairly slick. The custom Linux build seems decent and 'tablet-esque' with somewhat limited functionality if it were viewed as a laptop replacement(this is the same as the laptop dock OS) but as a media based device it is actually rather enjoyable. Playing Angry Birds and some of the other games on the big screen is entertaining. One issue I really don't like at the moment is that it is limited to 720p(or 1280x1024)- That is something they need to address. The sharpness just isn't there at this resolution.

Screen quality on the phone, btw, is typical LCD fare these days. Pixel density is easily in the solid range with the only real issue being certain color combinations just look terrible(yellow text on black background is cringe worthy). Under most uses it is comparable to the iP4 screen, iP4 having a slight edge, way behind the SAMOLED screens unfortunately.

Overall, very pleased with the device. A SAMOLED screen and Tegra Zone being available with some tweaks to the Webtop would have had this about perfect for me.

 

[Phobic9]

Nice write up. Did ATT remove the ability to sideload non-marketplace apps as they always do? I remember reading somewhere that they did.

 

[shortylickens]

Atrii.
Or Atree.

 

[gorcorps]

Atrii.
Or Atree.

Atrix is just matrix w/out the 'm', and the plural of matrix is matrices.

 

[Kaido]

Atrix is just matrix w/out the 'm', and the plural of matrix is matrices.

Mattresses? :hmm: :awe:

 

[Kaido]

Is this the one that lets you dock it to a KVM? I'd like to hear how that works out if it is!

 

[Strk]

I forget which review I read, but they also thought it was weird that there is no mention of the Tegra 2 on, well, anything.

 

[gorcorps]

Mattresses? :hmm: :awe:

:awe:

I should note that what I posted merely makes sense in my mind, doesn't mean Shorty is wrong (not that it matters ). English is friggin stupid... plural of goose is geese, but plural of mongoose is mongooses. D:

Anyway OP, were you just doing something wrong when setting things up last night or did you do everything the same and it just happened to work out this morning?

 

[SunnyD]

Atrixes. It's a proper name based on a fictitious word. Normal grammatical rules do not apply.

OP: You have way too much money. You should send some to me.

 

[Red Storm]

So how is flash performance in the Webtop mode or whatever it's called? Can you for instance go to Hulu and watch a show/movie or does it block you since you're on a mobile device?

 

[Loop2kil]

I picked one up for $100($200-$100)...The salesman made a mistake and told me that it came with a $100 MIR which it doesn't. Since he told me that it DID come with one during his sales pitch he said that he would be able to credit my account $100 instead. So by signing a new contract I was able to get the phone for a total of $100.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I ordered mine on Saturday afternoon and was surprised when it arrived at my office at 11:00 AM on Monday. I like the phone overall, very fast, does more than I need and the calls come in very clear and loud. This is coming from a 5 year old Moto Q though, so I should be impressed. This is my first time on an Android phone. Pretty cool. I must say that it was very poorly packed though. Looks like a monkey packed it, it survived though.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Did ATT remove the ability to sideload non-marketplace apps as they always do?

Yes, although it is already rooted so that isn't too bad to get around.

Is this the one that lets you dock it to a KVM?

Hmmm, I'm old school, I see that and I think of a box with a bunch of DSub 15 connectors

So how is flash performance in the Webtop mode or whatever it's called?

Ninja Kiwi fell down, if you aren't familiar with the site it is a fairly horrible torture test for flash. Hulu, OTOH, worked fairly decently. I'm in the process of moving ATM so I don't have WiFi but even over the air on 3G it works tolerably. 360p was running 20-25fps- nothing stellar but certainly watchable. My wife and niece were both excited to see that they could watch a Pretty Little Liars episode they had missed, they weren't complaining about the quality.

Can you for instance go to Hulu and watch a show/movie or does it block you since you're on a mobile device?

Webtop isn't actually Android, it's a Linux OS running FireFox and shows up as a desktop.

Atrices, Atrii, Atrixes, Atree..... Hmmmm, can't decide which way to go

 

[Loop2kil]

....

Atrices, Atrii, Atrixes, Atree..... Hmmmm, can't decide which way to go

I think I like Atrii the bestestest.

 

[foghorn67]

Atrices, Atrii, San Diegians, San Diegites....????

 

[Mopetar]

I'm curious about whether or not it has any weird app scaling issues for any apps. The screen resolution is higher than most Android phones so I'm wondering if it causes any weird graphical anomalies from time to time.

 

[Raduque]

http://wsf2-walmart.letstalk.com/product/product.htm?prId=38472&corpId=511

If anybody cares. New contracts only.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Missed replying last time about what I did differently with webtop, nothing. When you drop your phone into the dock a few options pop up in a window like if you were swapping launchers. The first time I tried it it would launch into the media mode which is much like a normal phone over HDMI, but webtop mode just gave a black screen that wouldn't go away. Since then, no problems at all, works like you would expect.

App scaling so far has been a complete non issue. Every app I've tried had behaved as if it were meant to be run on a qHD display, if anyone is wondering about a particular app let me know and I'll give it a shot. Only problem with apps I've had is Opera will not run, Opera mini works fine as does Dolphin HD, just not Opera.

Found an app that shows off the phone fairly well, Dungeon Defenders has a Tegra 2 build that I was extremely impressed with. Unreal 3 mobile powered and IMO better then Wii visuals, not going too make you drop your ps3/pc but certainly closes the gap up some.

Battery life has been a bit surprising, was working on setting up DBW and one of my friends had his Droid X next to mine as we were getting everything setup, he's not the technical type so he needed a demonstration on how to do everything. His battery was draining twice as fast as mine. If this was an Evo I wouldn't consider that meaning much, but the Droid X is a decent phone concerning battery life. I think if you did a 100% load test they would probably be comparable, but the Atrix completed everything much faster then the Droid X.

In real world use, using Power Amp for roughly eight hours straight with some moderate web browsing, reasonable texting but almost no voice left me at roughly 40% juice, much better then I'm used to. My wife otoh, was let down she had to charge it once a day but she was coming from a very low end dumb phone (bb bold) so she was used to going days without needing a charge.

So far, I'm extremely pleased, still think SAMOLED qHD would have improved the overall experience but other then that I've got no gripes.

 

[disastar]

Don't forget to download your gameboy, nintendo, super nintendo, genesis, and Playstation emulators! The playstation emulation should run especially fast on your dual core. Be sure to download FPSE and NOT psx4droid. Repeat, download FPSE and no other PSX emulator. Psx4droid is no longer actively supported and never ran well at all.

Also, some people have reported the Nintendo DS emulator runs acceptable on the new tegra-based phones. It's free so might be worth a shot.

 

[Plester]

This is a kicks$$ device! Went from 3GS to a rooted and rom'd Captivate to the Atrix and there is no comparison. First thing is to swap launcher pro ( or launcher of choice ) for motoblur, then root and freeze bloatware with titanium backup - result is a beast of a phone. Very cool to be able to connect to big flatscreens via hdmi too.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Be sure to download FPSE and NOT psx4droid. Repeat, download FPSE and no other PSX emulator.

Waiting for Sony's emulator ATM. I have the PSX games I've already purchased through PSN and would rather not deal with ROM sites even if I do own the games.

TegraZone is up now, bought all the games available except for the football one and the card game, may end up getting those at some point but I have quite a few games to get through atm already

 

[santro652]

Hi Guys,

I am new to the forum wanted some help on Atrix:

I am planning to get Atrix phone to India from the US, my question is
1) Will this phone work in India? -2G network
2) The person whom i getting the phone from says that the carrier free version of the phone will cost me $500.(Phone+Laptop dock)

Can anyone help me out with this two questions, and I need confirmation that the carrier free version cost $500- I dontwant to end up having an AT&T phone which would be of no use @ my place.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Plester]

Go to XDA for answers about the Atrix or any other android phone

 

[poofyhairguy]

I really like the "my phone is now my PC" concept, but I wanted to wait for a Tegra that is in the Core2Duo range to jump in. Everyone who buys these are helping ensure that future by being early adopters, and for that I thank you!

 

[Mopetar]

I really like the "my phone is now my PC" concept, but I wanted to wait for a Tegra that is in the Core2Duo range to jump in. Everyone who buys these are helping ensure that future by being early adopters, and for that I thank you!

Might take another two generations. There was the Nvidia benchmark that showed the Tegra 3 was roughly as powerful as one of the lower-end Core 2's, but someone later found out they'd gamed it a little and that the Tegra 3 wasn't quite as good.

However, that has more to do with the ARM core designs than Nvidia's graphics since Nvidia doesn't touch the cores as far as I know. In another two generations the total performance should be comparable, but it will take several ARM cores to match the performance of just one x86 core, and an old one at that.

I don't know if your phone will ever replace your PC, especially if do any professional or computationally heavy work. At that point you're always going to want more powerful hardware to speed up your work. As far as email, browsing, social networking, and other similar light workloads, I'd say that a phone is already more than capable of replacing a PC. In some parts of the world where the only reliable way to get affordable internet is through the cellular network, most people don't use PCs to begin with.