So I got to play with an ATRIX yesterday for work

Helix

and i've just finished writing up the first draft of an article about my experiences of it. it might be of some interest to people here, or it may not, i dont know - ive never posted in this corner of boards before

We all know what smartphones are capable of; we’ve seen it firsthand since Apple unleashed the original iPhone on the masses back in 2007, and since then we’ve witnessed the growth and maturation of powerful handheld devices to a point where they have almost begun to equal the power available from netbooks, or low end laptops. The market is now such that, as the public gradually upgrade their handsets, we can expect to see a majority share belonging to the cell phone’s more powerful touch screen cousin.

The time has long since passed where we looked at our phone simply as a device to send and receive calls or texts. They have now become an extension of our online selves; a means to stay connected with the world at large wherever we may be. Companies buy them in bulk for their staff, so that they can be kept in the loop with workplace happenings at all times. Kids buy them to stay in touch with their friends on Facebook. Technophiles buy them to gaze in awe at the amazing processing power available at their fingertips. In short, we are the smartphone generation – and our world is about to change dramatically.

At first glance, the Motorola ATRIX is just your average smartphone; albeit a particularly sexy looking one. It’s got everything we’ve come to expect from modern phones from the multi-touch display to the sleek design and slimline form factor, but the specs are far ahead of most of its competitors.

For starters, it’s got a dual core 1GHz processor, of which one of the cores will drop into a low power state when not needed to preserve battery life, with 1GB of PC grade RAM as opposed to the regular single core 1GHz processors and 512MB of RAM usually found in top end smartphones (take the HTC Desire HD or the iPhone 4 for example). The advantage here is obvious; the ATRIX has the ability to do far more, and to do it far quicker, than we’ve seen in anything that’s come before. What that means to you depends very much on what kind of user you are. For most it’ll simply mean that everything runs faster and smoother, while having the ability to flick seamlessly between programs without needing to close them down first.

Then we’ve got the display. As we mentioned, at first glance it looks like your run of the mill smartphone display, while on closer inspection it is anything but. Exiting back to the colourful home page backdrop of leaves floating gently on a stream we couldn’t help but be taken aback with not only the sharpness of the display, but also with the incredibly vivid colour palette on show.

This is no ordinary display; it is in fact a world first. The ATRIX features the global debut of the qHD (Quarter High Definition) multi-touch display. Offering a 20% bigger display area and 35% higher resolution than anything else on the market at 4” and 960 x 540 pixels respectively, this screen surpasses all expectations of what we thought mobile devices were capable of.

You’d think with all this processing power, RAM and display size that Motorola would have been forced to take a hit on the design front, with a slightly bulkier and heavier handset than we have grown accustomed to; but that is simply not the case. Weighing in at a mere 135g, the ATRIX’s dimensions read a svelte 63.5 x 117.75 x 10.96mm, making it a fine fit for the palm of your hand.

Perhaps the only “regular” spec of the ATRIX is the fact that it’s got 16GB of internal disk space – a figure which seems to be the norm for smartphones these days, with the iPhone 4 even going so far as to offer double that amount in its most expensive flavour. Fortunately, you’ll be able to supplement this disk space with an inexpensive Micro SD card of up to 32GB in size should you need the extra space.

By this stage you’re probably wondering what we were talking about when we said that the ATRIX was about to change everything. So far what we’ve told you is that it’s a smartphone, and a particularly powerful one at that, but not really much out of the ordinary. However we’ve neglected to mention its best feature – Webtop.

Managing to be both unlike anything you’ve ever seen before and at the same time completely familiar, Webtop is far and away the single most interesting thing we’ve seen in the last three years – and it reinforces the fact that Motorola are positioning themselves for a charge at becoming market leaders in the coming months.

In short, Webtop is a proprietary system that allows the ATRIX to completely adapt and reconfigure itself when used in conjunction with one of two peripherals. The first is the Motorola Laptop Dock, which isn’t a tool that allows you to interface the ATRIX with your laptop, but rather an 11.6” screen with keyboard, stereo speakers, mouse pad and three-cell battery (good for up to 8 hours of use) and absolutely no operating system or software. In essence it is an empty 2.5 pound shell that resembles a netbook – until you connect your ATRIX and the magic happens.

As soon as you connect the Laptop Dock springs into life, your phone acting as the innards of a previously dead laptop. Utilizing the power of the ATRIX, the Dock can be used as a surprisingly nifty Android based mobile computer. The ATRIX’s screen is displayed neatly in a window in the top left hand corner, while the rest of the real estate can be filled with any number of apps including a fully featured version of Firefox. The applications of this tool are staggering.

Gone are the days where you needed your phone, your laptop and possibly a 3G dongle to keep up to date with the virtual world. Now all you need is your ATRIX and the Laptop Dock. The whole thing is run exclusively from the ATRIX, powered by the Dock’s battery. And here’s the really cool bit, as your phone is connected to the Dock, it will receive a charge, so you won’t have to worry about your phone dying at the most inopportune moment. It’s a simple touch, but so effective and only goes to strengthen the fact that the ATRIX is a pure productivity workhorse.

But that’s not all it does; it’s also got the Motorola HD Multimedia Dock, which lets you connect the device up to any HDTV via HDMI and control it as a multimedia centre using a keyboard and mouse connected to any of the three USB ports on offer, or via the included infrared remote control. In our demo we were given a look at a preloaded trailer for Despicable Me in HD, and it looked stunning. There is absolutely no way we would have guessed that it was running from a phone, smart or otherwise.

It’s not just movies you can enjoy on your big screen either, you can listen to much, show your friends your holiday photos, surf the web or use any number of applications – all at the same time. But here’s the realclincher (like you weren’t already sold!), while the ATRIX is connected to either of the Dock units, you’ll still be able to use its phone functionality to call, text, run apps or play games, with the latter working particularly well in full screen. Yes you read that correctly, full screen angry birds on the HDTV in your living room. The future is most definitely here!

And we haven’t even talked about the fact that the ATRIX can record incredible quality HD video from its 5MP rear facing camera (we saw a demo of a recording made at a Lenny Kravitz concert, and the results were jaw dropping; all the more notable given the lighting in use at the show), or the fingerprint reading unlock mechanism, or the fact that Motorola have already promised an update from Android 2.2 to 2.3 this year. We could go on all day!

The Motorola ATRIX isn’t just a smartphone, it’s a geniusphone – and it’s coming to stores across Canada very soon, exclusively on Bell’s HSPA+ network. To keep up to date with all announcements including release date, cost of the device and cost of peripherals keep your eye on www.bell.ca.

It’s not often we’re lost for words at a product demo, but that was most certainly the case here; after all, what can you add after being shown a demo of a phone that quite literally does everything aside from “can I have one?”.

god's toy

Good stuff indeed and thanks for the info.

If I had to comment (if you looking for feedback that is) I would say: Suggesting the original iPhone was a the start of the 'smartphone' era is very much wrong as many phones that came before it EG N95 did more and had full 3G, something that the iphone did not. There were loads going on before apple got into the game but I suppose they did bring it to the sheep massess

Helix

wasnt necessarily saying it was the start of that era, but that it was the phone which brought it very much into the public eye away from being a more niche thing

Alanstrainor

I want one! It sounds like a replacement for my n900