Intrigued by Motorola’s new flagship device on AT&T? If you read our review on the Atrix HD you’ll know the smartphone is a solid choice in the $99 price range, but today and tomorrow is your time to try grabbing one for the especially awesome cost of zilch. In celebration of its launch this week, Motorola provided us with a brand new unit to hand out to a lucky reader. You know the routine — head below, leave a comment and keep those fingers crossed. Good luck!
When it comes to storied products, the Motorola Atrix has already mushroomed into one prolific line of devices, even in its short, 18-month life. It began as the Atrix 4G, entering the market with a splashy press conference at CES 2011, earning our respect as a game-changer, with its fingerprint sensor and innovative Webtop system. Less than a year later we were treated to the sequel, which offered some incremental improvements in specs and design, but failed to dazzle techies the way the original did.
Enter the third installment of the Atrix saga: the Atrix HD. True to its name, Motorola’s latest device is the company’s first US-bound smartphone to take advantage of a 720p display. It’s also the outfit’s first handset to ship with Ice Cream Sandwich already installed, and it sweetens the pot with other goodies such as LTE and an 8-megapixel rear camera. The spec sheet looks promising, and at $99 with a two-year agreement, so does the price. So is it worth your hard-earned Benjamin and two more years with AT&T? Let’s find out.
Well, lookie here. It didn’t take long for Motorola’s latest Atrix variant to go from unveiled to launched, as the Atrix HD is now on sale at AT&T for a wallet-pleasing $99.99 on contract. Sign the dotted line for two years, and you’ll be getting a 4.5-inch Android superphone, complete with Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), a true 720p display, Kevlar-infused backing, a “splash resistant” casing and an LTE radio. Those who indulge quickly are set to grab a gratis Vehicle Dock for “a limited time,” and you’ll also enjoy the first Moto handset to bring the outfit’s Circle Widget to the homescreen — which is engineered to take owners directly to their AT&T account info, displaying data usage, battery status and more. The phone’s listed right now in AT&T’s smartphone section in Titanium and Modern White, but the link to buy it seems deactivated for the moment. Still, it’s all square to go on sale today, so keep a close eye on the source link if you’re dead-set on an upgrade.
Psst… you can learn more about the Atrix lineage through our original Atrix 4G and Atrix 2 reviews.
Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you’re like us and really want to know what’s going on, then you’ve come to the right place. This past week, Motorola debuted the RAZR V in Canada and the Sony Xperia Ion was spotted at Rogers — curiously, the phone has yet to be formally announced for the carrier. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of July 9th, 2012.
This week we’ve got the newest version of Motorola and AT&T‘s line of powerful smartphones, this time dubbed Atrix HD due to its ultra high resolution display. This device also runs on AT&T’s 4G LTE network and closely resembles the device on Verizon known as the DROID RAZR. Here we’ve got a white casing surrounding a lovely curved-edges-having reinforced glass-covered display that’s no less than 329 PPI, that being a resolution that’s only beaten by 3 other devices on the market today, none of them having the build that this one does. In addition, Motorola is letting us know that they’ve dubbed this device as having 720p HD ColorBoost technology – we’ll see how that plays out soon enough. For now, we sure as heck know it’s bright.
At first glance, this device appears to suffer from a bit of the ol’ stormtrooper syndrome with the white plastic surrounding its frame combined with the blacks on its front and back. Once you’ve got your hands on it, on the other hand, you’ll find it to be more than high quality enough to tote around on a regular basis. As it was with the RAZR, so too do you have reinforced kevlar on the back and splash protection throughout, this meaning that even though there are a couple of ports (microHDMI and microUSB) up on top, you won’t have to worry too much about talking on this device in the rain.
You’ve got the AT&T globe up front along with the Motorola logo, on the back you’ve got FCC info and the Motorola logo M, an 8 megapixel camera, single LED flash, and a speaker grille near the top as well. The battery inside is not removable in the least bit at all, the right side has a power button and volume up/down made with silver metal with ridges, and the left side has a door that covers your micro SIM card and microSD card slot. The whole device is relatively thin and fairly light at 0.33″ thick and 4.94 oz (140 g).
The display, again, is 4.5-inches and inside you’ll find Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich working with Motorola’s latest rendition of the software. Motorola has their own unique take on Android which includes a ring/vibrate switch at the lockscreen as well as four options for lockscreen shortcuts. Inside you’ll find a lovely new widget that Motorola is touting as a first, it having data usage, weather, date, and time in one set of circles.
Motorola continues their love affair with different modes of use with this device, showing off their Drive Smart abilities with an on-off switch for the environment on the first homescreen. Inside you’ll find a simple set of controls that updates their system that we’ve seen on several Atrix and Atrix-related devices in the past.
This device will cost you $99 USD on a 2-year contract with AT&T, and we’ll be giving you a full review of it soon, so stay tuned!
Motorola’s record on the whole smartphone bootloader thing is a tad spotty. The world has been promised unlocked bootloaders and, sometimes, the manufacturer has delivered. After the phones have already been on the market for some time, of course. Continuing that trend, will be the recently revealed Atrix HD. The 4.5-inch AT&T-bound phone will follow in the footsteps of its predecessors, the Atrix 4G and Atrix 2, by shipping without the ability to touch the kernel. Of course, that means that not only are custom kernels out the window, but so are custom ROMs as a whole. There is some good news, however. Moto indicated via its Twitter account that an unlock tool would be coming, saying “our goal is still to provide a way to unlock the bootloaders on our devices to those who wish to do so, more details to come.” So, that’s gotta be worth something.
This week we’re seeing quite a bit of news on the RIM front, mostly because the heads of the company have been vocal in the face of a possible incoming lawsuit that will be headed by angry investors – bits like We don’t build phones in China and re-elections of the board are running wild. On a lighter note, you’ll want to check out the kickstarter for Ouya if you’ve got a love for Android and video games – console style. There’s a couple of new Motorola devices out there soon, too, the RAZR V for Canada and the ATRIX HD for AT&T in the USA.
New Google Chrome APIs have been released for cameras while Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has been released to AOSP. Head on down to Google’s developer pages for both systems and get to work making masterpieces!
While we’ve already stared down the specifications, AT&T’s announced that it will bring Motorola’s big and skinny slab to the US later this month, while Bell will do the honors in Canada “this summer.” Priced at $99, the Atrix HD will tie together LTE connectivity with a 4.5-inch 720p display, available in both Modern White and Titanium colors. Better still, it’s all arriving later this week, on July 15. If you’re thinking about becoming an early adopter then you’ll want to move quickly, as a free Vehicle Dock will ship with each one for a “limited time”, designed to work perfectly with the included Smart Actions. Finally, this is the first phone to feature Motorola’s “circle widget” on the home screen, designed to take owners directly to their AT&T account info, displaying data usage, battery status and more. Check after the break for a quick video walkthrough from AT&T plus a press release with all of the specs and details.
This week the Motorola ATRIX HD has been revealed for AT&T’s 4G LTE network with a massively high definition display and a dual-core processor under the hood. This device enters the ranks of the top 10 highest-definition display-having devices on the market at 329 PPI, only being beaten by the HTC Rezound, Sony XPERIA S, and LG LU1400 (a strange swivle-screen smartphone from 2008), and matching the LG Nitro HD – and yes, it beats the iPhone 4/4S. That’s 1280 x 720 pixel resolution over a lovely 4.5-inch display that Motorola touts as 720p HD ColorBoost.
This device is rather similar to the Motorola RAZR in that it looks the same, sort of, and is thin at 8.4mm – while the RAZR was (and is) just 7.1mm. The thinnest smartphone on the market today is the ZTE Athena at 6.2mm. Of course being part of the most recent Motorola line, it’s ultra-thin but not breakable (with any normal human means) as its made with DuPont Kevlar fiber on the back, splash guard coating on the outer shell to make sure you’re not getting wet as well as on the electrical circuit boards inside. Corning Gorilla Glass covers the front for ultimate scratch resistance as well.
The ATRIX HD works with Motorola’s newest software build on top of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and Motorola is touting a cool new “Motorola Circle Widget” with “at-a-glance” access to your notifications, time, weather, battery, data usage, and settings. You’ve also got a feature/app called SMARTACTIONS that will allow you to change your phone’s settings based on certain situations and/or times of the day.
The back-facing camera is 8-megapixels and 1080p video while the front-facing camera has 720p video. You’ve got a microUSB and microHDMI port with easy mirroring abilities for your HDTV. This device also has CrystalTalk PLUS noise reduction which, in part, comes from its 3-mic setup, and it’s got 8GB internal storage and a microSD card slot to boot.
Finally, for carriers you’ve got AT&T with 4G LTE as mentioned above as well as Bell up in Canada – pricing and availability for Bell will be announced soon, while the AT&T version will cost you a cool $99 USD on a 2-year contract. Have a peek at our reviews of the previous ATRIX models from Motorola as well as the DROID RAZR for Verizon in the timeline below – and prepare for the AT&T version coming soon!
Motorola‘s Atrix HD has been officially revealed, showing up on the company’s site with a 4.5-inch 1280 x 720 HD Colorboost display, LTE, and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. The new Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone has an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 1.3-megapixel front camera, along with Motorola’s own SMARTACTIONS software on top of Android 4.0.
Inside there’s 8GB of user-storage and a microSD card slot, along with a 1,780 mAh battery. The Atrix HD measures in at 69.9 x 133.5 x 8.4 mm and weighs 140g, and is apparently clad in a soft-touch plastic, though we’re not entirely convinced by the two-tone color scheme (thankfully you can get it in regular titanium finish instead).
You also get mobile hotspot functionality – for up to five tethered devices – together with microUSB, HDMI, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/aGPS, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the usual bevy of sensors such as an accelerometer, proximity and ambient light. It’s splash-resistant and uses Kevlar for increased ruggedness, along with a Gorilla Glass fascia.
Motorola is seemingly aiming the Atrix HD at business users, with the Webtop app – which, with an HDMI display and Bluetooth peripherals, turns the phone into a PC replacement – coming preloaded. No news on when it will go on sale, though the AT&T logo would seemingly confirm the carrier it’s headed to.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
