Motorola Atrix HD Review: Fast, Sharp, Bargain
by Jason Inofuentes on September 5, 2012 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola
- Mobile
- Atrix HD
Around last Fall I was thinking about biting on an upgrade. My contract was nearly up, and I wanted to feel good about extending it. I'd had an OG Droid and a few other phones in between; I'd even drifted to WebOS and BlackBerry. I looked over the options, and felt good about none of them. What did feel good was the possibility of getting a Krait-based phone in the Spring. My big worry was that even by Summer I'd be looking at paying upwards of $250 to get one, even on-contract. Turns out, I was wrong.
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The earliest Krait devices came out at $199 on-contract, and the number of devices that have come out since then has been impressive, and the pricing keeps getting better. With the Incredible 4G LTE we saw pricing for a Krait device hit $149; but the device didn't have the right combination of factors to merit its price. Motorola's swing puts their first Krait device at $99, and there's nothing that competes with it in the US for twice that price. The form factor isn't perfect, but it's certainly thin enough and light enough. The software isn't just inoffensive, it's a pleasure to use, which is something we're saying more and more of when discussing skinned Android builds. And the battery life reflects one of Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4's biggest advantage.
It has its faults, and it could certainly be shined up to a gloss that would make it competitive with the Galaxy S III and HTC One X. Lacking a few features (NFC, notably) helps bring cost down, but that's not what keeps it from competing with the top tier phones. Holding the One X in your hand, you feel the level of effort that went into designing its unique unibody frame. When you see the Galaxy S II in Pebble Blue, and the light coming through the window hits it just right, it almost seems like the whole front of the device is a single blue surface. There's nothing about the Atrix HD that inspires that kind of fascination.
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So, what does it take to be a great mid-range phone? We can excuse the body, we can excuse an imperfect camera, and we can even excuse missing features. You nail the mid-range phone by making sure the rest of the package is solid, and that's what AT&T has with the Atrix HD.
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SanLouBlues - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
Is it easy to flash with other ROMs? My current Motorola Droid Pro is crippled with the stock ROM and it drives me up a wall.bjacobson - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
Given Motorola's track record of support for existing devices I'm staying the heck away from this one. My Atrix4G, hailed as the world's most powerful phone when it was released just one year ago, still does not have ICS or JB. It has 1GB RAM, 16GB ROM, and dual core 1ghz A9 (Tegra2), no reason it shouldn't receive ICS, JB and (potentially Android 5.0), but I'm not holding my breath to get even ICS.In addition Motorola's touch screens leave a lot lacking. Every phone of theirs that I've used (OGDroid, Droid2, Droid3, Atrix4G, Droid Bionic) has too low of a resolution of touch-sensing and has a grid of "dead zones" where the screen will jitter if you hold you finger there while dragging something (like the notification bar). Makes for a very unpleasant phone experience that I do not want again.
So needless to say I will be going HTC or Samsung or frickin anybody else but Motorola next round.
Belard - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
Atrix HD is sold by the Google owned Motorola... Support should be improved, no?Also, I had the same problems with my Samsung.
The carriers are the biggest problems with updates.
bjacobson - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
Yes.It probably will be, I'm just TO'd that I still don't have a new version of nderoidz
blakflag - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
totally agree.. I also got the Atrix 4G and the update support has been terrible. Regardless of how good the hardware is, without timely updates it's not worth it. Gonna go with a Google Nexus branded device next time. (stock Android is better than any of these tarted up skins the OEMs put on there)extide - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
You'll probably be disappointed to find out that all the future Google Nexus phones will be made by Motorola!Impulses - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
That's just speculation, and also irrelevant since updates would be handled by the Android software team regardless... Doubly irrelevant if rumors of an expanded multi-manufacturer Nexus lineup are to be believed.ados_cz - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
Galaxy S III is quad core.eric appla - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
there are two variants. The one listed here is also correct it is a USA model which is dual core while the international version is a quadcoreados_cz - Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - link
Aha, thanks, did not know that.