The Motorola Atrix 4G Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 13, 2011 3:18 AM ESTStill Camera Experience & Quality
LG tried with the Optimus 2X to make the most of the SoC NVIDIA gave it. The phone supported both 1080p video output and 1080p video recording. Even the still camera had a 6 fps burst mode, exploiting NVIDIA's allegedly high performance ISP. In its quest for specs however the Optimus 2X didn't always deliver. Video recorded at 1080p wasn't particularly impressive, and you can only take stills in burst mode at a 2MP resolution.
Motorola on the other hand appears to be aiming more at user experience rather than feature set. The Atrix 4G only supports up to 720p output over HDMI and can only record videos at 720p as well. There's no burst mode supported by the camera app.
Even settings in Motorola's camera app are pretty sparse. You don't get to choose resolution specifically, but you get to pick aspect ratio and total pixel count. There are no white balance or exposure options to set here either. You can choose between predefined settings grouped into scenes (e.g. auto, portrait, landscape, night, macro) and that's pretty much it.
The app is fast though. Switching between the rear camera and the front camera is iPhone 4 fast, and switching to shooting video is faster than any other phone I've used. The experience in the camera app is very smooth. Even the view finder is super smooth.
Stills are shot at 2592 x 1456 by default, although you can switch to a 5MP mode which will give you images at 2592 x 1944.
Image quality is reasonable but not spectacular in brightly lit environments. Images aren't as saturated, detailed or as contrasty compared to the iPhone 4. Lower light performance suffers, particularly on the front facing camera as there's no flash.
Motorola Atrix 4G
Apple iPhone 4
Motorola's camera app doesn't support tap to focus and it will only focus on whatever is in the center of the screen. Since there's no tap to focus the scene will often be blurry before you take a shot and only come into focus after you've hit the capture button.
Shutter lag is decent for a smartphone and overall I'm impressed with the camera app itself.
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Shadowmaster625 - Monday, February 14, 2011 - link
I was confused when I saw that price. Why would anyone pay that? Then it got me wondering... are we not able to simply plug the phone into our own monitor using the appropriate hdmi cable? And then plug in a usb keyboard and mouse? Who needs a even a $190 dock? This article didnt really explain why. I've got 3 usb keyboards and just as many mice laying around. The last thing I want to do is buy another to satisfy their need for revenue.bill4 - Sunday, February 13, 2011 - link
The whole controversy over pentile matrix just scream of something Apple fanboys kicked up to attack the competition. Here's guessing both of the editors you mentioned carry an iPhone everyday. Was I right? Gee, what a shock. They probably also love the "retina display" even though that was the biggest bunch of marketing hooey ever. For multiple reasons, not least of which scientifically the resolution has to be a good deal higher than 960X640 for the human eye to not be able to make out pixels at the distance the iPhone is actually used.The Apple bias is the media is just insane. Almost every single tech editor in the world just happens to have an iPhone as his personal phone, even though it's the worst phone on the market.
Anyways my point is, NOBODY in the real world cares about this. I have a Captivate, and I NEVER would have suspected any problem with the display if I hadn't read about it, in fact I still didn't know what the problem supposedly was after reading about it!
I'm afraid I dont know if I can go back from Super Amoled, the off angle viewing is just so good, when I look at my friends Droid X or iPhone, they just look so washed out and terrible. Even though I'm not exactly thrilled with some aspects of Samsung, and was considering picking up an Atrix or Inspire, the sad fact is I seriously am beginning to wonder if I'll ever be able to go back to a regular LCD on a phone now, they just look so bad.
bill4 - Sunday, February 13, 2011 - link
ok, maybe not the biggest bunch of marketing hooey ever, but you get the idea.RaLX - Sunday, February 13, 2011 - link
Well I would say you're the one behaving as a fanboy...Fer me the iPhone display (even if the name is marketing) has a superior definition for text and images and thanks to it being IPS technology the colors are more natural and viewing angles are very good for a LCD (even though poorer than AMOLED of course).
I hated Nexus One fuzzy text and everybody it's entitle to their opinions without having to be called names. I can tell you that there are persons like me that doesn't stand the grilled texture vision of this kind of LCD and even though I could live with that I will avoid it whenever I can.
jaredtrobinson - Sunday, February 13, 2011 - link
lol I agree w/ you.. so much rage from that guy :)Anand stated clearly it was a matter of preference. I have an OG Droid and friend has a Dinc, girlfriend has a DroidX. I am not a fan on the Dinc when reading text. The TFTs to me just seem much more crisp
JCheng - Sunday, February 13, 2011 - link
I personally care about this a lot. I went to the AT&T store to buy a Captivate and was very distracted by the display's flyscreen effect--that was before I ever heard of pentile (which I learned about after getting home and googling what was wrong with these screens).To me the effect is NOT subtle and is very annoying, it's a dealbreaker for me. I thought my next phone was going to be the Atrix but looks like it will be Inspire or Galaxy S II instead.
TareX - Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - link
Ditto. I was almost sure the Atrix was gonna be my next phone. I mean, LCD PenTile???? Bad call.I love SAMOLED PLUS, but I hate Samsung's TouchWiz.
TheMan876 - Sunday, February 13, 2011 - link
I'm currently an OG Droid user and I was thinking of getting a Droid BIONIC (almost the same as an Atrix) when it comes out. But this Pentile screen may make me reconsider.I was really happy to read that there would be a higher res screen on these phones, but I hate that Pentile matrix whenever I see it on my friend's Galaxy S phone. Bugs the crap out of me and I'm by no means an Apple fanboy.
bill4 - Sunday, February 13, 2011 - link
/AntoineDodsonvoiceHow can tech editors actually cover this product and not instantly realize how stupid it is?
Hmm, well I can hook it to my phone and it's like a real netbook!
Hey guess what, Wal Mart sells 10.1", Win 7 starter, 160 GB HDD, netbooks for 249 all day every day.
This laptop dock thingy, that isn't 1/4 as good or powerful as a real netbook,adds $300 to the price...plus I'm not sure but I thought I read somewhere the dock thing is $130 on top of that...but even if it's "only" 300, it makes no sense AT ALL. It's not even more portable.
The only way this possibly makes sense, is if by using the phone hardware, you save money on the laptop dock thing, aka it was available for say, 99 dollars. Even then it's pretty dicey, as almost everybody probably already has a laptop, and a good portion already own a netbook as well.
Plus, though it's technically illegal it works fine, with a tether program like PDA net, you can tether (even on an unrooted phone) without paying the extra 20, which you cant do with this dock AFAIK (since, it doesnt run windows to run the PDA client).
strikeback03 - Monday, February 14, 2011 - link
Because the idea isn't really really dumb, the price is. Would you rather they ignore it until the inevitable price cuts are announced?