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
With the RAZR, Motorola proved that a decent capacity battery can be squeezed into an awfully thin phone. The Atrix HD is just a few hairs thicker and that nets it a slightly larger battery. It's not RAZR MAXX territory, nor Galaxy S III for that matter, but it's still got more battery capacity than the One X (AT&T), by a fraction.
We start with talk time, which has been a strong suit for Motorola for quite a long time.
The king of this test remains the RAZR MAXX with its mind boggling 20+ hours, and the other OMAP 4 devices also do extremely well. The ATrix HD falls in line with other S4 devices, but clearly Motorola's special talent at this test owed something to TI's SoC's. But at 10 hours of talk time that's plenty for any talker.
Our web browsing test cycles through several sites and have been treated to a variety of surprises over the last few years. Here, the Atrix HD falls behind when tested on WiFi, well behind the One X (AT&T) that shares its internals, even when normalized. Under 3G that situation continues, with a huge deficit between the Atrix HD and the One X (AT&T). It's under LTE that we get a little surprise. At exactly 6 hours, the Atrix HD bests the One X (AT&T) by a half hour, but more startling is that we have a phone that seems to exhibit battery life under WiFi that's within an hour of LTE performance. I'd have preferred to see WiFi battery life go up alongside LTE, but more LTE battery life is always better.
And here, another surprise. I mentioned in the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE review that my new place has some signal issues. I've resolved the VZW issues through the use of a Network Extender, and AT&T performance has actually been pretty good, so I don't know if this is a fluke. The Atrix HD isn't the only device whose LTE Hotspot performance actually bests its 3G Hotspot performance, it shares that distinction with the RAZR MAXX. And at just over 5 hours under LTE, this is right near the top and right alongside the One X (AT&T). All around, battery life is good, and very nearly great under LTE.
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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.