The Atrix 4G, released back in February received mixed reception. Dubbed as a ‘life-proof’ phone it was popular among college students. However this new Motorola Atrix 2 doesn’t seem to offer much new but it is cheap: $99 on contract. Anyway, lets take a look.
Motorola Atrix 2
Hardware
Unlike the Verizon Motorola phones that are typically nice and slim (just look at the Droid RAZR for proof), AT&T phones seem to not be as slim, especially with the Atrix range. The Atrix 2 certainly won’t be advertised for its size; it’s a large phone. Don’t picture it being like the JCB Tough Phone either; it’s 10mm thick which is still reasonable and for those who like a larger phone, its perfect. But this doesn’t translate into build quality; its made mostly out of plastic and feels quite flimsy. This is a serious let down by Motorola, who are typically quite good with build quality. It might be a cheap phone but it shouldn’t feel THAT cheap.
Motorola Atrix 2 Screen
Still, it’s screen redeems it; a 4.3″ qHD screen that is kept clean and scratch free by Gorilla Glass. Colors are vivid despite ‘only’ being a TFT screen; text is sharp, this is a great screen, much like the Droid RAZR. Motorola is certainly getting the hang of making screens.
Internally this phone packs quite a punch for such a cheap device; a 1Ghz Dual Core ARM A9 processor alongside 1GB of RAM is impressive. Sure, it’s no 1.8Ghz processor (Overclocked) like the Samsung Galaxy S II but it’s certainly enough to make web browsing and general tasks a pleasure to do on the device.
Motorola Atrix 2 Speed Performance
And lets not ignore the 4G connectivity that also helps web browsing. AT&T aren’t the greatest for 4G coverage and the speeds are somewhat lackluster; this device gets more than its predecessor, the Atrix 4G but isn’t getting as fast as some of the LTE phones. Speeds seemed to be around 4Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up depending on location.
Software
The phone obviously supports the latest and greatest version of Android (excluding ICS, of course which incidentally is coming to this device sometime, but it may take a while, given Motorola’s slow updating) Gingerbread 2.3.5 and slapped on top is Motorola’s Blur interface. It’s getting better and now seems to actually be of use rather than a hindrance. Motorola are certainly working on it; last year it was quite a shambles with poor performance but now it seems Motorola have fixed the slow performance, although this might be down to the speedy processor as well.
Motorola Atrix 2 App Screen
And AT&T have included a bunch of apps such as Live TV, a Music Store and the Yellow Pages. These aren’t great apps however, and I am somewhat against carriers including apps by default. Motorola also has a file-sharing app called ZumoCast that makes the phone that bit cooler. Once you’ve created a account you can stream various media onto your Atrix 2. This won’t be the only phone getting it; Motorola are pretty committed and will bring it to other devices soon.
Camera
The Atrix 2 features the typical 8MP, 1080p rear camera. Motorola haven’t been known for their cameras, and it shows. The Atrix 2 isn’t very quick at taking pictures and image quality isn’t up to HTC and Samsung’s standards who also have faster shutter times. Still, the camera beats other Motorola phones. The video is much the same, so if you value the camera, go with a HTC or Samsung phone. But it still gets the job done and is fine for the odd YouTube/Facebook video/picture.
Motorola Atrix 2 Camera
Conclusion
For $99, this phone is decent; sure it’s no Galaxy S II but for the price the specifications are impressive. It’s not a bad phone by any means and the only real issue we had was with the camera and the flaky build quality. Well done Motorola!
img class=”size-full wp-image-1821″ title=”Motorola Atrix 2″ src=”http://www.androiddigit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Motorola-Atrix-21.jpg” alt=”Motorola Atrix 2″ width=”600″ height=”450″ /
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