Motorola Atrix Cell Phone Review

Docking the Atrix

The Atrix is the first cell phone to provide a simple way to use the processing power of the phone to turn it into a larger-screen computer. It does this with a choice of two docking stations – a laptop dock and a desktop dock. Although we were not provided these docks to evaluate, we have seen them in action.

The laptop dock is called a lapdock. It looks like a small laptop computer. It has a full-sized keyboard and screen, but it is just a shell. It has no processing power, no memory, and no storage. The Atrix sits in a small dock that is attached to the back of the laptop and provides all the power for the laptop dock.

The desktop multimedia dock is a small cradle that attaches to a monitor or TV, keyboard, and mouse.

Motorola provides an interface for the docks called Webtop that automatically pops to life when the Atrix is docked. This lets you surf the web with a full Firefox web browser.

You’ve heard the saying that the new smartphones are a “PC in your pocket.” Well, these new docking stations take that PC out of your pocket and put it back on your desktop. It is an interesting idea and implementation. Verizon has just come out with the Droid Bionic which has similar docking capabilities, so this may well be something that we find common in the future.

AT&T is currently charging USD 400 for the lapdock and USD 190 for the desktop dock. The desktop dock includes a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. You may get a better deal if you buy these accessories when you purchase the phone. Also, be aware that AT&T considers using the lapdock tethering so you must pay USD 45 a month to use it. Although this includes 4 GB of data and hot-spot capabilities, we would like to see AT&T let user’s choose the standard data plan for USD 25 a month for 2 GB, with additional costs for going over that limit.