Motorola Atrix March 5, 2011

Reviewer:  Duece 

Starting off I had dealt with ios, other androids , and WP7 with apples iphone 3gs and iphone 4g. Htc Evo 4g, Htc HD7, HTC Inspire, HTC Surround, Samsung Focus, Captivate, Dell streak. The motorola atrix to me is the best so far only ones close is the inspire and iph4 from my use even though other phone can compare. Android 2.2 is great wished it came with 2.3 with the tegra II but hey cant get everything just have to wait for the rom. Very fast for At&T so called 4g to me isnt true on the atrix or inspire. Overall i wish android had netflix but flash is much better thn just having netflix. This phone should have silverlight to say wp7 crappy phones has it pre-installed. Battery life on this phone is great but u have to watch wat you use or have running in the back ground on these phones regardless how much battery life u have. just get and app to fix that problem. Only phone that has the docks like this phone as of laptop dock, hd dock, car dock. phone has front and rear camera. dual led flash. finger print reader. like really a phone has tht and it works great at times. Pretty fast phone that has a root alrdy and now have a rom if i remeber right i did both got pretty great games phone plays movies very well. hd on my plasma screen as if i had the dvd player running. use vpn and is pretty quick on this phone. Motoblur maybe a locked keylogger but there shuld be a way around it now or soon. But im using launcher pro so u can get a different ui look or some wat stock android. Phone does take longer to charge compared to most phone but one night charge every night is great to me for a dual core processing phone. Talk time is great been talking on this phone since i had it plus no static in the background ppl hear me fine n i hear them fine even in crowded areas. So far the best phone to be on the market until tegra III or htc dual core or 2.5ghz so called single core phones comes out. By far for now the best.

Unfriendly phone January 17, 2012

Reviewer:  brian adam "Brian"  (Mt. View, CA) -

This is the most user unfriendly phone I have ever owned. Almost everything I do requires looking up instructions on internet rather than following menus. Spent 30 min on phone with technical support at AT&T and they still din't figure out how to copy another person while responding to a text. I later figured it out but it requires more keystrokes than a well designed phone would. The screen goes dark very fast even though my settings are set to 2 minutes. This causes problems when calling a number that requires navigating through a menu as the screen is usually dark when I am asked to enter an option. The phone is also very slow on start-up.

Looking forward to the end of my contract.

The Ultimate Phone September 21, 2011

Reviewer:  SF67 

This is by far the best phone on the market!! If you don't want the best phone you are wasting your money on anything else, at least until the Atrix II comes out!!! It does it all and it is powerful as fas as a mobile phone goes. I purchased mine in March and have not regreted my decision. The nay sayers are jealous they chose something else.

overall a decent phone September 21, 2011

Reviewer:  xracer 

In general the phone is not bad, however with all the pros and cons i think unlocking the phone will be the best thing Motorola will do.

Decent, fast phone crippled by a horrendous network August 30, 2011

Reviewer:  Dave 

After spending many painful months with this phone I have to downgrade my initial review to 1 star. If its price were much, much lower it might garner a couple stars. I can't really think of any pros for this phone except that I dropped it in water accidentally and it still 'works', and I use that term loosely.

- Screen rotation is painfully slow, sometimes taking up to 5 seconds to figure out you've physically rotated the phone.
- Talk quality is horrendous. I've slowly gotten used to repeating everything that I say on every call to any carrier. I don't mumble, either. Forget about talking to someone in a quiet, public area. You cannot whisper. The other party will not hear you unless you talk like a overbearing douche. Conversely, the speaker phone actually works better, but is not practical in certain quiet situations.
- 720P video? Right. And my Blackberry curve had 720P video, too. Video and pictures in good light or outdoors is grainy at best. Indoors and in low light, you might as well forget about it. And quick shot pics? Naw. You'll wait for 3 to 4 seconds for the camera app to load, then up to 6 to 8 seconds for the thing to snap a pic at times. Connecting via the HDMI cable to a large TV? Have fun. Grainy, low quality video looks like it's upscaled from Divx.
- AT&T Network connectivity is abhorrent. Raise the phone to look at the screen and it's reconnecting to the network. Surf the web and the network disappears and reconnects. Reconnecting... 2 bars. Reconnecting... 5 bars. Reconnecting... 1 bar.
- Got full 5 bars in an LTE network enabled area (Dallas for me)? Have fun with 1.3Mbps download max. Upload speed? You're looking at 300KBps.
- Still not sure what the 4G portion of this phones name means. Wouldn't Atrix 3G+ be a more honest product name?
- I haven't rooted the phone as some suggest. Supposedly rooting can give it much more features. Personally I'd rather have a phone that's faster out of the box with a larger screen. So far my new Skyrocket is miles above the Atrix 4G.

I really wanted to like this phone, but it's enormous flaws outweigh any of its simply acceptable qualities, overpriced docking options and pathetic, neutered HDMI output. I cannot comprehend all the rave reviews. All their review points seem straight out of Motorola's marketing descriptions which tells me that reviewers don't actually spend any quality time with this phone.

Piece of c@ap August 22, 2011

Reviewer:  Amar Khanna 

I've had this phone for about 5 months now. I was impressed by it's form factor, speed and fingerprint sensor. After 5 months and a major firmware update later, the phone has developed frustrating quirks. It will power cycle in the middle of a call, or the fingerprint sensor goes dead requiring a power cycle, sometimes it refuses to wake up, guess what? Power cycle again. Battery life is dismal and the interface is like a labyrinth. In order to make a call via my address book, I have to make about 4 clicks. Wish I'd gotten an Iphone.

Awsomest Phone till now July 11, 2011

Reviewer:  Naresh Mohan "Naresh"  (Chicago,IL,USA) -

I have been using the phone only for a week now , but i do believe after seeing/using many other phones including iphone and android phones, i wil lsay this as the best.
First the specs are top of the market. The 4" display is crisp and perfect
the touchscreen is one among the best i have seen, the multi touch, capacitive is just too perfect. The apps dont just quit wen u go to home they get suspended so it means faster start-up the next time. Don ot think this is going to use more battery, if my online research is right the amount of battery to hold someting in memory is negligible . The default browser is flash enabled and works on 90% of the flash sites (hanv't checked any flash game websites).
As there are zillion customization and 7 home screens it can feel too geeky at first but u get used to it. The call clarity and signal strength are excellent. my previous Samsung eternity will have poor call clarity in basement , Atrix works jst fine. Havnt used the cam or video much. But the net browsing on wifi is seemless , all pages (desktop version of websites) load jst lik they would on ur laptop both in speed and clarity, i guess this where the dual processor 1 gb RAM kick in :D . The external speaker fone is good , but i wont say its excellent. As i havnt had longer conversations more than 10 mins i donot know if it heats up.
It will not be fair if i dont say wat i dont lik about the fone
The haptic (synaptic) feedback wen u touch the bottom (menu, home, back, search) buttons cannont be turned off that is annoying to me and to many others. This has been disabled or locked by Motorola.
2. According to some comments in online forums some additional settings also have been locked/disabled. (not sure what they are)

GREAT PHONE. July 8, 2011

Reviewer:  M. Hicks  (BURKE, VA USA) -

The Atrix must be the best phone I have ever had. The phone is way better than the BlackBerry. It is faster with greater flexiblity and functions. The only problem I had with the phone is that ATT shipped the wrong charging cable. I am using the charging cable I had with the blackberry.

Great Phone. You will love it.

Great Phone July 7, 2011

Reviewer:  mr2686 

This is our first smart phone and we're very happy with it. We do not text all day, or sit on the internet for long periods of time so any heating issues with the phone do not seem to apply. This is quite simply a great phone that allows us to access the internet, text if we want, get emails/alerts, as well as having great phone clarity. I've also noticed that I have not dropped any calls in the same areas that my old ATT phone did. That could be because they are beefing up the network, but it could be that the phone is that much better as well. This is a great choice if looking for a new smart phone.

Excellent phone! June 14, 2011

Reviewer:  Sreejith Gopi 

I have used the iphone 3gs for close to 2 years. Got bored of the ios and iphone and decided to switch to android. I started with HTC Thunderbolt,which I returned in 2 days coz of horrible battery life. Atrix has decent battery life and the 4" screen is adequate for viewing all emails/videos etc. Very nice intergation with multiple accounts on board. Needs a motoblur account to use the phone, which is free & easy to set up.

Cons: The device gets hot at times,but cools down very fast.

Overall,very nice phone. Could have done away without the motoblur interface,but is ok.

Great phone. May 15, 2011

Reviewer:  Brad 

Great phone. I've had it for about a week and I love the fun and interesting things I can do with it. My only qualms so far are:
-I'm having difficulty syncing my calender. I've checked many online forums and the options that are listed seem to be missing from my device, I'm calling tech support tomorrow.
-No skype video! How you gonna give me a front facing camera if I can't use it yet, though there may be changes when we get Gingerbread.
-It sometimes crashes when an app or video is opening and I hit the volume button. The phone shuts itself off and it's fairly annoying. Hopefully this is resolved with promised dual-core optimization.

Fast, Great Screen, Great Signal, Awesome Call Quality May 11, 2011

Reviewer:  gkverne  (Frederick, MD) -

This phone is, to put it plainly, awesome.

Hardware: Starting with the outside, I was disappointed by the feel of the plastic exterior of this phone. It is slick and cheap-feeling. The front is one continuous sheet of Gorilla glass, so it feels awesome. The four buttons below the display are capacitive, which I prefer. The fingerprint reader/power button is awkwardly placed and feels a tad unreliable, but keeps the phone secure. The display is a 4-inch qHD display (basically the same sharpness as the iPhone but larger). The display is bright and clear and looks great. Touch sensitivity is great and the digitizer layer feels close to the glass for maximum accuracy.

Software: This is one phone that I don't actually mind MotoBlur on. This phone runs Android 2.2.2 (not the latest 2.3.4), and updates will be slow because of the custom skin. That said, the dual-core processor isn't dragged down by MotoBlur, so you most likely won't notice the crap skin that Motorola designed. Hopefully when this phone gets updated to Android 2.3.4 it will get a less obtrusive skin.

Calls: This phone has a loud ear-piece speaker, has incredible signal response, and uses noise-cancellation to great effect. That all adds up to great calls, even on AT&T's sub-par network.

Data: I'm in Frederick, MD. We get 3G service (which is reported on the phone as H+, but isn't really. I guess eventually we'll see "4G" here, but for right now this thing is just as fast or slow as any other 3G phone.

Blazing Fast, value for money! May 9, 2011

Reviewer:  S. Kaimal "-- caught in the web foreva' --"  (Boston, MA) -

Got Atrix 4G for my wife (I own an iPhone 4). All apps run blazingly faster compared to the ones on my iPhone. It gives more flexibility in terms of additional memory, USB support, removable battery etc.

Features which are not there in iPhone -

USB Support - You can use the phone as a USB device, also you can transfer media (songs, videos, pics) directly through USB.

DLNA - If you have a media server at home (most of the new routers have them), you can easily play media from the server onto your device! You can also send and receive files without moving from your couch!

Camera flash makes the pics in the dark much better than my iPhone ones.

Interface is far better than iPhone. Again Very fast!

Plays Flash, of-course.

Few areas for improvement -

Motorola claims 9 hours battery life, and I never got it - 2 hours of angry birds and 60% of the battery is drained already. Since the phone is only a week old, I will give it a couple more to get the battery to its full capacity.

Cannot turn off 4G/3G like in iPhone.

Overall, its a great phone!

What a product! April 11, 2011

Reviewer:  Gayle Wayne 

I have had the Atrix for a month now and it is changing my life. What a product! For a new smart phone user, there would be a very sharp learning curve, due to the OS, but in terms of speed, ease of use, useful features and quality display, those with some experience can not go wrong. The Android system takes some getting used to, but give it some time, and it's worth it. I am still plowing through all the options, because there are so many ways to customize, and so many features I did not have on my last smart phone. (Now I see that my last smart phone, a Samsung Black Jack 2, was really not so smart.) It surprises me that AT&T is not pushing this phone - just as a phone - but as a computer-linked system. The dock is not for anyone with high expectations. I didn't get it and I don't need it. I am happy with the Atrix just the way it is as a phone, and also as a multimedia device. I have never had a dropped call, never had an attachment fail to load, watched videos, listened to Pandora, etc etc etc. My only complaint is the same one everybody with a smart phone has - battery life. Have to charge it every day - wish they could fix that~!

Great Phone - battery pig. April 10, 2011

Reviewer:  Joel Martin "texoz"  (Right now looking out my window thinking about somewhere else...) -

Overall this is a great phone and I am intrigued by its expandability into laptop and desktop land. However, it is a battery pig and buying a second batter is almost a must!

OUTDATED VERSION OF ANDROID - great phone but bugs are annoying March 21, 2011

Reviewer:  Alexander Quinn  (College Park, MD USA) -

The Atrix is a great phone, but the outdated version of Android it comes with has some unfortunate bugs that can be frustrating when they happen. It's frustrating since presumably they've been fixed in the newer versions of Android. If Motorola/AT&T fixed that one thing, I'd give it 4½ stars.

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PROS

+ FINGERPRINT SCANNER design is wonderful. I can feel the little notch for the scanner when the phone is in my pocket, press, scan, and have it unlocked by the time I get out out of my pocket. It's brilliant. You'll hate the way it feels for the first 5 minutes and love it as soon as you actually use it.
+ BATTERY LIFE is good. It lasts me the whole day. According to benchmarks I've seen, Atrix is the best Android phone for battery life.
+ SNAPPY PERFORMANCE. Loading complex web pages, starting apps, and moving between them is a breeze.
+ FEELS GOOD. It is rounded on the back, light but not flimsy. It's nice. I can carry it comfortably in my back pocket much better than other phones I've had.
+ GPS finds my location quickly.
+ MOTOBLUR (UI enhancements) is, on the whole, a positive. The reviews I've read always complain about it, but I find that it mostly simplifies communication and it has a nice look to it. The phone is powerful so Motoblur does not slow it down at all.
+ BUTTONS (menu/home/back/search) are responsive.
+ SPEAKERPHONE is nice and loud.
+ AT&T pre-installed apps are removable. Many other phones force you to keep them, even if you don't want them. This is a big plus for the Atrix.
+ CAMERA is fast and pictures comes out decent, especially for documents, thanks to the macro lens. If you compare more typical photos with other cameras, the Atrix picture quality does not compare well. However, I've found the autofocus to be far more usable than the HTC Evo I had before. Other phones *can* take better pictures, but it's easier to take decent pictures on the Atrix, so it comes out okay. I expected to hate the camera, based on the reviews, but it has actually been okay.
+ EASY to get started. Everything worked well straight out of the box. It took 5 mins to set up a couple of accounts. After that, all of my contacts and previously purchased apps were there and working.
+ SCREEN is sharp and crisp.

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CONS

- RECEPTION is worse than other AT&T devices. This is surprising for Motorola. I have to assume it is due to AT&T still rolling out their HSPA+ network enhancements... I hope. It's fast in the city ('2 Mbps), but terrible in the suburbs where I live, even though other AT&T devices do fine where I live. It's weird. In both cases, it can be a little spotty at times. Also, wifi feels slower than it should be sometimes.
- EXPENSIVE TETHER PLAN required to use the laptop dock. To me, that stuff is irrelevant even though it's cool in theory. Why pay an extra $20/month just to be able to browse the web on a bigger screen, using the same connection and the same guts to power it. AT&T's pursuit of these extra fees is stifling adoption of what would otherwise be a breakthrough feature.
- OUTDATED VERSION OF ANDROID. It comes with 2.2.2 ("Froyo"). The latest is 2.3.3 ("Gingerbread"). Gingerbread was released December 2010 and is running on some competitors, such as Samsung's Nexus S. Gingerbread solves many issues.
- RESTRICTED so you can't install the newer software, even if you find it online. Essentially, they force you to use the old, buggy version.
- BUG WITH CONTACTS: After adding my Twitter account, it linked it to my other accounts (fine) and made the Twitter account the master so that all of my emails went out with my twitter ID instead of my real name (very bad). The bug has been known for a year, so I assume this is fixed in the latest version of Android. After wasting my time with this, I gave up and uninstalled the Twitter account. That solved it.
- BUG WITH BROWSER: Twice in two weeks, it has gotten into a state where the browser won't load any web pages. The solution was to either restart the phone or restart the browser. I suspect it's due to a particular web page I visit (NextBus) causing it to get confused, but in any case, this should never happen. Hopefully, they will upgrade to a newer version of Android that is more robust. Other than that, the browser is great.
- BUG WITH TEXT MESSAGES: There is a known bug where it will send text messages to the wrong person. This is horrible. I haven't had the problem, but it is known to happen sometimes in this version of Android. It is fixed in recent versions of Android.

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COMPARED TO HTC THUNDERBOLT

I compared this with the HTC Thunderbolt, the closest competitor at the moment. However, I think the Atrix is better overall, depending on what's important to you. Each has it's pros and cons. Thunderbolt has better/faster coverage (Verizon LTE), a bigger screen (4.3" vs 4.0"), a cool kickstand, and slightly better camera quality (but no macro mode). Atrix has much better battery life, lighter/nicer feel, better GPS receiver, more internal storage, tougher screen (Gorilla glass), and a better deal on service (rollover minutes w/ AT&T). Both are great. I'd take either one over the iPhone 4, although that's a matter of preference, too.

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SUMMARY

Overall, it's a great phone. However, until they update the software, that will be a significant issue.

be carefull what you ask for April 18, 2011

Reviewer:  Yvonne Conley 

I was in line for the gingerbread update in july,and did get it,be carefull what you ask for, i lost so many paid apps. with 2.3.4 I had to start all over again . alot of things just arent there anymore.it took the phone about two to three weeks to adjust to the new software,an update apps. my battery life is the same,and I can't add my pictures to each screen anymore, the phone still drop calls and eat up data faster now with the update. the phone is nice when you accept it for what it is, a cell phone. you just pay more .

Tethering Plan does not work with iPad March 4, 2011

Reviewer:  Alex  (New Jersey, USA) -

The phone is beautiful, fast, responsive, etc. However, I'm returning it. I reluctantly went from iPhone 3G to Atrix. Migrating from iOS to Android was fine, I'm fairly technical so no problems. There are some things the iphone does better and something the Atrix does better so it really is a matter of choice, just do your homework and spend time at the store "playing" with the phone before buying it.

My biggest mistake was not to test the wifi tethering at the strore, a feature that I really wanted so that I can tether my iPad w/wifi over the Atrix (None of the AT&T stores have the Mobile Hotspot feature enabled on the Atrix???? but on other phones they do?????)

So, I got the phone, played with it for about a week to make sure I was happy with it before enabling the $45 tethering plan (I did not want to loose my unlimited plan unless I was sure I'm keeping the phone). To my shock and dismay I turn on the tethering plan and I get dismal speeds on the iPad. The Atrix shows me speeds of 1800 Kbps and the iPad shows me a 200Kbps speed, what???

I call AT&T and they tell me "sorry but we can't guarantee tethering speeds", I call Motorola and they say that can't be, they are testing as we speak the tethering feature and they see only a slight degradation in speed, not 9 times slower. That evening, I tried the feature with my home laptop instead of the iPad and guess what, it works fine, the laptop speed is comparable to the speed I was getting on the phone itself (so tethering worked on my laptop).

Is Motorola chocking the iPad, is At&t throtleing the phone on some devices, I don't know and truly I don't care (I won't accuse At&t or Motorola of any wrong doing but you can draw your own conclusions). As I told my wife, if I'm paying all this money for the unit and service I want for it to work, and out of the box this phone is not working as intended so I'm returning it (a shame because I was really starting to enjoy the phone).

Both At&t reps and Motorola suggested I return the phone (Ha?, I could not believe that).

If you switch from unlimited plan to $45 tethering plan you will loose the unlimited and not be able to go back, even if you return the phone.

I'm rating this phone a generous 3 and only because the unit itself is really nice. However, the overall experience is very frustrating and upsetting.

Motorola Atrix December 26, 2011

Reviewer:  Will  (Maryland) -

The phone will send text messages to the wrong person. At random times messages will either come in from a party that didn't text or the texts will go out to a party that you did not intend it to. This could be a big problem in some circumstances.

Wish we bought an iPhone-2 July 26, 2011

Reviewer:  Janice Wang-Polagruto "Giovanni's mama"  (California) -

My husband has had this phone since March, and not a day goes by that it doesn't hang up on an app, not readily unlock, reboot, or simply crash. While he likes the Android operating system, the physical properties of the phones are akin to a luxury sports cars - when it works, it's is amazing, but it spends a lot of time in the garage. The phone itself is not stable.

It could be that his particular handset has problems; but, you know, that doesn't seem to be a problem with other brands.