Playing with my new Motorola Atrix

posted by sacah on Mar 15, 2011 mobile, motorola atrix, review, android,

So it was time to upgrade my phone again, my Samsung Omnia had been a great phone, manually updated to WM6.5, but like all my phones nearing their 2 year mark are on their last legs. So I began my extensive review process to figure out my next phone from the quite large variety we have to choose from now.

First choice would be the OS, Apple is just too restrictive and lacking, Microsofts new WM7 was the forerunner until I read more and found out they were being a bit restrictive too, not allowing native applications(goodbye firefox), and using a blend of IE8 and IE9 just wasn't what I wanted in a phone. So that left Android, which I don't think is as polished as Apple or Microsoft, but it's fairly open and I like that.

So while digging around looking at what Android phone I'd choose I came across the Motorola Atrix being reviewed at CeBIT and it blew me away. Now I just had to wait for it to come out.

After not too long waiting it was released in the USA and I imported it to Australia, used SwiftUnlocks to free it from AT&Ts grips and I must say I'm impressed with it. Have been using it for 3 days now and it's amazing, I am happily surprised at how good Android it, how many free quality apps are in the market, and how long this battery lasts. After a full day playing with it, GPS on logging as fast as possible for 7hrs, downloading tons of apps on Wifi and the battery ran out. Normal use, few text messages, few phone calls, logging my walk home, bit of foursquare and email and this thing will do one and a half days, even with the amazing matrix live wallpaper!

The phone feels solid, the screen is amazing, the soft keys at the bottom aren't as responsive as normal buttons but you get use to them.

Only issues I have is getting my Google Account to register that I have a mobile device using the same login and that my account includes a Google Checkout account, so for now I can't buy anything from the market place, and things just stay open with no simple way to close them, you end up every day or so running a task manager and killing heaps of stuff, though with the dual core and 1gb RAM it doesn't really slow anything down.