MOTOROLA ATRIX (mb860) ongoing 2wk review

[cmak]

Thought I would post my user experience with my new ATRIX. Will post every few days as I get time to handle my unit.

DAY 1

Bought a Locked Bell ATRIX from bestbuy Calgary, AB, unlocked it yesterday using mobileincanada.com
(did not come with a memory stick, just 11G on board (usable).

First time unlocking so i was little hesitant to buy online.
20 bucks and a 2 hour promise, this site delivered to me in under 15minutes.
I paid by visa, via paypal interface.

mobileincanada.com LOG
Operator : Bell
Name : ATRIX mb860
IMEI : 3555xxxxxxxxxxxx

17:38:47 : Order received
17:38:59 : Verification of Order
17:39:48 : Order Accepted
17:40:21 : Order sent to the unlocking server
17:41:35 : Waiting response from unlocking server
17:47:04 : Receiving answer from the unlocking server
17:47:57 : Email is sent to xxxxxxxxx@xxxx.com
17:48:26 : Your unlock code is : 8xxxxxxx
Your unlock code is :
8xxxxxxx


Inserted rogers sim, powered up, entered unlock code once, and phone is now unlocked.
Bypassed motoblur login to get into APN settings,
entered (for ROGERS) name:apn,apn:internet.com,username:wapuser1,pwd:wa p, touched nothing else

My last phone was a NEXUS ONE (HTC) and was an excellent phone, it will take me a few weeks to get used to the ATRIX as the N1 has set a pretty high bar.

Notables: doesnt feel as fast as the N1, email text loads are noticeable and game loadtimes are horrific (+40s asphalt 5 bloatware ), havent found a way to play avi videos (codec not stock) to test, browsing seems to be the same as the N1 (3G), while on Hspa+ with the ATRIX. Dont believe the hype on the speed for both the network nor the processors. !
Feels like only one processor is working. As this is a new release i will be easy on motorola.......

WIFI works fine.
Micro USB charging works fine.

Likes: fingerswipe seems fast and accurate, light and durable case, nice "carbon fiber looking back"

Dislikes: Not 2.3 OS!, static user chosen icons on bottom row, non existent....a bit irritating for fast use,circlular desktop page references can be confusing, as opposed to linear, with center being primary.
'
Speaker: louder (good), but S's are way to0 high pitched!(way bad)
Screen: perfectly acceptable, vivid and bright colors, slighty bigger screen than the N1 .

Motoblur: cant see the point of this as i just text, email and phone, just erased all the bloatware icons
Motoblur web(for remote data wipe/locator: does not work with Chrome 10! (even though it says it is compat with chrome 5+)
Batterylife: 12 hours, wifi on, 25 calls, 30min on browser, moderate use... battery at 15%. It feels like 2.5x better than my N1, so iam content with that, even though it is way less than advertised.

CANTS:(compared to N1 cans)or maybe i cant figure out how.

Cant seem to lengthen duration of screen lock once fingerprint scanner has been activated. Locked at about 30s.
CANT play a video.
Cant find a combined email inbox icon...have to click throught a few screens to get to it, sucks as i have 5 email addresses.

Cant delete Bell homepage (bookmark)
Cant delete footer ADVERTISING "sent from Motorola ATRIX smartphone...." stamped to all my outgoing email.
Cant video with skype, android ap needs updating by skype.
Not sure what use this bkw facing camera is without an ap to run it!


Day 2
10 hrs regular use battery dead
flash issues...HardwareCanuks. website banner ad covers search pulldown..can't search site.
Stock gps ap useless.....error says turn off wi fi. When its already off.
no comma on main keyboard sucks
WiFi great speed and snappy.
web scrolling is laggy
Magnified curser doesn't work in web forms.

[Cheator]

Shoulda stuck with the N1, I love mine! I do like that the Atrix has a Tegra 2 in it and I want a tablet with that beast, but man.. it feels SLOWER than the N1? thats nuts. Even when the N1 ran 2.2.2?

[JD]

I think the reason why it's slow is that manufacturer's don't seem to know how to properly compile Android, or optimize it at least.

That's why Google phones always seem to run faster and are far better supported with frequent updates.

Sadly the ATRIX has a locked bootloader I believe, so getting custom ROM's on there will be tricky. My Galaxy S with Darky's v9.4 ROM runs far better than any stock Samsung ROM, so hopefully the community figures out a way to get a new ROM on the ATRIX.

But there will be many more dual-core phones out this year, and hopefully some of them will launch with Gingerbread.

[FiXT]

Blah that doesn't bode well :(

I was hoping to adopt the dual core Tegra 2 revolution this year, either with the ATRIX or a possible Droid solution if Rogers gets LTE implement out West by 2011.

Sounds like I may just be better off buying something on my HUP and trading it for an N1. Used it plenty and I love it - honestly figured others would be faster :(

[cmak]

Originally Posted by Cheator

Shoulda stuck with the N1, I love mine! I do like that the Atrix has a Tegra 2 in it and I want a tablet with that beast, but man.. it feels SLOWER than the N1? thats nuts. Even when the N1 ran 2.2.2?

Even when n1 was on 2.2.... seems laggy on web pinch.zoom.scroll....not what I expected with dual core...I guess until now I didn't realize how good the nexus team was...apart from WiFi web browsing&bat life....the user experience does not match N1@2.3!

[cmak]

Day 7: with my MOTOROLA ATRIX smartphone.

7 days of light use.....
Picked up my phone from the charger this morning. Screen dead. RMA.
Sooo much for quality control.

I RECOMMEND the ATRIX TO NO-ONE! Piece o s*&#.

I am definitely going back to HTC..........

[BrokenHalo83]

The desire is a nice phone. I have an HD and i like it. not perfect but a nice phone to use. HTC is releasing a 2.3 update in April as well

[LarkStarr]

see, this is how your thought process should have worked:

"I want a Motorola Atr-"

"oh wait, Motorola.. nevermind!"


and then you wouldn't have had any issues :)





also tegra 2 is old guys, adreno 220 is where it's at. I want an HTC EVO 3D quite badly.

[cmak]

day 8

I removed battery, put back on charger, checked on it an hour later and it worked.
go figure.
So we are back to normal.....hmmm whatever that means.

Call quality good.
Drop calls, none so far.
Blur can hoover my knuttsakasorous.
Finger print reader seems to be getting progressively worse....4-5 tries.
Batterylife is hard to judge.


Still look at my ol N1...contemplating on firing her back up............patience....one more week.

[SKYMTL]

I went to a Bell store with a few friends about a week ago to check out the Atrix. I really wasn't impressed.

One of my buddies put it best: this inconsistent crap is why people go Apple.

I had to agree since there are just too many things that feel completely half-baked about 99% of the Android stuff out there.