Motorola Atrix review

As an Android smartphone it’s pretty quick, in fact we were surprised at its score of 2,760 in the Quadrant benchmark. It can’t quite match the 1.2GHz Samsung Galaxy S2’s score of 3,165, but it does outscore every other 1GHz Tegra-based device we’ve seen.

Opening the rear of the Atrix, we discovered one reason why it’s a little on the chunky side – a big 1,930mAh battery. Unsurprisingly, it gave impressive results in our battery tests, with 52 hours of constant audio playback – better than even the iPhone 4 – and nearly seven and-a-half hours of video playback. There’s also a micro SDHC card slot under here, to supplement the generous 16GB of built-in storage.

The exterior, as we previously noted, isn’t the slimmest or most stylish example. The black plastic casing appears to have been designed as a middle-ground for consumer and corporate users. It’s not unpleasant at all, just instantly forgettable. One notable design feature is the large power button on the top edge of the handset, which sits at a 45 degree angle. This also integrates a fingerprint reader, another nod to corporate users (who greatly value security), but handy for everyone.

You set up the reader to accept your left and right forefingers, and then you can unlock the handset with a quick swipe, rather than the usual onscreen pattern password. It’s easy to press the button or swipe your finger using the hand you’re holding the device with, plus it’s easy to reach when it’s mounted in a dock too.

You need to setup a MotoBlur account to use all the phones features – but that only takes a couple of minutes. After that though there’s a decent wizard to help integrate your various social networking accounts, with all the usual suspects included, such as Facebook, LastFM, Twitter and LinkedIn.

The handset runs Android 2.2, rather than the latest 2.3 edition, presumably due to the amount of customisation that’s gone into the Atrix. It’s not a huge deal, as 2.3 wasn’t a big update, however owners may find that the latest apps, designed to work on both 2.3 and the tablet-specific 3.0, may not work perfectly – a pity given the big-screen laptop add-on.

On the left-hand side of the Atrix are micro HDMI and USB ports, side-by-side, and it’s these that the handset uses to dock with the HD Multimedia Dock or LapDock. It slots home securely in either, with just the ports holding and a small recess it in place.