Motorola Atrix review

TOP IT OFF

Whichever dock you’re using, you get the same onscreen interface, called the Webtop. There’s not a lot on the Webtop interface, with the vast majority of content coming through the pre-installed Firefox browser. There’s little to say about the browser, it has all the features you’d expect, including Adobe Flash 10.1. When you unplug the handset it adds a shortcut to the notification bar with the tabs you had open in Firefox; you can then reopen these easily on the handset.

It’s not all smooth sailing though, the browser couldn’t play 720p or 1080p YouTube content back through the browser without stuttering and losing audio sync. This certainly isn’t a hardware issue, as the handset itself is perfectly capable of playing such videos out of its HDMI output. The browser also felt sluggish scrolling when around inside a Google text document, and stutters sometimes, so that you end up deleting the wrong thing, it got a character or two behind, even with my moderate typing speed.

The OS X-like bar of icons at the bottom is divided in half. Everything on the right is related to the browser, with stuff on the left for the handset. For example, on the right is a Facebook shortcut, but that just brings up the site in its own headless browser window. While on the left are shortcuts for text messaging and making phone calls – the Lapdock has a built-in mic and speakers for the latter.

Webtop allows access to Android via its Mobile View. You can do all the usual phone actions, such as making calls and sending texts. The actual resolution isn’t increased beyond that of the phone, but you can choose to run the Mobile View in an appropriately-sized window (landscape or portrait), or stretch it to full-screen dimensions.