Price: 22,000
Motorola is working hard to retain their footing in the
smartphone segment and so far, they’ve been faring quite well. Their recent
attempt at a Galaxy S II competitor in the form the RAZR XT910 proved to be
quite fruitful. Their latest device is in the form of the Motoroal Atrix 2
that’s designed to offer users premium features at a reasonable price. We’re
here to tell you if they made good on those deliverables
Unfortunately the Atrix 2 is not the best looker on the
shelf. Aside from looking rather plain, as far as smartphones go, it’s also a
little bulky and weighs in at 147 grams which isn’t exactly lightweight either.
On the other hand, no one can say that the quality of materials used in its
construction are of a low grade. The dark Chromed border in front and the hard
plastic (slightly rubberized) rear panel make for a sturdy device with a decent
grip.
On the right side are volume keys with a dedicated camera
shutter release/access button towards the bottom. A micro USB and HDMI port
reside on the bottom of the left hand side. A 3.5mm headphones socket and
power/sleep button are placed at the top. The Atrix 2 features 8GB of internal
storage and support for up to 32GB more via micro SD cards (Hot Swap under the
rear panel). The large 4.3-inch TFT touchscreen display sports a 540 x 960
pixel resolution under Corning Gorilla Glass. The display is quite easily
visible in broad daylight conditions with good viewing angles. The colors,
although not as vibrant as Sony’s Bravia Engine or Apple’s Retina Display can
provide (to name a few), are still quite good with very sharp imaging. All in
all, there’s nothing to complain about at all.
Features and Performance
Interface
Running Android Gingerbread (2.3, no word on an update to
ICD but keeping the specs in mind, support will not be an issue) on a 1GHz Dual
Core processor with a PowerVR SGX540 GPU for added support, the Atrix 2 handles
like a dream. It’s every bit as good as its more expensive brethren. From UI
functionality to accessing apps, browsing and media playback, the Atrix 2
functions smoothly with no hint of lag or framing of any kind. MOTOBLUR with
its active widget system might not be the very best designed interface but some
of the widgets are quite handy and one can always download third party options
that work better and are far more customizable.
A built in Data and Battery Manager feature (accessible via
the Settings) lets you control the usage of various features to help preserve
power. It’s not as sophisticated as the RAZR’s but it does help. A few extras
that are part of the Atrix 2’s make up include voice functionality that can be
used to read out your emails or messages and also calls out the number or name
that shows up when you get a call. It’s no Siri and sounds too much like the
old Symbian devices, that translates to, shut this feature off and you won’t
miss anything. Motorola has also included their CrystalTalk feature that lets
you choose from presets to enable better quality of audio for calls. It's
extremely handy. Swype too is preloaded onto the handset. The option to join
the same contact via Facebook and those on my Google account did not come up at
all. This was quite bizarre.
The Atrix 2 gave us a Linpack scoring of 43.45 in a Single
Thread run and 65.60 in Multi thread on an average. Overall functioning, as we
mentioned was smooth and quite instantaneous when it came to accessing apps and
files etc. AnTuTu scored it at 5222 putting in the same league as the Optimus
2X and a few points short of the Galaxy S II.
Media
Straight out of the box, the Atrix 2 comes with support for
quite a few of the popular video codecs - 1080p MP4, H.263 and H.264, WMV,
Xvid, and DivX. For MOVs, FLVs etc. any third party option like Rockplayer will
make sure you’re well taken care of. The native media player, although capable
of providing well balanced tones via the very comfortable to use wired headset,
doesn’t have a Folder View option which could be an issue for some. A bit of a
drawback is that Motorola offers no direct access to audio settings from the
player itself. You'll have to go through the handset's settings menu>Sound
Settings>Media Audio Effects to make any changes. The available audio settings
include Surround effects, EQ presets and a profile option to set it to 3D, Live
or Home Theatre. An FM radio as well as SHOUTcast for online streaming are
both present. You can access your stored videos as well as YouTube videos from
the same app. The radio worked out just fine with decent reception through most
of the city.
Other media features include SoundHound for music
recognition and a Music Community option for TuneWiki, Music Maps and HOT
Playlists that tie into FB and Twitter and play videos off of YouTube. These
services are quite a bit of fun to use and do help enhance the devices media
offerings. Motorola has also tied up with EA (Electronics Arts) to bring
consumers a host of freebies from the game developer. A total of 9 titles like
NFS Shift, FIFA 10, Bejeweled and Dead Space are included for free
download.
Connectivity
In this department, the Motorola has tried to equip the
Atrix 2 with as much as possible. Connectivity options include – 3G (up to
21Mbps), WiFi with DLNA support, wireless streaming using the MotoCast app, Hot
Spot creation, EDGE/GPRS, Bluetooth with A2DP and EDR and of course USB 2.0.
Using apps like Motorola Webtop, you can hook your phone up via HDMI to larger
(supported) displays and access web apps and surf the net while taking and
receiving calls and messages. Moto Phone Portal lets you manage your phone
content via your PC and MotoPrint allows you to print wirelessly. A noticeable
glitch which we could attribute to this being a test device (hopefully)
occurred when switching over from WiFi to EDGE. It wasn’t seamless, so much so
that we were required to switch the handset into Flight mode and then back for
data connectivity to reactivate. Restarting the handset is obviously not an
option. In the GPS department only Google’s Navigation, Maps and Places
are available.
Camera
 |
| Very crisp image. |
The Atrix 2 features an 8 megapixel auto focus camera with
an LED flash. Features include GeoTagging, basic effect settings, Scene modes,
Multishot and Panorama mode (auto-stitch) and exposure control. It can also
record video in full HD i.e. 1080p (@24fps). Image quality is right up there
with the best of them. For most part pictures captured and viewed in native
resolution (on a PC) look quite sharp and with a reasonable amount of color
retained in both indoor and outdoor settings. Low light image capture is not
its forte but it still manages to do a decent job. On the whole, the Atrix 2’s
camera is another feather in its hat.
Battery
The Atrix 2’s 1785 mAh battery proved to be a real asset. In
our Video-Drain test we ran the device non-stop for over 7 hours playing a
standard definition video with WiFi running constantly in the background
downloading emails, chat message, updates etc. In our tech2 Loop Test we
managed to get a full loop – 2 hours video, 2 hours audio, 1.5 hours talk time,
2 hours audio streaming – and also started off a second loop that gave us 1.5
hours of video, 1.5 hours of audio and squeezed out another 15 minutes of audio
streaming. That works out to over 10 hours of rigorous usage with Wi-Fi
constantly active.
A must buy smartphone from Motorola. If you liked this post then please comment below.
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