Motorola recently announced its new Atrix HD smartphone specifically for AT&T’s LTE network and a review unit just arrived a short while ago. My first impression is that at $ 99 with contract, this Android 4.0 handset will certainly get potential buyers looking at it in detail. Similar to the Motorola Droid Razr, the new Atrix HD is relatively thin but sturdy. Here’s a video look at the hardware, showing some size comparisons to the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S III, along with a quick peek at Motorola’s implemenation of Android 4.0.
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Aside from the thinness, my eyes were immediately drawn to the 4.5-inch 1280 x 720 display, which is very crisp and clear. I’m still not a fan of the camera bump-out atop the device, but I can understand why it’s needed: The same area houses the headphone jack, speakers and ports for USB and HDMI. While the phone itself looks nice, I already like the optional landscape dock. Plugging the phone into the dock provides a number of dock options, including some that can be later downloaded.
Will the 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon suffice in the $ 99 Atrix HD? I’ll know after a full set of tests and some usage time, but I suspect it will provide enough horsepower for most. Paired with 1 GB of memory, this chipset should do fine. I’m leery of the 8 GB storage capacity — of which 4.98 GB are accessible on the review unit — but the microSD card slot will offsets that concern somewhat. More to follow as I use the Atrix HD for the next several days!
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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