Moto spills full details on Atrix 4G and laptop dock
At its CES press conference this afternoon, Motorola revealed the complete specification on its new Atrix 4G for AT&T and introduced a laptop dock accessory.
LAS VEGAS--AT&T gave us a sneak peek at the Motorola Atrix 4G this morning, but it was up to Motorola to announce the full details of the device at its CES press conference that ended a few minutes ago.
As we told you, the Atrix's biggest draws will be its Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 chipset, and support for AT&T's 4G network. Yet, a deeper dive shows some equally impressive features plus a unique accessory. We'll start with the device first.
The Atrix will offer a familiar smartphone candy bar design. Clad in basic black, the Atrix measures 4.62 inches long by 2.5 inches wide by 0.43 inch deep and weighs 4.76 ounces. That's a bit on the hefty side, but bulk is to be expected on a powerful smartphone. The 4-inch touch-screen is qHD (that's high definition) and supports 960x540 pixels, an accelerometer, and a proximity sensor.
Powering the Atrix is Android 2.2 (Froyo), but it will be upgradable to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) later this year. There's no physical keyboard so you'll use a virtual keyboard for typing e-mails and messages.
The two processors run at 1GHz. That's a first for Motorola and a U.S. carrier, but we'll have to see how it affects the 1,920mAh lithium ion battery. The Atrix also will support 16GB of onboard memory, 1GB of RAM and it can use microSD cards up to 32GB.
The remaining features are nice, but nothing will blow you out of the water. There's a 5-megapixel camera with a LED flash, a second VGA shooter for self-portraits, a camcorder with 720p video capture, HD video playback, the Android WebKit browser, with Adobe Flash, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 2.1, messaging and e-mail, a digital audio player, Assisted-GPS, a personal organizer, and the usual set of Google apps.
Motorola also announced its Webtop app that brings a computer-like experience to the Atrix. You can make it happen via an HDMI cable and monitor or a unique and admittedly cool
It's essentially an empty laptop shell that connects to your phone. You're still running everything from the Atrix, but it brings the Web browsing and media experience from the small to the big screen. The laptop dock promises 8 hours of battery, which, as Moto reminded us, is sufficient for a trans-Atlantic flight from New York City to London.
The Atrix will be available in the first quarter of this year, though pricing is yet to come. We're also waiting on exact availability and pricing for the laptop dock. In the meantime, stay tuned for a hands-on with both the Atrix and the dock from Las Vegas.