In February of last year, Motorola brought us the original Atrix; a high-end Android
phone with a lot of innovative features. Less than ten months later came the Atrix 2, which
brought us almost as many downgrades as upgrades. Today, it?s third iteration has just hit the
market. Does it restore the prestige of the Atrix brand, or drag it further through the
mud of mediocrity? Let?s find out. I?m Michael Fisher ... this is Pocketnow ? and this is
the Motorola Atrix HD review. Let?s get to it. We?ve been reviewing a lot of devices
from Samsung, HTC, Huawei, and other overseas OEMs here in Pocketnow?s Boston offices, so
it?s been nice to get our hands on some American hardware to see how it measures up. I used
to sell Motorola hardware when I worked for Nextel, so it?s been interesting to see how
Motorola?s current quality lives up to its past products. And, on the hardware side,
this device has been quite a treat. While the Samsung Galaxy S III doesn?t feel quite
as cheap and flimsy as some other phones, it?s definitely not a phone you feel like
you can beat up, by any means. And like many other phones, it?s covered in a glossy coating
that scratches easily. By contrast, the Atrix HD feels built to last, with a substantial
feeling in the hand reminscent of the DROID RAZR MAXX. It weighs about 140g, which is
actually pretty standard, but the materials feel very robust. We?ve got Corning Gorilla
Glass up front here, covering the 4.5? TFT LCD panel, and around back the casing is covered
in a Kevlar micro-weave pattern that Motorola has stolen right from its own DROID RAZR line
that I mentioned a second ago. The casing flares out more gradually from its narrowest,
8.4mm dimension than it does on the RAZR, giving the phone a thicker feel overall, but
it also rests very nicely in the hand as a result. So down in front here we?ve got the
AT&T branding below the screen - I like it because it?s subtle but it?s also very easy
to mistake it for a home button, so some might be annoyed by that. Above the display is the
motorola branding, the earpiece, the 1.3MP front facing camera, and a hidden LED. Off
to the right here are the power button and volume keys - these are plastic so they do
feel a little on the cheap side, but the power button is ridged, so it?s easy to tell apart
by feel - that?s a very nice touch. Returning to the back side we revisit the Kevlar micro-weave,
which just gives this device such a nice look and a great, smooth feel in the hand. Under
it is a 1780mAh non-removable battery, and above it we have the big lens for the 8MP
camera, the LED flash, and the speakerphone grille. At top AND bottom, we?ve got two of
the device?s three microphones that drive the CrystalTalk Plus noise reduction feature
- more on that later. On the left side here, the MicroSD and MicroSIM card slots live under
a common door. That?s MicroSD expansion up to 32GB. And finally up top, we?ve got ports
for MicroUSB, HDMI out, and the 3.5mm headphone jack. A little side note - the MicroUSB port
on our device was very particular about what it liked. It didn?t really appreciate other
chargers very much, especially not our portable power pack. That caused us some problems considering
the phone?s battery isn?t removable. You may want to stock up on stock Motorola chargers
if you buy this device. Overall, the Atrix HD feels a bit like a beefed up RAZR MAXX,
with a slightly budget feel because of its less aggressive styling. It?s more exciting
than the Atrix 2 was, and it feels reassuringly durable, but it?s not gonna win any beauty
contests. Underneath all that, we?re looking at some pretty respectable specs: the Atrix
HD runs a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor at 1.5GHz, backed up by 1GB of RAM. There?s
8GB of storage, only 4.7 of which is user-accessible, so it?s good thing there?s that 32GB MicroSD
expansion option. For connectivity, all the usual suspects are here: WiFi b/g/n, Bluteooth
4.0, and DLNA ? however the Atrix HD is missing NFC support. Still, there?s an LTE radio in
here, and since this is an AT&T device, that?s put to good use. A quick word about the LCD
panel: this is a display with very high pixel density. It?s a 720x1280 screen with between
326 or 331 pixels per inch, depending on who you believe. Either way, that?s an incredibly
high pixel count, and it matches or beats the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S? Retina display.
It?s sharp, it?s colorful thanks to Motorola?s ColorBoost, and it?s pretty bright. The only
complaints I have are its daylight performance, which could be better, and its black reproduction,
which tends to render blacks as dark greys with a hint of purple. But that?s the case
with most LCDs. The screen on this device is definitely one of its high points. So that?s
what?s under the hood; let?s talk about what all that hardware is running. Motorola has
included a very close-to-stock build of Android ICS 4.0.4 with the Atrix HD. It?s one of the
few non-Nexus phones, so far, to ship with the Nexus-like Android softkeys instead of
capacitive hardware buttons. But, it?s not stock ICS, and it only takes a quick look
at the home screen to realize that. In this case, it?s a good thing; the lock screen gives
you the option to jump directly in to the phone, messaging, or camera apps, in addition
to just unlocking the phone. The good times continue when you unlock the phone and end
up at the home screen. When you?re getting rid of all the bloat, try to resist the urge
to throw this handy widget away; these three bubbles are actually quite useful, showing
you digital and analog time, the weather in multiple cities, and your battery life and
data allotment remaining. The big one also displays your latest text, if you haven?t
checked it yet. It?s a very handy little widget, and we like it a lot. Other elements closely
resemble stock ICS, like the launcher, and the notification drawer. But there are other
nice little touches throughout the OS - any icon with these arrows displayed next to it
indicates it?s expandable to a little preview pane. Swipe up on the icon and you get a glimpse
into what?s going on inside the app, without actually having to open the app. That?s handy.
Also, the settings menu has been brightened up, with helpful color coded iconography that?s
a little childish, but it definitely takes some of the intimidation factor out of a traditionally
frightening area of the phone for novices. And, of course, there?s the Smart Actions
Motorola popularized with the RAZR line, for custom rules that govern the device?s behavior.
Unfortunately, not all of Motorola?s software work has improved the Android experience.
In short, the Atrix HD is laggy. It?s odd, because on the spec side, it?s plenty powerful,
and it did just fine on our series of benchmarks. It should be able to handle Android just fine.
But it can?t. Lag is persistent throughout the UI, especially in the multitasking view,
which often takes several seconds to appear. There?s also a very annoying scroll lag in
the stock browser that results in swipes being interpreted as taps by the OS. Also, once
again, we?re faced with an OEM that couldn?t resist tampering with the stock keyboard.
Motorola?s implementation isn?t as bad as the one we ran into on the Huawei P1 Ascend,
but it?s not good by any means. Out of the box, haptic feedback was turned down almost
all the way, and there was no audio feedback, so it was hard to know when a key had actually
been pressed. Also, the device would constantly miss keystrokes at even moderate typing speeds.
Switching the keyboard out for the stock ICS keyboard immediately solved our problems,
but we shouldn?t have had to do that. Manufacturers: there are better ways to differentiate than
to meddle with the keyboard by making it worse. The stock ICS keyboard is wonderful. Please
leave it alone. Our real-world testing with the Atrix HD revealed a bit of a mixed bag
across the board, depending on what feature we?re talking about. Battery life was in line
with other midrange Android smartphones, which is to say, mildly disappointing. With heavy
use, which included BT, GPS, LTE on WiFi off Gmail as items arrive Email 15 min polling
Mobile Hotspot: 50mins Spotify: 1 hour Google navigation 30 mins Photos
Instagram Other social media. We got about 8 hours before total battery depletion. Lighter
use will yield correspondingly higher endurance, but remember that battery isn?t swappable,
so you?ll want to invest in a battery pack if you?re going to be away from power outlets
for a while. More disappointing is the camera performance, which leaves a lot to be desired.
Despite that big lens and the beefy 8MP spec, shots often come out either over- or under-exposed
thanks to bad automatic exposure settings. Where this can be corrected for on other devices
through the use of an HDR setting, that?s not true on the Atrix HD. HDR is inexplicably
absent; you?ll have to download an app for that functionality. These problems persist
in the video camera, which also has trouble with automatic white balance and exposure,
compared to higher-end cameras like that of the Galaxy S III, or even the HTC Droid Incredible
4G LTE. Where the phone shined, was in voice calls. Motorola?s CrystalTalk Plus noise reduction
isn?t just a brand name; it really works wonderfully. I was walking down the road on the phone on
Saturday talking to my father, when a whole squadron of motorcycles blew past. I couldn?t
hear a word he was saying. When they passed, I apologized to him, I said ?sorry about the
motorcycles.? He said ?what motorcycles?? It was pretty cool. Even in normal conditions,
everyone said I came through loud and clear. Also, Motorola has built a good amount of
sidetone into voice calling on the Atrix HD. Sidetone is a small amount of controlled,
intentional feedback fed from the microphones into the earpiece, so you can hear yourself
talking. It makes using the Atrix HD more similar to using a home phone, with a nice
warm sound that?s very nice. The only place voice calls didn?t sound good was in speakerphone
mode. Despite the size of that speaker grille, the speakerphone is quiet and tinny during
phone calls. Data speeds over AT&T?s LTE network were excellent in the Greater Boston area.
We experienced great coverage and outstanding throughput, both on the phone, and while tethering.
The phone ran games just fine; X-Plane9 is my go-to tester and it handled that all right.
It?s true that XPlane 9 isn?t the most demanding of games, but if you?re a gamer, you?re not
going to be buying this midrange phone anyway. The Atrix HD is available no on AT&T for $99
on a two-year contract. So, should you buy it? Well ? it?s got robust hardware, and brings
the RAZR design aesthetic to AT&T. It?s got great voice performance and LTE is awesome.
$99 is a good price, but ? the software problems, in particular the lag, aren?t something I?d
want to deal with over the course of a two-year contract. True, there will probably be a bug-fix
upgrade released at some point, but without knowing exactly when or if that?ll happen,
it?s tough to recommend the Atrix HD. We want to love it because of its hardware, but the
software just isn?t fully baked enough for us to do so. Not yet. We give the Motorola
Atrix HD a 3 out of 5. This has been Michael FIsher with Pockentow.com. Be sure to check
out the full review at Pocketnow.com and leave a comment there with your thoughts. Leave
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