When Motorola released Atrix back in CES 2011, it was well reviewed by the critiques. Dual core Tegra 2 processor, PenTile qHD display along with 1GB of RAM was the prime feature of the phone. Now that almost an year has passed, the primary focus is on the successor of Atrix and Motorola is working on a project called Edison which is the possible incarnation of Atrix 2.
There is no official news on release date or price though. The folks over at ‘The Verge’ got some preliminary information and a hands-on with the rumored device. Let’s take a look.
What’s new
The first noticeable thing on the phone is lack of Droid Bionic’s rectangular corner design language. Edison sports a well-rounded curvier look that is soothing and does not scream like the way Droid Bionic does. The new design has a lot of more appeal into it, not that Atrix was bad looking but Edison is better, a lot better. Edison also sports a back made of textured hard plastic, similar to the one used on Samsung Galaxy S II.
What’s been refreshed
Motorola has been relying solely on Android for their smartphone business and now that Motorola Mobiliy is acquired by Google, they are in full motion to refresh their Android timeline frequently. Edison is exactly a step up on this plan. Gone is the PenTile display that had less sub pixels and does not provide much color accuracy for the same reason and is replaced with standard RGB layout. Motorola also updated the display with 4.3 inch screen in place of the older 4 inch one used in original Atrix.
Features Walkthrough
a. Processor and RAM
Motorola has replaced original Atrix’s NVidia Tegra 2 chipset with 1GHz dual core Texas Instruments OMAP processor and PowerVR SGX 540 GPU. The RAM count remains the same though, at 1GB.
b. Display
Edison has replaced the 4” PenTile display with a 4.3” RGB based display similar to the one used on Droid Bionic. The resolution remains the same though, at qHD or 960 x 540. The pixel per inch suffered a setback from 275 to 256 which is nothing more than a minor change and won’t be visible to untrained eyes under normal operations. The inclusion of normal RGB based display will increase the vibrancy of the colours and also the readability factor of phone.
c. Battery
Unfortunately, Motorola decided to ditch the original Atrix’s amazing 1930 mAh battery, only to replace with a 1735 mAh battery, the same kind that is used on Droid Bionic. Definitely it will be a setback in terms of battery life, but with Ice Cream Sandwich on board when the phone actually releases it can be a entirely different story.
d. Camera
Gone is the paltry 5 MP camera used on Motorola Atrix, replaced by a more powerful 8 MP camera with auto focus, LED flash and capability to capture videos at full HD 1080p. The inclusion of 1080p video capture is just a coming of age feature, as most of the other manufacturers has already added it on their top tier smartphones.
e, Performance
As the software on this Edison device is still not final, the performance checks are only preliminary and can vary a lot in the final version. Edison got a score of 2201 in popular Android benchmarking software Quadrant. The Motoblur is still there and felt snappy and without lags while using. 3D games were played without any visible lags, blurs or dropped frames.
What’s good
Motorola’s decision to finally move away from using PenTile based displays is paying off. From Droid Bionic to Droid RAZR and Edison, the displays look vibrant and have great contrast ratios, thanks to standard RGB layout. Inclusion of a 8MP camera with 1080p video recording is also a good idea as it is becoming increasingly common among smartphones. Inclusion of 1GB or RAM makes it a webtop enabled device with both Micro USB and HDMI ports for docking.
What’s not so good?
Seemingly missing support for the faster LTE network. Usage of LCT TFT screens which are pretty old now. Motorola could have used Super LCD or AMOLED screens. Not running Ice Cream Sandwich which may be solved in near future.
Wrap up
As the Edison project is most likely going to turn up as Motorola Atrix 2 in near future, there are a nice set of improvements over the original Atrix. If priced in a right way, Atrix 2 can really become a very popular Android smartphone coming from Motorola. With Droid RAZR covering the higher ends, Motorola Atrix 2 has the potential to become a mid-range Android power house that covers almost everything expected from a smartphone today.
