Long path to Atrix

jason.hamilton

Senior Member
Jun 25, 2010
517
45
0
Dallas
Hello,
Just wanted to post some thoughts. Recently bought the Atrix 4G. Over the past 7 months ive had 7 different phones. Here are my opinions:

1) iPhone 3GS:
Well everyone knows about this phone, so i wont go in much detail.
Pros:
Fast Phone, Everything worked seamlessly, battery was pretty decent, TONS of apps to choose from, iTunes integration (i hate itunes personally).
Cons:
Its apple, no customization w/ out have to jailbreak every update, Everyone and their grandma has the same phone.

2) Nexus one:
One of the most beautiful, well put together phones i have ever used. Really opened my eyes to android. Its a pity it didnt get more advertising.
Pros:
The form of the phone w/ the trackball, build quality for the phone was premium. Pure android. Blazingly fast, newer phones lagged while this phone was hauling. Battery life was decent
Cons:
No multitouch (which you dont really realize how important it is til you dont have it). Screen wasnt as bright or detailed as the newer screens. Parts and accessories were hard to come by locally.

3) iPhone 4g:
I strongly dislike apple, but i had to see what the fuss was about.
Pros:
Very well put together phone, extremely fast, access to large app store, very little lag, battery life was very good. screen was excellent quality, tons of accessories.
Cons:
Its apple, jailbreaking was becoming increasingly difficult because of baseband and OS. Everyone has this phone which makes me dislike it (personal reason but meh, we all like to be different). Everything is based through iTunes which i dislike.

4) Windows 7 Phone (samsung focus)
At first i thought the phone was stupid looking but then i decided to try out the metro UI.
Pros:
Fast phone, the metro UI on the inside of the OS (once you actually get into the apps) was brilliant, ease of use (good for most, bad for me since i like to change everything), BING! ( i really like bing after using the phone, integration was awesome). Zune integration was stellar. I really prefer zune (which i had never used before), to iTunes.
Cons:
There are alot. First, no multitasking or fast app switching. Relaunching an app every time you want to read a text message is annoying. Having a timer countdown and expecting it to go off when finished and it not going off because your screen wasnt currently on the timer app is very frustrating. Microsoft updates.... will happen eventually. The copy and paste update was 2 months late. That was just copy and paste and a few other touches. Lost faith in microsofts abilities in updating the OS. Lack of accessories such as car mounts etc... Battery life was pretty bad.

5) Blackberry Torch 9800
had to try it out on my quest to try every os. I actually came to like this phone
Pros:
BIS security, everything is encrypted. Email was the best i ever had. Had everything pushed to my phone from blackberry servers w/ only a couple mins delay after they arrived in my actual inbox. Form factor was awesome. First physical keyboard and it was really nice. No need to jailbreak/ unlock phone. Everything was open for user changes. TONS of options for everything. Battery was amazing, best ive had. Easily lasted 2 days of heavy usage. Multi tasking and multi touch like a pro.
Cons:
The phone came out in nov 2010. It has a 600 mhz processor. Its just not enough to support many games or intense apps. It saves the battery but in a field of emerging dual-core phones, they have to be more competitive in term of pure power. Screen was dim and resolution sucked. Lock button was designed by a monkey. couldnt put in pocket w/out unlocking the phone. Internet was slow, streaming apps (like pandora) was a joke, always skipping and lagging.

6) Palm Pre 2
Once again, it was next on the list. It would OS of the year on some poll.
Pros:
The OS is excellent on this. I really do like the cards and the gesture support. If there is one thing i could take away from this phone, it would be the OS. Just awesome and intuitive. "jailbreaking" was easy to do, and there is a 3rd party market "preware" that has lots of apps and "patches" that change things for your phone. Screen was nice, physical keyboard was nice (prefer the blackberry one more though). 1 ghz proc was able to launch apps and play 3d games decently. Dungeon hunters and angry birds etc...
Cons:
Battery life!! 1050 mah battery is abysmal. worst of all the phones ive tried. 5-6 hours of medium usage max. If you were playing a game, you better have it plugged in. Even playing solitaire drained the battery. I was able to use up the whole battery in 2 hours of 3d gaming. The form factor of the phone was a little kiddish. Did a little curve to the phone when keyboard came out. Phone is creaky. Started to have an "oreo" effect w/ in 2 weeks of usage. All hinges were loose and wobbled to the side. App market was sparce and there werent many new advances into the market. Screen was small and keyboard was... wierd. hard to describe but i didnt like it. Internet speeds sucks and streaming was not existent. Took 10-15 mins for pandora to launch and start playing. 2 min gap in between songs. if you paused a song it was take about 5 mins to start again if it started again.

7) Motorola Atrix 4G
Decided i needed to get away from kid hardware and back on the edge of tech
Pros:
Dual-core sexiness. psuedo "4g" speeds. Large screen. Nice resolution. Front facing camera. Fingerprint scanner. Build quality is nice. I prefer pure google experience, but i just installed spb shell and i love the interface and i dont have to deal w/ motoblur. This thing is blazing fast w/ no lag. Streaming music and video is easy. Navigation is brilliant. Oh how i missed android navigation. Tons of markets in the app store. Battery life is brilliant for the amount of power this phone is pushing. I easily get through the day of heavy usage. SD slot is a plus.
Cons:
I do get the occasional force close, androids open market is more open to malware. Motoblur = not up to date OS. Wish it was stock android. Finger print scanner is good idea but some times takes longer then just doing to the dots. Market place is kind of a cluster f***. Last thing is i keep pushing the speaker instead of the button on the back of the phone when im in the dark when i try to unlock it. Im afraid im going to break the speaker on accident lol.

All in all, the Atrix 4g is the best phone ive had, and i have had a lot. Hopefully this will help somebody if they decide to read through it all. Feel free to leave comments on your past experiences w/ other phones.
 

creativedevil

Senior Member
Oct 6, 2010
193
7
0
Toronto
Man, you are I are on the same boat except, I have never experienced a Palm phone, and I won't ever...

I loved nokia - symbian phones, but the OS is outdated, as well, the technology used to build the phones is from stone age...

Used all different versions of iPhone, iPhones are great and all, but they have same different boring UI. No customization until phone's JBen. Apple wants to monopolize the market with their iOS, great, go ahead and try, i'm not in.

Used HD7 as current WP7 and different bunch of phones with Windows 6.5, they are all okay, WP7 has potential but lack of applications is what keeping me away from trying their phones, also for some reason Windows phone release is really slow compared to Android phones in current market.

Android. Great potential, way better feeling while using the phone than other OS. Honestly, market may not have rich application selection as compared to iOS, but Google's getting there.

One thing I don't like about and I am not pointing at any negative aspect, what I don't understand is why the hell in the world every second software/application developer is running after iOS app development? Don't they see the potential in Android? Don't they see the growth? Just a simple comparison, EA mobile has more than 25 games/apps for iPhone, but only 8 or 9 for Android... And to be honest, I don't like it... I want all of the developers on board come up with an app for android... this is one of the reasons I would still like to have an iPhone on me, just to kill time, there is tons of apps you can just keep playing, reading, doing something with your phone... Again, all of these is my personal opinion... if someone have anything to say about it, well... go right ahead...

But, at the end, I am sticking with my Google Phone... To be precise, Moto Atrix and HTC G2... Lovin'em.