Motorola ATRIX 2
MRP: Rs 25,000
Street Price (As On 11-Jun-2012): Rs 21,800 (Saholic.com); Rs 22,400 (IndiaPlaza.com)



The sequel to Motorola's first dual-core smartphone has finally made it to Indian shores. The ATRIX's successor doesn't seem like a big improvement, since it still has a dual-core 1 GHz CPU. The screen size and camera has received an upgrade though. Now let's see if the ATRIX 2 is a worthy successor that can justify its price tag.


Design And Build Quality
The retail box packs in the phone, charger with a detachable USB cable, and earphones. The device measures 5" (l) x 2.6" (w) x  0.4" (10 mm) (d) and weighs 147 grammes. The handset sports one of the most uninspiring designs I've ever seen on a premium smartphone — and ordinary slab with rounded corners. It has a plastic body, with sides painted in a shiny metallic colour. The back sports a vertical texture that looks ugly, and what's worse, fails to offer a good grip. On the bright side, the build quality is good and I'm sure it can withstand a few drops. All in all, the phone is sturdy, but has nothing unique in the design department to attract customers.

The 4.3" screen has pixel dimensions of 540x960. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass and features an oleophobic layer that helps wipe off smudges easily. The panel is reasonably bright, but the colours look drab. Moreover, the viewing angles are not wide.

The handset is powered by a 1 GHz dual-core Cortex-A9 CPU and a PowerVR SGX540 GPU. Other specs include:

• 8 mp main and 1.9 mp front camera.
• 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB internal storage (4 GB user-accessible).
• MicroSD card slot with support for up to 32 GB.
• Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0.
• Micro-USB port, HDMI, 3.5 mm jack.
• 1785 mAh battery.
• Standard set of sensors.

UI And Applications
The device runs Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with the MOTOBLUR UI on top. Those who think that Samsung's TouchWiz is ugly should check this one out. It's full of gaudy colours, and the design is tasteless to boot. If that wasn't bad enough, despite being powered by a dual-core CPU, the interface is sluggish. It stutters while swiping through home screens, and clicking on the Apps button takes a good two seconds for the screen to show up. This is a perfect example of poorly-optimised software. I'd  advice Motorola to ship their handsets with the stock Android OS instead of delivering a resource-hungry customisation.

The browser has full Flash support, and has no problems handling most web videos. During our tests, the phone's Wi-Fi reception was good; however, like most Android device's, the GPS performance was lacklustre.


Multimedia
The ATRIX 2's sound quality is impressive. One nice feature Motorola has added to the default player is its ability to display lyrics if you're connected to the internet. The equaliser settings have been covered, but you can't access them from within the music player. For that, you have to navigate to the device's settings, which is a stupid design decision. The video player supports MP4, AVI, and even MKV files up to 1080p, but there's no consistency in the performance as the handset randomly refuses to play videos on occasion.


The 8 mp auto-focus lens has an LED flash to keep it company. Unfortunately, the snapper is neither fast nor feature-packed. What's worse is that the camera has a tendency to add an annoying greenish tint to pictures. Coming to video, the handset supports 1080p video recording, and the results are ok. The resulting clips are saved in the MP4 format and offer smooth playback. Click here to check out the video sample.


Telephony, Messaging,
 Battery, And Verdict
Throughout the testing, there were no call drops. The voice quality was also good. However, despite having a bigger display, the portrait keyboard isn't very comfortable to type on. The landscape keyboard's size, however, makes up for the bad design. The 1785 mAh battery lasts over a day under normal use, and reduces to 5.5 hours when displaying multimedia content.



The ATRIX 2 offers great sound quality and 1080p playback. However, apart from that, there's hardly anything that gives it an advantage over its rivals. Considering its lacklustre design, unimpressive screen, and mediocre performance, I recommend the HTC Sensation instead.



Features: 3.5/5
Design And Build Quality: 3/5
Performance: 3/5
Value For Money: 3/5
Mojo: 2.5/5

Overall Rating: 3/5


TAGS: Mobile Phones, Android, Motorola, ck