We were front row at the Motorola press conference at CES today, and got a nice look at the latest hardware. I was blown away by the devices and accessories they announced today!
First up was the Motorola Atrix 4G for AT&T’s current HSPA+ network and their upcoming LTE network. This phone sports a 4.0″ QHD display run by a Tegra2 processor, Android 2.2, and a pretty revolutionary docking solution that enables you to have a “webtop” experience on a larger screen while docking your phone. What blew us away was the laptop dock which allows you to insert the Atrix into a slot and have a fully functioning 11″laptop style device running completely on the phone hardware. The laptop dock is just battery, keyboard, and screen so it charges the phone while you’re using it, and is completely off once the phone is undocked. The docked experience with the phone is good, and the interface on a larger screen was somewhat useful, but allowed for video and photo viewing in resolutions up to 720p. This is really the start of a hardware revolution. Look for it sometime in Q1.
Next up was the Droid Bionic, a monster dual core 1Ghz Tegra 2 phone also sporting a 4.3″ qHD (960×540) display, 512 MB RAM, and VGA front camera with an 8MP shooter on the back. We got hands on with the phone shortly after the event, and the phone has a solid feel to it. It was running the typical MotoBlur skin which didn’t really appeal to us, but overall the hardware looked and felt great. There’s a pic alongside our Nexus S for size reference. Think of this phone as Motorola’s next-gen EVO competitor. It will be hitting Verizon in late Q2.
Finally was the Motorola Xoom, the first Android tablet running Honeycomb 3.0. It was a nice looking 10.1 tablet with a 1280×800 capactive display. The buzzing tablet sported a 5MP rear cam with HD recording and a front facing camera for the upcoming Google Talk video chat in 3.0. Unfortunately we didn’t get to try it out; the hardware was there and working but just displaying the video of the upcoming Honeycomb interface. The full specs are
- 1Ghz dual-core Tegra 2 processor
- 10.1 ” 1280X800 display
- 1080p video playback and HDMI output
- 32 GB on-board storage with future SD expansion
- 1 GB RAM
- 5 MP rear cam with 720p HD video recording
- 2 megapixel front cam
Motorola also announced the Cliq 2, but honestly, it’s nothing to write home about. That phone is hitting T-Mo on January 19th.
This was a most impressive showing of combined hardware and software. Check out the rest of the pics in the gallery.
