When the iPhone 4 came out I finally gave up my BB after many years and got one... it was nice, it worked and was a lot better, for work and play, than my BB.
Then last Christmas I got my sister a phone and picked up an S1 Fascinate, playing with it before wrapping it I was impressed... Then one of my sons wanted a phone for his birthday in Aug, the Atrix - which arguably had issues initially, now had Gingerbread and steller reviews and was only $49 at Best Buy. My son didn't really want an iPhone so I grabbed one. Setting it up I was more impressed...
Waiting on the iPhone 4S / 5 I was excited, running exchange, bluetooth, wi-fi etc.. my battery was usually mush by 3:00, while the screen was nice after squinting my eyes would be killing me... high hopes for a decently clocked dual core A5, at least a gig of memory and maybe a 4.3 to 4.5" screen with a giant battery that would cover me until LTE came out!
Then they announced the specs... meh... basically my same 4 but with Siri. Java beanchmarks were close to the same and while it supposedly had a slightly larger battery I knew it wouldn't make a difference with the dual core processor. A couple of days later AT&T announced the Atrix2.
On iPhone Friday I went to Best Buy to see how my friend's first launch as Mgr went (it went well) and to see what the 4s was like... as expceted it was just meh... We talked about trying to decided on that or the GS2 when I mentioned the Atrix 2, they had some already but couldn't sell until Sunday. I got to take a peak though and the phone just felt right... the screen size was perfect, looked good etc... was it time to move to Android?
I thought about it the next 2 days and went back on Monday to pick one up... for $49 no less. Compared side by side with the GS2 I thought the screen was clearer, were the blacks as black? No but they were close and overall the screen just seemed brighter. The speed was on par or actually faster in some ways than the GS2, cameras were similar, walked around the store with GPS on which worked well so I made the jump.
One week later I joined the site to post this and state how much I love my phone. While the battery may be slightly smaller than the Atrix my son has, I can go longer on it than I could on my iPhone 4 and I believe longer than the Atrix as well (haven't tested because he plays games all the time on his). The motoblur is almost non existant, it was greatly reduced by the Gingerbread update on the Atrix but all but gone now.
Another plus? You can delete pretty much all the AT&T bloatware on the phone. Unlike other phones it deletes with ease, everything gone on mine except for billpay app. Speed wise seems as fast and the iphone 4 running iOS 5 and the .2 GHZ between the GS2 and Atrix 2 didn't make a difference when I tested in the store. Bluetooth works great, GPS is great, always right on target and I'm getting above 14Mbps in non congested areas...
It also doesn't get as hot as the original Atrix, speed seems a little faster but that may be because of the motoblur and bloatcode. Camera is good... images seems to turn out better on the Apple when movement is there but if you can hold it still the color and sautration is amazing on Atrix 2 and the HD video works well too.
Overall I'm very excited and loving my phone and loving the jump to Android. I have all my apps and some actually seem to work better on the Atrix 2 than the iPhone. Stopped to look for a case at the AT&T store at lunch and all they had were Defenders and were low on phones as well. Best Buys in the area seem to all be sold out of the phones and I know Amazon online is backordered for like 3 weeks now... I spent $50 for a new phone that, IMHO, is far superior than my iPhone and paid $150 less than what I would have for the iphone or the GS2. That's a win for me. My VZ friends were very jealous as LTE hasn't rolled out in the area (soon) so my AT&T was faster than their bionics and thunderbolts. As the word gets out I believe at this price point this phone is a steal, every other phone that is even close in specs and user experience is $100 to $150 more.
Can't wait to see ICS on it... hopefually in a few months!
Marb