AT&T Motorola Atrix user converting from BlackBerry

[pgcorchary]

Greetings all -- just an introduction here for myself. I'm a new US-based AT&T carrier Motorola Atrix user. I had been a BlackBerry 9700 user for 2 years (and a BlackBerry user overall for about 6 years), in a corporate environment.

I chose to move to Android as RIM (BlackBerry) have clearly fallen behind the curve in technology for their current offerings. Yes, we've all heard that RIM bought the QNX RTOS and that will be the basis of future products, and they will even allow 'droid apps to run in a 'player' framework. Maybe. We'll see.

Anyway, I was looking to have an experience similar to the seemless BB/Exchange integration provided in the corporate environment, and the Android/Google combination seemed the most robust, so here I am.

So far I generally like the phone. Since I'm new to Android, can any user of a non Motorola 'droid phone help my understand exactly what the MotoBlur system does for me ... I'm aware that partly it's the semi-custom UI layer, but what is the online account etc for?

Also a couple notables in my mind:

• The radio for both mobile and WiFi seem less robust than my BlackBerry consequently I'm having a lot more reception problems in my home which is in a poor reception location. (I believe that antenna/signal-acquisition was a very high-point for RIM/BB, based on my personal observation of family and friend's phones in my location). Any thoughts on this?
• The Artix, and in deed all modern smartphones other than BlackBerry, seem to be more computer with phone-functions, where as BlackBerry's are more phone with smartphone-functions. This extends to not only the physical aspects (e.g. physical keyboard), but also the integration (e.g. the ease with which call info, contact info and all history are integrated in the BB -- this information seems to exist in my Atrix, but not as seemless or easy to access). I'm not sure yet if this is a problem for me, or even a criticism; mostly it's an observation.

 

[Steven58]

Huh. Are you sure it's not your phone? Motorola usually has fantastic hardware.

Welcome, btw.

 

[pgcorchary]

I'm pretty sure it's not specific to my hardware. Over 7 years in this location, using AT&T (including two tower enhancements in my area), and over an informal sampling of dozens of phones in my home, the iPhone 3 and 4 and Motorola Razr and LG Shine were all middle-of-the pack in reception in this location. Low end Nokia and Pantech phones were worst by far. My BB9700 was close to, if no the best. This Atrix ranks toward the bottom of the middle-of-the pack for overall reception on the mobile cellular network. Surprisingly it is, I think, the only phone that I've had in this location that has trouble with my Wifi. The iPhone3/4, iPod Touch and three different BlackBerry phones all got/get a strong signal for WiFi. I use a DLink WAP if anyone cares, and all the laptops also use 802.11/b/g/n just fine, even well out in the street in front and that 1/2-acre backyard.

 

[scary alien]

Welcome to the AndroidForums, pgcorchary!

Yeah, these newer, high-end Android phones are more like computers in a phone form-factor (which is amazing in and of itself). I think things are clearly still evolving, where the carriers and manufacturers are trying to figure-out what is the best combination of battery, screen size, CPU, memory, and software.

As far as the antenna and signal goes, Steven is right: Motorola is known for really good hardware and reception. If you still have your Blackberry and it will report its signal strength, compare that to what you Atrix reports:

Settings -> About phone -> Status -> Signal strength

That should allow you to compare apples-to-apples (so-to-speak ).

Be sure to visit your phone's home forum, where you'll find lots of great info and folks to help you:

Motorola Atrix 4G - Android Forums

Cheers!