I agree I'm still getting the phone.

 

No one is bashing the phone. We're bashing AT&T/Motorola for trying to squeeze every little dollar they can out of customers.

 

Personally, I would take the Atrix because like someone else said, the dual-core is more future proof. Also, I prefer a slightly smaller display with a higher pixel density because of the more compact size. It's easier to hold and fit in pockets. The front facing camera would also be of some use for me (Skype mostly).

 

I wasn't planning on getting the dock anyway. I plan on getting a tablet this summer, so in the meantime, I will get this phone and when I need to tether, I will just use my N1 and tether it to my netbook.

 

The pricing of the laptop dock and required tethering plan absolutely sucks. So no...I will not be getting the laptop dock. But I will be getting the phone. AT&T can kiss my @ss. I strongly feel that they are behind the pricing more than Motorola. But - this is still the best stock phone on the market today.

I hope enough people don't order the laptop dock during the presale time period that AT&T has to take a second look at their pricing. They are just trying to make up lost revenue from the damn iPhone contract running out.

But bring on the phone. I can't wait to get it...and the car dock for the road.

 

I'm considering buying the Atrix. But I have a couple of questions:

1) Is the whole 1GB of memory available to the phone or is only some of it available to the phone and the rest allocated to run the docking related apps?

2) Can Android 2.2 that it ships with take advantage of the dual core feature?


If 2.2 cannot fully utilize dual-core features, does Motorola have a pretty good track record of pushing Android updates into their phones in the past?

 

1. I'm pretty sure that Android 2.2 only sees 512MB of RAM so I would assume the rest is for future versions of Android and for Webtop.

2. No 2.2 doesn't utilize dual core processors.

Moto's upgrade past is pretty good. It's not as good as HTC but it's better than Samsung or LG.

 

Not sure if the Atrix with 2.2 can utilize the whole 1GB ram but I am certain it will benefit from the dual core processor. Even with 2.2 the tegra 2 will boost performance and speed!

 

I think it will as well. What I was saying was that as of 2.2 Android wasn't optimized to take advantage of dual core processors. So it'll get better but I think you'll see a difference right away.

 

About this, is it possible for Motorola to modify 2.2 to take advantage of dual core? For example, use one core exclusively for the basic OS and phone functions (notification menu, calling, etc.) along with possibly background app processes, while using the other core for the currently active app, especially if it is relatively processor intensive. Same for the RAM that 2.2 can't support.

I'm not sure if dual core processors can handle this type of functionality, but it seems to me like an simpler way to utilize much of the dual core power without optimizing all the apps to support it.

 

Dual core processing needs to be supported by the OS and by the APIs. Android 2.2 does not have it. It is behind Meego, Apple's iOS and even Win7 to an extent. Meego and iOs both support parallel processing via APIs. Win7 has CUDA extensions provided by NVIDIA. Win7's version is app centric. iOS and Meego, the OS does most of the parallelism. Parallelism is design to lower battery life and improve performance.

The way Android does it is sequential task execution; meaning, when one core hits a threshold, it off-loads it to the second core. This is not very efficient because the CPUs are constantly running hot and sucking up battery. Parallel processing is splitting up the tasks of the app to available cores. E.G. a web browser can use one core to render the javascript and the second core renders the UI; splitting up the tasks. This is just a simple explanation. There is more to it.

I thought this was going to be introduced at last week's Honeycomb announcement but so far, even 2.3 is not multi-processor optimized.

I could see the cores coming in handy in the web-top docks where it is running a full-on Debian Web-Top distro and not handicapped by Android's limitation. One core could be dedicated to Android and the other to the Linux distro running on the laptop like they do with hypervisers.

 

Ok, thanks for the great explanation! So from all this I'm guessing there's really no way Motorola can add efficient use of the dual core to 2.2?

 

Simple answer: NO. Only Honeycomb is dual-processor enabled. Even then, the documentation is very light compared to Apple's GDC on iOS which was introduced last June. This is where Google is playing catch-up.

Don't take my word for it. Read it from Google:

Android 3.0 Platform Highlights | Android Developers

 

Easily still the best phone on the market.. prob until MWC and when some of the other phones are announced. That gay ass LG Optimus 3D isn't better though.

 

The *real* question is: If you didn't know what processor's was the Atrix, or what speed it ran at, would you still like it?"

 

It's...not on the market.

 

Those 90 posts were all OT and were moved to a new home: http://androidforums.com/motorola-atrix-4g/258118-atrix-vs-inspire-8.html#post2249199

Being with me in the Nexus One forum, you should know by now how it works

 

the only competition, performance wise, will be the Orion chipset with Samsung. the QSD8x72 Snapdragon won't be ready until Q3 at the earliest, so late to the game as always. but this will likely be the best chipset. theirs can turn off the second core, thus being more power efficient. it'll also be two 1.2Ghz ARM's Cortex A9.

the dual-core 1.2Ghz MSM8x60 Snapdragon is likely what we'll see at MWC. it's based on ARM's Cortex A8 design instead of A9 unlike the Tegra 2/Orion. the GPU is about on par with the Tegra 2, but it being A8 instead of A9 will hinder it's performance.

chipsets are factual, everything else is opinion/predictions.

 

Ok so ATRIX will have the best processor until the orion comes late to the game. Well buying a samsung is out of the question so looks like this phone is gonna be top of the line for a WHILE.

 

lol ditto. as far as powerful smartphones go and how quickly updates are pushed to them, i think it's as follows with the first being updated quickest and last taking the longest:

Google Phones (N1/NS)
HTC phones
Motorola phones
LG/Samsung phones
Sony phones

 

In some cases (excluding the Evo, in other words) Moto's flagship phones actually got Froyo or launched with Froyo faster than the rest of the HTC's line...

 

that's very true, actually.
and since the Atrix is going to be Moto's next flagship device, i expect to get Gingerbread and 1080p video recording relatively quick. i'm hoping we get both by June. that would be pretty cool.